New World is not a free-to-play game.
Unlike many other MMOs and multiplayer games, but it doesn’t follow a subscription model either like World of Warcraft. It is actually a buy-to-play MMO similar to Guild Wars 2, where players buy the game upfront for a one-off fee and then can play the game for as long as they like. The current cost on Steam is $39.99/£34.99/€39.99, with a special Deluxe Edition for $49.99/£43.99 /€49.99. And you may need to spend some money on buying New World Gold.
New World may go free-to-play in the future like MMOs such as Star Wars: The Old Republic and Lord of the Rings Online did — and don’t forget that Amazon Game Studios was working on a new Lord of the Rings MMO alongside New World which actually would’ve been free-to-play until it got canceled, so the studio isn’t averse to the F2P model for MMOs. However, for now, it’s buy-to-play only — and it’s only on PC too, so don’t expect to see console versions for a while.
In other news for New World, here’s the answer to whether progress from the beta will carry over to the final game next month, and whether or not there will be an open beta before the August 31 release date. New World may not be on consoles, but is it possible to use a console controller in the MMO? Finally, here’s how to avoid New World killing RTX 3090 graphics cards.