New World Season 10 and a free expansion see Amazon's MMORPG fly on Steam

New World is hardly a struggling game - a steady community of thousands flock to it every day on Steam alone. But its huge Aeternum update and rebrand roughly 12 months ago didn't give it the push towards MMO stardom enjoyed by the likes of World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14. However, things may be picking up. Coinciding with a new season, Amazon Games is finally making New World's first and only paid expansion free to all players. This has resulted in a huge influx, with New World clocking its highest peak player count in almost a year.

New World pushes out seasons fairly regularly, and while they generate a decent amount of buzz, the player count spikes you see (on Steam, at least) aren't all that drastic. The last time the RPG got any kind of meaningful boost was when it became New World Aeternum - an overhauled, upgraded version of the game that would also make its way to consoles. Now, though, we're seeing an Aeternum-level event all over again.

Season 10 has gone live, and it's unsurprisingly bringing a lot of new content to the game. Nighthaven is a fresh explorable zone that's suitably spooky for this time of year. The Catacombs game mode arrives, tasking you with surviving and defeating bosses in procedurally generated dungeons. There's a new ten-player raid. Oh, and the level cap has been cranked up to 70, and the gear score to 800, to keep the grind going. All great stuff.

However, something that is likely dragging a lot of early New World players back is the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion. Back in October 2023, this paid expansion added rideable mounts, a new zone, and more.

As part of the switch to New World Aeternum, those buying the new version of the game would be gifted all of Rise of the Angry Earth's content as part of their purchase. If you were a long-standing New World player, you didn't have the same luxury.

That's now changed. If you never bought the add-on, or started playing post-Aeternum, you can claim the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion for free. Anyone who spent money on the DLC in the last 30 days will receive a full refund, and that'll be automatically handled by Steam.

The Season 10 and Rise of the Angry Earth combo has seen New World's player count shoot up near to the levels we saw when its Aeternum overhaul rolled out. Yesterday, October 13, the MMO saw a peak Steam count of 41,000, its highest since October 28, 2024.

The real question now is how long New World can hold on to these players - we've seen spikes before, but they often fall away pretty quickly. Season 10 looks tasty, and some of the game's earliest players are getting a free expansion, so it's certainly a good time to return.

If you want to check out everything arriving in New World Season 10, you can read the full blog post (complete with in-depth patch notes) here. If this isn't enough to lure you back into the world of Aeternum, or venture there for the first time, fear not - we can recommend loads of brilliant fantasy games that will provide similar thrills without a lot of the MMO baggage. Alternatively, here are some of the best co-op games if you love bashing bosses with your pals.

Be sure to also head over to the PCGamesN Discord server to tell us about the MMOs you're sinking time into right now.