After enough of those long treks, it becomes apparent that very few of these spectacular locations have any unique personality. Sure, this makes Aeternum feel spacious, but it’s exacerbated by the fact that there are no mounts to speed up your pace. Because you’re forced to spend a scarce resource when using it, you’ll often find yourself hoofing it from place to place. It’s frustratingly inconvenient that fast travel is limited to a very select group of points on the map. Just a short conversation with a throwaway character, after all of that? Really?īut good graphics can’t sustain an MMORPG forever, and even New World’s gorgeous vistas get old after a while.

Sure, you can find plenty of lore scrolls that vaguely tell you what’s going on, but NPCs are sparse and their quests are almost always written with no more enthusiasm than “go here and kill 10 rats, because I said so.” It’s nice that the main quest at least forces people to cooperate for a few dungeons, but it still ends on a note so forgettable that you can blink and miss it entirely. On top of that, even when you’ve gathered plenty of one specific material, there’s no knowing when the corresponding Town Project that requires it will appear at your local settlement’s Town Project board to scoop them up in exchange for a major payoff of XP. The reward for all of that effort is getting to watch your numbers go up at a tick so slow that it makes progress in Pokémon GO feel speedy. What begins as an interesting battle for survival against the island’s ancient undead guardians, dryads, and the odious, otherworldly Corruption rapidly devolves into a mad dash to gather the most resources. Questing on Aeternum is sure to put that combat system through its paces, but by the end, it’s far preferable to sail off to some other distant shores.

Survivors the quest gather moss