Amazon delays ‘New World’ MMO again, this time to September 28th

Amazon has delayed New World mere weeks before its previously announced August 31st release date. It will now arrive about a month later, on September 28th, so that Amazon Game Studios can spend an extra few weeks polishing, fixing bugs and improving stability. The company says it decided to delay New World again following player feedback it collected during the MMO’s recent closed beta.

“This was not an easy decision to make. We know this isn’t the first time we’ve changed our launch date in pursuit of quality, and that it can be disappointing to wait a bit longer.” Amazon Game Studios said on Twitter. “But we want to be sure we deliver you the highest quality game possible at launch.”

For those of you still keeping track, this is New World’s fourth delay. When Amazon first announced the game, it said it would come out in May 2020. Its release date initially slipped to August 25th, 2020, before Amazon announced a month later it was pushing the game back to spring 2021. At the start of the year, it then delayed the game to its most recently planned August 31st release date.

To say there’s a lot of pressure on Amazon Game Studios to deliver a hit for its parent company would be an understatement. Amazon announced the game’s first major delay after taking the unusual step of rolling back the availability of Crucible, its first AAA title. It later ended the development of that game. Before taking over as CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy told employees he was committed to the studio. “Though we haven’t consistently succeeded yet in Amazon Game Studios, I believe we will if we hang in there,” he said in an email. Now it’s on the New World team to prove that confidence was well-earned.