New World Aeternum: Tower of Calomel

 A preview of New World's new Outpost Rush (OPR) map, Tower of Calomel, started this week, and after several matches I have some feedback to share. Read on to learn more about this spooky map and its good and not-so-good features.

Dark and spooky!

  First, the theme is on point for a release that is coming out around Halloween. The map is cast in darkness and takes place around the crumbling facade of an old castle. The outer area is full of fountains and gardens. A web of caves snakes underneath, delivering players to different points of interest. The central capture point lies in the castle itself, where a broken staircase leads to an even more broken second floor. Players can look out at the surrounding area from multiple vantage points in the castle. It's a cool-looking map.

A look at the central castle and surrounding area.  The map is much darker than the light in this picture would make you believe.

 With the cool looks comes a lot of clutter, though. There is a lot of uneven terrain where rubble is strewn about or blocks and pillars get in the way of traversal. I found myself constantly getting caught up on objects that blended into the background but protruded enough to stop me. I've missed countless attacks where my target was slightly elevated on a stone or a stairway, or an invisible section of a set piece blocked a ranged attack. I think a pass through the map to reduce both visual and physical clutter would help.

 Optimization wasn't great either, with my frame rate tanking into the 40s/50s for most of the matches. It's worse inside tight indoor areas and better in the outdoor areas. Still playable and with no issues from network latency, so it just seems tied to graphical performance. I am sure this will be ironed out, and this is part of the reason they do preview events for new maps. We had the same issue with Coral Divide when it was previewed, and it was fixed up pretty well by the time it fully launched.

 The map layout is confusing at first, but the more I played the more comfortable I was with it. It is similar to the Coral Divide map, where there are many avenues to move around in, yet you almost always end up at a choke point. With that said, I can see the map being challenging for more casual players, and I think the layout has definitely caused some players to get lost and miss out on contributing to the match. There are some choke-point areas near the spawns, so I've seen a good bit of spawn camping in lopsided matches. If they do a pass to clean up clutter, I think they can also do some work to create more varied paths out of spawn.

Jump pad on the right.  Another look at the map.

 Jump pads have also been introduced to OPR; previously, they were only used on the capture the flag maps. Players can hold the jump button down on a pad and be vaulted in a specific direction. Most often this is to jump over a gap or to go up a level vertically. They are not required, as many areas have other means of traversal to the same spots.

 The jump pads were fun at first, but I am not sure I like them. They are inconsistent, and numerous times the pad never activated and I fell into a gap, or the direction/length of the jump differed from my expectation based on prior interactions. Even if the consistency issue was ironed out, there are other aspects I dislike about the pads. They lead to wonky combat scenarios, with players using the pads as a form of dodge instead of their intended traversal mechanism. Credit to the players who can use them to shake and bake in a fight, but for my taste I'd prefer they weren't there. New World combat is already full of dodges and speed; there doesn't need to be more.

 One thing I really like about the layout is how the gathering nodes are positioned. Trees are next to the side outposts and are clustered together—no more epic journeys across the map to get a pile of wood for building gates and tents. Similarly, the ore is concentrated in the caverns below the castle in close proximity. A quick trip into the catacombs nets a large pile. The closer positioning means faster gathering, which means faster upgrades. If you are a player, like me, who fancies building up the outpost defenses, you don't feel like you have to avoid the entire match to do so. I spent a good bit of time in my matches building up the outposts and at the same time still getting into the fights.

 As far as balance goes, the matches I've been in spanned the gamut—from one-sided stomps (1000 to 13 in one bad example) all the way to nail-biters (1000–997, one of the closest matches I've ever been in). As it's a new map, it's hard to judge what factors into a team’s success, as many players are still adapting, but it does feel like the map layout lends itself to players getting distracted from the control points and strung along in fights elsewhere. Not fighting on the points is a sure way to lose them. This is nothing unique to this map, though, so it's hard to say for sure.

Holy cow that was a nail biter 1000-997!  And I made 4th over all on my team (blue)!

 Some early feedback I read worried the map favored range over melee. While there are sniping positions, such as the second story above the main capture point and the ledges around the castle, there are plenty of places for melee to shine. In my heavy flamethrower build, which is effectively melee range, I rarely felt like I was just a sitting duck for pot shots. I had plenty of cover to navigate around, and I could push ranged players without feeling like it was just empty space between us. Yes, there are certain times where matches got sideways and camping sets in, which is why I mentioned earlier some adjustments to the spawn areas and how players flow into the map from them would help.

 Overall, I like the map. I like the theme and the many nooks and crannies to explore while looking for a fight. I would like to see some cleanup of the visual and ground clutter, and I think a swipe at adjustments to the spawn areas would help. I'd also like to see the jump pads reduced so there are fewer overall, but I am fine if they remain as is. I am looking forward to this map making the regular rotation.

Note: this post was edited with the help of AI (ChatGPT). The thoughts are my own.  The grammatical correctness and em dashes (—) are the AI.