Brimstone Sands New World Expansion Overview
Amazon Games’ New World has got a massive content update. Let’s find out if it’s worth your while.
Having got off to a rough start, Amazon’s MMO is now absolutely kicking it with its latest fall update. Brimstone Sands is the first New World expansion and the biggest content drop the game has ever seen so far. Launched on October 18, it introduces a gigantic desert zone, a brand-new expedition, tons of story content, massive reworks, and much more.
If you want to get a quick, spoiler-free look at the fresh content before checking it out yourself, here’s our brief DLC overview, so tune right in and let’s get rolling.
New Zone & Story
The expansion’s main highlight is undoubtedly the New World map expansion that brought in the massive desert zone of Brimstone Sands. Inspired by Ancient Egypt and Rome, it ties in historical places and figures of both periods blended skillfully together, with magic and myths on top.
The story teams us players up with Imhotep to fight off the corrupted Roman Legion. There are secrets to uncover, allegiances to test, and a whole lot of places to explore. The zone is so immensely huge that it takes you roughly two hours to run around the perimeter, and there still might be some question marks left on the Brimstone Sands map with the locations you haven’t yet discovered. The game has been just fine without mounts so far, but with zones of such a size, maybe it’s time to give us something to ride. A bunch of camels maybe? Amazon, please?
Gameplay & Content
The overall story and quest flow are now way better, especially compared to what we had at launch and in the first months after the release.
The devs did a terrific job redesigning the game‘s starting experience. If earlier it all used to be a bit chaotic, with the plot unfolding somewhere in the background and then suddenly getting shoved right in your face, now they give you those lore pieces a lot more gradually. As you continue to do the main quests, you get a basic understanding of what’s happening and slowly start filling in the blanks. The story itself has become more engaging and immersive. You are now directly involved and, therefore, feel connected. You really want to explore and dig deeper into the lore to find out what’s next, and it makes not only onboarding but the whole game, including the Brimstone Sands quest line, a lot more enjoyable.
The story expands, and so does the in-game world. The more you progress, the more quests pop up on your log to take you to different places and introduce different characters that’ll guide you around the lands of Aeternum.
Speaking of places, all major cities have been reworked. With tons of redesigns rolled out, every location now looks and feels more unique. The visuals are truly spectacular. Amazon promised to pay more attention to details in the New World upcoming content, and, we must admit, they totally delivered.
Admiring the landscapes, however, won’t be your only pastime in the game. There always are hordes of monsters wandering around the maps, ready to attack you when you least expect them to. The times of fighting the same re-skinned creatures are finally over! A variety of new mobs and NPCs have been introduced, along with some fresh mechanics, like bosses showing up only at a certain time of the day. Other enemies also have a couple of tricks up their sleeves: new moves, attacks, and animations have been added to make combat more diverse and unpredictable.
Greatsword Weapon Class
Greatsword, the new Brimstone Sands weapon, is by far the most versatile weapon type in the game. It combines perfectly with almost any other weapon, giving you plenty of room to get creative with your builds.
Allowing you to use both of its offense and defense skill trees depending on the combat situation, Greatsword fits really well in aggressive and more support-focused playstyles alike. There are lots of nice grabs and skill combos in both trees: damage and healing buffs, counterattacks, hit-blocking perks, sustain and self-sustain options, and many more. No matter what you decide to spec into, with Greatsword, you can mix and match a ton of abilities within your skill tree and with other in-game features as well.
Heartgem Abilities
One more important piece of the New World new content, Heartgems are runes that give you various perks once equipped. Offering an extra source of power for your character to tap into, they are charged up over time as you heal or deal and take damage and, once charged, can be used as your ultimate abilities. Heartgems are really impactful when it comes to combat. They, in fact, can make or break the entire fight, giving you enough creative freedom to experiment with builds, combining weapon skills and rune perks to match your playstyle.
There are five types of runes, each having a core aspect to amplify, like CC immunity, debuff-clearing, damage and AoE blasts, and so on. Minor runes drop from expeditions, and more high-tier versions need to be crafted, so you better stock up on those resources and do some solid dungeon-running.
The Ennead Dungeon
The Ennead expedition is the Brimstone Sands New World dungeon in the depths of an ancient pyramid. This one does require a well-coordinated team — and all the levels and high-tier gear you can get. Despite being rather quick, Ennead is one of the most intense and challenging experiences in the entire game. If you want to succeed and get your share of rewards, you must come well-prepared.
Other Features & Changes
This New World DLC takes crafting to a whole new level, with a ton of opportunities to put the skill to use. The Runeglass system is a thrilling endgame experience that sends you to find glyphs hidden all over Aeternum and create powerful gems. Those gems come in different elements and grant you access to special features and buffs. Runeglass is a worthy follow-up to character upgrades, giving you a truckload of opportunities to keep pumping your performance in the endgame long after you’ve maxed out.
As for other notable Brimstone Sands changes, profession leveling is a lot faster now, finally well-synced with your gear levels and overall in-game progress. Quest rewards are more relevant; mutator improvements feel absolutely great, and the optimized fast-travel system makes moving around the locations significantly smoother and much more convenient. And those are just a few of all the terrific additions made to the game in this expansion. From minor tweaks to quality-of-life changes, New World got massively reworked in Brimstone Sands, so if you want to learn about it in more detail, feel free to check out official Patch Notes here.
Final Word
All in all, Brimstone Sands makes a highly positive impression. Probably, the most remarkable thing about it is the sheer amount of work invested into creating new content and optimizing the old one. The devs have definitely learned their lessons and put in a lot of effort to give us a fantastic expansion that sets a pretty high bar for all the New World future updates.
The content is really gripping, and there’s so much to do that you’ll be glued to the screen for hours straight. Those hardcore grinders, of course, will still get everything done in a week or so. But for more casual players who tend to play for just a couple of hours every day, it’ll most likely take months to get through all the content in the update. The New World Brimstone Sands location alone will probably pull you in for days! And you won’t get bored, that’s for sure. There’ll be plenty of things to level up, items to collect, and places to go; you’ll always want to come back for all that stuff you haven’t yet unlocked and explored.
The connections that the devs managed to build between quests, playable content, and pretty much every other aspect of the game are great. All that, along with the much-needed depth added to the story, really immerses you into the experience, which is exactly what you want from an MMO like this.
Brimstone Sands is not perfect, let’s be honest. It still has its flaws, but compared to the initial release, this expac was totally nailed. For a free-to-play title, this is just some top-level content that you definitely have to check out. If you haven’t set foot in Aeternum yet, you better jump in right now; and for all those who dropped the game somewhere after the launch, now is the best time to give it another try.
For more gaming news, including New World Brimstone Sands leaks and updates, stay tuned on our blog. And don’t forget to take a look at our New World boost collection to make your Aeternum adventures even more exciting.
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