New World preview: Amazon’s debut video game is a sandbox MMO with faith in its players

Amazon’s foray into the games industry is proof nobody can shortcut their way to a hit. It’s been fully five years since the online retailer, worth more than most (if not all) of the major video game publishers combined, announced it was going to start making video games. And it started so well! Amazon forked CryEngine into its own proprietary engine, Lumberyard. It hired Clint Hocking, hired Kim Swift—hired the sorts of people, in other words, that you’d want to see making games.

Then it uh…lost Clint Hocking, lost Kim Swift, and canceled the only Amazon game we’d seen in action, the MOBA-esque sports game Breakaway.

So what’s left? Well,  Announced at the same time as is an online sandbox set in