New World doesn't have mounts because its horses are too angry

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"Attempts to domesticate these animals have led only to injury and a lot of swearing"

New World
(Image credit: Amazon, Reddit u/beirye)

A New World lore snippet explains why the new MMO doesn't offer any player mounts.

The topic of mounts - rideable animals that allow players to move around the world faster than if they were travelling on foot - has been a somewhat contentious issue in the run-up to release, but one player has uncovered how Amazon Game Studios has explained them out of the game.

In a Reddit post, user Sketchit outlined a piece of lore that explained why players won't be able to ride any of the animals in Aeternum. The snippet, framed as a PSA, reads that "after a recent spate of back injuries, the doctors of Aeternum feel compelled to issue this warning to anyone who transports goods between settlements: Please remember that there are NO beasts of burden on Aeternum. No horse or donkey will pull your cart, carry your pack, or tolerate a rider. All efforts to domesticate or re-domesticate these animals have led only to injury and a lot of swearing."

Admittedly, the lore doesn't explain exactly what's upsetting Aeternum's four-legged friends, but it sounds like they're simply too grumpy to be called on for assistance.

In the weeks leading up to New World's eventual release yesterday, the community proved somewhat divided as to whether or not mounts would improve the game. As one Reddit post points out, while games like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14 have popularised the feature, other MMO titles, like Runescape, don't offer mounts at all.

Mounts or not, Amazon's MMO has certainly gotten off to a strong start. Player counts topped 700,000 yesterday, making New World the fifth-biggest Steam game ever - but also making for some gnarly New World queue times.

The New World community reacted to lengthy queues with a whole bunch of memes.

Ali Jones
Ali Jones
Managing Editor, News

I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for news, shaping the news strategy across the team. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.