Sword2 News & Events & Guides

From the minute you load Sword of the New World, you know it's going to be an engaging experience. The characters and the environment are beautifully created and the music makes you want to jump into the game immediately. But first, let's look at character creation. Instead of controlling just one character, Sword of the New World provides you with a party (aka family). For the tutorial, you find yourself on a boat heading to the New World and are given a simple task (also known as bringing the ship's captain some booze). You may only use one character at this point, but once you have landed in the New World, you are free to use up to three of your family members. Within your family's quarters you will get to decide their gender, class and outfit. I was definitely disappointed with the lack of customization in terms of faces and hair options, but there are numerous costumes to choose from, and they are certainly pretty. At this point in the game, you have four possible slots available for characters, which may sound like a lot but as you progress further and open new character classes, you will definitely need more – which you can eventually obtain. After fiddling about in the quarters for a few minutes, I decided on composing my team of a Fighter, a Wizard and a Scout. I figured this was pretty standard and the best way to get things moving. At last! Brienne, Sansa and Arya were ready for their New World, papers in hand.

Stepping out into the city, Sword of the New World Vis is again impressive to see the amount of detail in the towns. You immediately get the feeling that this is "old money" come to the new world to colonize, and help out with the local beasties and rebels attempting to ruin everything. The main city is always busy and would lag at times, but it was bearable. This is also where you pick up quests to complete while out and about. Now, there is a difference between a "quest" and a "mission": a quest moves your family's story along, will have numerous objects and may even open up a few missions along the way. Missions are, for the most part, kill X number of Y. At times this number can be as many as 200. This does sound daunting but the combat goes very quickly. While the grind is definitely still there in all its glory, your family is not taking out a couple monsters at a time, but instead mowing through dozens upon dozens of ever-plentiful beasties. It's actually rather fun. This does highlight, however, one of the game's more frustrating points: the lack of control.