If your New World: Aeternum account has been inactive for an extended period of time, you may be required to rename any characters associated with that account the next time you attempt to access them. 

Identifying Latent Accounts

Accounts that have not logged-in for a significant amount of time may be designated as "latent". Their inactive characters will have their names made available for other players to use.

• You can tell if your account has been marked as latent if it is clearly identified as such when you try to log in and play with a character.

Viewing a Character Whose Name Has Been Taken

If your character's name has been taken by another player after being marked as latent, you may still be able to see the character in various lists, such as your Friends List, Blocked List, Leaderboards, and Company.

• In these cases, the character's name will be displayed with an underscore prepended to the original name (e.g. "_JohnDoe").
• This is done to help identify characters whose names have been taken, while still making them recognizable to players who knew the character previously.
• Characters whose names have been taken in this way will not appear in searches.

Forced Renaming

If your account is marked as latent due to extended inactivity, you will be prompted to rename that character the next time you attempt to log in.

• The forced renaming process will occur automatically - you will have the option to keep your original character names if they have not been claimed by other players.
• Your character's progress, items, faction, company, and other data will remain intact. Only the character name will change.

If you have any other questions or are experiencing an issue changing your name, please reach out to customer support.