Are there classes in New World?

In New World, Amazon Games’ upcoming ambitious MMORPG project, players will travel to the Aeternum, a haunted island set during the twilight of the Age of Exploration filled with wonder and horror brought on by both human supernatural forces.

Much of New World‘s gameplay is based on trends seen across many popular MMORPG games: a mix of PvE and PvP content, crafting, guilds, dungeons, factions, and more. But one way in which New World seeks to stand apart from other titles is when it comes to classes.

Will there be classes in New World?

The developers haven’t shied away from telling potential players that there will be no classes in New World. Players will be able to create builds based on their attributes and weapon mastery. The attributes are Constitution, Focus, Intelligence, Strength, and Dexterity, and players will level these up as they progress.

• Constitution: Overall health pool.
• Focus: Affects mana recovery rate and effectiveness of the Life Staff.
• Intelligence: Magic weapon power.
• Strength: Melee weapon power (except for some light melee weapons).
• Dexterity: Ranged weapon power, and some light melee weapon power.

Each attribute can be increased up to a soft cap of 195, but there are diminishing returns starting at 100. Players can pay to respec and redistribute their attributes, but the cost goes up the higher your level is.

The skills players use in combat will be determined by their weapon mastery. Every time a player uses a weapon type, they earn XP toward the skill trees for that weapon, which are filled with active abilities and perks.

Anyone who’s played Guild Wars 2 will instantly recognize this combat progression skill. But while GW2 players also had skills from their class to use, New World players won’t have access to any classes at all. Players’ choices of attributes and weapons will be solely impactful on what the character builds look like.

The current state of combat and combat progression isn’t the same as it once was. Following the New World deep dive, game director Scot Lane confirmed that many things have been altered since the alpha preview from last year, including a reduction in the number of interrupts and increasing the options in skill trees.

Players will be able to see these changes and experience the progression system for themselves in the closed beta starting July 20, or when the game is released on Aug. 31.