Funcom posts

One of the PC's most acclaimed adventure games, 2000's The Longest Journey, got a sequel in 2006, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, that got mixed reviews sales. However developer Funcom could make a third game in the series ... someday.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Funcom's Ragnar Tornquist, the creator of the first two games, said this week that it's "absolutely possible" that a third Longest Journey game could happen at some point. However, he added that Funcom is currently focuses on making its next big MMO, The Secret World. He said, "Once that's out of the way we'll talk about other stuff."

Said ultimate truth, however, happens to be that every myth ever created is true. While this trailer for The Secret World doesn't show any detailed in-game footage, it does list off a number of myths that Funcom's next MMO will hopefully cover. From Atlantis to Cthulhu, werewolves to the Garden of Eden, it rattles off myth after myth before saying that they are all valid. It's mostly text and generic epic-sounding music, though.

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While developer Funcom is still working on its next MMO game The Secret World it has not forgotten its previous fantasy MMO Age of Conan. Today Funcom announced that the game now has an updated engine that, among other things, has server-side game physics supplied by Nvidia's PhysX technology.

Age of Conan is the first PC game ever to have PhysX-powered server-side game physics. Funcom reports that the change results in "more than a doubling in the speed-of in-game physics processing" versus the normal method where PhysX is on the game's client software.

Funcom has also improved a number of other visual aspects of the Age of Conan graphics engine. You can see a narrated trailer showing off and explaining those new visual effects after the jump:

Bloodline Champions officially launched this past January and since then the online action-RTS game from developer Stunlock Studios has issues a number of minor updates. However this week players of the game got its first major content update since launch with an new Champion and other additions.

The new Champion is the Reaver, a melee-based character with a big sword and lots of kung-fun action. In addition the update adds two new maps to the game; the arena map Altar of Dorn Zweig and the large conquest map Ruins of Razmorg. There's also an emote system for player characters and the first official "season" of the game's tournament system has launched.

Finally the in-game story has a special Charitable Champions Pack which if purchased gives the player an exclusive avatar and a title. Stunlock says 100 percent of the proceeds of the pack will go to the Red Cross to assist in its Japan earthquake relief efforts.

The Secret World as a game has been pretty secretive all by itself for the most part but recently the development team at Funcom started to reveal more concrete info about its upcoming "secret society" themed MMO. A new trailer from last week's GDC 2011 finally shows off some in-game footage from the title which stil doesn't have a release date.

The trailer shows a ton of combat against some pretty weird looking enemies while members of the Funcom dev team talk more about how The Secret World will allow the player to have tons of freedom to play the game they want to play (no leveling up, no classes). It sounds pretty ambitious and if you want more info you can check out our sister site Massively for the latest.

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Bloodline Champions strips the defense out of Defense of the Ancients, and the result is a fast-paced combat arena that brutalizes players and leaves them gasping in the wake of adrenaline. It has also finally launched, which means that it is time for a delightfully vague, but stylistically cool launch trailer! It's the trailer above. You can't miss it. Beyond that, there's nothing special about it. Sorry, no champion spotlights here!

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After several weeks in open beta testing, the multiplayer free-to-play fantasy action-RTS game Bloodline Champions has now dumped the "beta" part, officially launching as of today. The game from developer Stunlock Studios and publisher Funcom is just the latest stand alone game that has gotten a lot of inspiration from the popular Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients.

Funcom has announced that over 200,000 people tried out the game while it was in its open beta mode. While the game can be played totally for free there is content in the game that can only be accessed if players purchase either the $29.99 Champions Edition or the $89.99 Elite Edition. The Champion Edition will also be made available for purchase at a number of PC game download sites. Finally the pre-order special content will still be available for people who purchase either edition until February 1.

There hasn't been much news lately on The Secret World but today developer Funcom's upcoming "world conspiracy" MMO just got a huge partner. The company announced that that it will co-publish the game with Electronic Arts via the EA Partners division.

That's basically the big announcement. Financial terms were not disclosed and the long-in-development game still doesn't have a release date. However the fact that EA will now be a partner in publishing the game with Funcom will likely ensure that The Secret World will be getting a lot more marketing and promotion than if Funcom were handling the publishing duties by themselves.

In one of the more left field press announcements we have seen lately, Funcom has just announced that its MMO game Age of Conan will be used as the basis for an upcoming web comedy series called Age of Conan: Hyboria!. The web series is being made inside the game engine of the MMO title with its location and characters.

The first episode of the series is in production and is being written by Mike Fasolo who has worked on the ultra-funny Robot Chicken TV series. It's being directed by Dan Milano who has directed episodes of the cult TV show Greg the Bunny. There's no word on when the first episode will be released nor how many more episodes will be made.

The latest game to enter the more and more crowded fantasy action-RTS genre has just moved into the open beta stage. Publisher Funcom has announced that Bloodline Champions is now open to anyone who wants to play the game after 150,000 people tried it out in closed beta.

The open beta for the Stunlock Studios-developed game includes the four new Bloodlines (i.e. Champions) that people who have already pre-ordered the game can now access. It also adds support for collecting Blood Coins that can be used later to purchase in-game items when the game's Marketplace goes live. Just a reminder: You can purchase a $29.99 version of the game that contains 16 bloodlines plus you can also get four additional bloodlines for an extra $9.99. There's also the $89.99 version which can access all 20 bloodlines, a lifetime VIP membership and a lifetime discount to purchase items from the in-game store.