Facepunch Studios COO says he'll buy New World for $25 million, and he might not be joking: 'We're always looking for new opportunities and we are open to all avenues'

XDespite being a moderate success, Amazon's New World MMO will be taken out behind the woodshed on January 31, 2027 and put down for good. But Facepunch Studios chief operating officer Alistair McFarlane says "games should never die," and has thus made an offer to buy it—and a couple other well-known industry figures have said they're willing to help.

First things first: I don't know if this is a serious offer. It sounds like it isn't, but also like it could be—or, at the very least, that it might be one of those situations that starts out as a joke but then spirals into an actual thing. It's the sort of ambiguity I normally enjoy, except when it makes my job more difficult, such as now.

Anyway, it all began when Facepunch developer Errn wrote on X, "I tried to get Ali to buy NW for me but he told me to fuck off :(" McFarlane replied, "25m, final offer," tagging the Amazon Games account. He then followed up with the message, "Games should never die."

Not the most iron-clad, lawyers-and-contracts offer, no, but it did attract attention from some interesting quarters. "I'll go halfs with you if we release the original NW alpha as a separate game mode," Pocketpair communications director and publishing manager John Buckley wrote in response to McFarlane's message.

Simon Collins-Laflamme, who recently (and, it seems, quite successfully) rescued Hytale from cancellation oblivion, also chimed in: "If you need tips about buying cancelled games, lmk."

Popular streamer Gothalion expressed enthusiasm for the idea too, leading Errn, who started the whole thing, to repeat, "We offered to buy it to save it."

All in good fun, and probably not something to be taken too seriously, although sure, it could happen. Amazon is basically throwing in the towel on game development anyway, and while $25 million isn't big money on the Amazon scale, it's $25 million more than it'll get if it just closes the game and walks away. Surely that'd be enough to finance a small truckload of AI Snoop Dogg garbage, right?

First and foremost, though, is whether McFarlane is actually serious about the whole thing, and on that point, well, he's not saying no.

"We're opening a publishing arm of the business quite soon and we're always looking for new opportunities and we are open to all avenues," McFarlane told PC Gamer. "Games shouldn't die. Garry's Mod turns 20 this year, and Rust just recently turned 12, with the latter thriving still. We don't like to kill games off."

Dare to dream, New World fans. A lot can happen in a year.