A new season system weapon and perk balancing gear sets and the new dungeon. Here’s what’s new for season 1.

Seasons were taking the season model and bringing it to New World. Best thing about seasons is that there is now a regular patching cycle every three months when the majority of new continent features as well as balance updates get released. So, whenever you get tired of the game or the current meta, you now have a fixed state to look forward to.

Additionally, to the patching cycle, each season will also include a new storyline and a season pass. For Season 1, that story is a quest line, which takes about two hours to complete.

The season pass doesn’t add any content but additionally rewards you for playing the game. It has a free and a premium reward track. The highlights of the Free Track are the Scarlet Wing Armor skin set and an additional gear set slot at a level 100. The Premium Track costs 20,000 Marks of Fortune and the highlights include weapon skins, tool skins, a tent skin and the Cardinal armor skin.

Now, is it worth buying the Premium Pass? If you want the cosmetics of the Premium Pass, then get it or if you want to support the game, then get it. But otherwise, you’re not missing out on much.

However, with that new dungeon comes a new Heartrune, the Fire Storm and the new enemy type the humans, which also brings a new human trophy as well as new Human Ward and Human Bane gear to collect. So, now that you’ll have 30 different armor sets to carry around, it’s quite convenient that they’re introducing gear sets.

But don’t get too excited. They’re actually pretty underwhelming what players wanted was a feature for swapping gear, adjusting attribute points and the skill trees of your weapons. Now, gear sets can only do a third of that and to make matters worse, you only get three slots for free and need to pay more New World Coins if you want more.

The next part of the main story quest got Revamp. Throughout Brightwood in Weaver’s Fen, all the NPCs in relevant Corlew pages now have voiceovers. There are new cut scenes and a whole new story that climaxes in a new Soul Trial. It might not look as impressive as the previous Revamp they did because their only minimal changes to the cities and pois, but questing and story-wise, it is on the same level.

To make mages more relevant in Mutations, there will no longer be penalties to elemental damage. And to make ranged weapon damage more relevant in PVE, ranged weapons will get a higher bonus from Bane perks than melee weapons. Weapons and armor out of OPR Invasion and War Crates can now be upgraded to 600 gear score to roll for a third perk.

The Dolphin dodge dive nerfs. You lose all of your momentum as soon as you crouch. Player Collision got disabled after death, so no more dead bodies eating your projectiles. There are new text indicators if you dodge an attack red markings on enemy AOEs expect some bugs on those. Target dummies can no longer be attacked during wars, so no more free heartburn charging. Cranberry Compote can no longer be used or abused in arenas.

You can finally find better ammo in Elite areas and you can search for 5 perks on the Trade Post. Scarabs can now be used to craft bags and tools. The crafting screen will remember your previously selected ingredients. And the first craft bonus got increased from 200 to 300, resulting in a slightly faster trade skill progression.

There are massive nerfs to fortifying rent. Fortify no longer absorbs a percentage of damage but increases armor by a percentage, making it way less effective, especially on light and medium uses. While Shirking Fortification used to be best in the slot for most builds, this is no longer the case. There has been a slight nerf to the achievement perks and a significant nerf to Mortal Empowerment and Trenchant Recovery.

The free grit on basic attacks has been moved from the 300 strength perk to the 300 constitution perk. While the 300 strength perk now only adds some extra damage to heavy attacks.

Slight adjustments to how crits work long story short: a few less crits and a little less crit damage. To make heavy armor more viable, it gets a 20 reduction on being Calamity Counter and medium Armor gets a 10 reduction.

Any skill that has any form of hard Calamity Counter had their damage reduced and every skill that’s mainly a damage skill had their Calamity Counter removed. So, throughout all of the weapons: a bit less damage and a bit less Calamity Counter.