New World players have reported a widespread and deceptive bug today that’s affecting nearly every facet of the game. The bug causes enemies to only spawn when you walk within range of them while making them unable to be seen when you’re out of range of them.
Fortunately, Amazon Games is working on a fix to the bug, and it should be fixed in the near future.
The bug was first pointed out by a player on the New World subreddit, who used a quest that required them to go out into the world and hunt down animals to be skinned as an example. In their original post, they claimed the bears they needed for the quest wouldn’t appear unless they moved within their spawn radius. Other players confirmed the existence of this bug, going as far as to mention that it affects gameplay in dungeons, which is a major threat for players attempting dangerous PvE content.
A New World developer going by the tag “NW_Kay” on the game’s official Discord server mentioned that Amazon Games is investigating the bug. “If you’re talking specifically about the AI not spawning until you’re right next to them, that is not intended, we are investigating,” they said.
The bug is caused by an issue with the game’s draw distance mechanic, which allows you to see and interact with certain things in the wild. Having your interactions limited to what you’re only within a brief radius of is definitely something that takes away from the openness of New World’s vast open world.
The bug is particularly problematic because it gives players a false sense of security as they walk through any location in Aeternum. One moment you could be minding your business in an “empty” section of the forest, or in a cave you thought to be cleared out, only for one or multiple mobs to spawn in front of you without you ever seeing them coming.
While it’s not all too uncommon to see a mob spawn in front of you in New World, it definitely is unintended to have mobs only spawn once a player approaches their spawn point. You should definitely be able to see enemies from a distance, and the fact that they’re only appearing once you get within range of them is a sign of a mechanic that isn’t intended.
There is no timetable for a fix to this disruptive bug, but it’s likely that Amazon Games will have a fix out in the near future. Last Friday, Oct. 7, the devs fixed a swath of issues in an update that forced maintenance to be deployed for a few hours, and it’s possible that could happen again tonight as well.
