Because They Like To Annoy You, New World Will Start Letting People Take Your Name If You Haven't Played In 6 Months

Sigh.

Look, I get it. Having players sit on popular names when they don't even play an MMORPG can certainly be a tad annoying. Having the timer set to 6 months and having it be retroactive seems way too harsh, though. Despite my feelings on it, New World: Aeternum is going to start doing exactly that.

On October 15th, the day the console version of New World: Aeternum is currently set to release,  New World will see the character name limitation launch, too. Now don't misunderstand. You don't lose your name immediately. If you happen to not play the game for six months (or have been inactive for 6 months effective October 15th, too), then your name is technically up for grabs.

If a new or returning player names their character the name you already have, they'll get it and you'll have to rename your character the next time you actually do decide to log in to New World.

Plainly, this is dumb and forces you to log into the MMO even if you don't want to play it and you can bet they'll be sure to count you among their active logins for advertising purposes. Sure, other games have similar features to free up names, but I honestly can't think of one that's as small a time period as this one. I literally could have lost every single World of Warcraft character name I've ever had given the way I play that game at expansion launches then ditch it for the year.

New World will be adding a name expiration for characters who haven't played for an extended period of time.

Beginning on October 15, the following change will be in effect: after 6 months of inactivity, character names will be made available to be taken by new characters. That…

— New World Game Status (@NWGameStatus) July 17, 2024

Yeah. Seriously, New World just continues to amaze me with how it seems to treat players right now. Make this at least a year. So far, your content cadence encourages people to leave for long periods of time then come back for a big update.

There was literally a full year between the release of Brimstone Sands and Rise of the Angry Earth. In between there were seasons, sure. However, seasons aren't really a ton of new content and it'll be about a year between Rise of the Angry Earth and the launch of New World: Aeternum...which isn't adding content to the degree PC players want to see anyway.

6 months is just too small a time period compared to the game's development cycle.