14 DAY TRIAL // Developer Funcom might be best known for the recently launched The Secret World and the fantasy-based Age of Conan, but the company is also operating the older Anarchy Online, another MMO that has been affected by the layoffs that the company recently announced.
Fia Tjernberg, who is the current game director working on Anarchy Online, has stated, “For Anarchy Online, this means that we will not be able to continue growing our team right now, as we had hoped. The work will however continue as scheduled with some exceptions; some of the additional features for the new player experience, like the new character creation, will be down prioritized until we have the play experience feature complete.”
The developer managed to put a positive spin on things, adding, “The silver lining is that the AO dev team has always been a small but very talented team, even while producing booster packs, so our team is in control and AO will remain strong.”
The big change set to come to Anarchy Online in the coming months is a transition to the Dreamworld engine, which is designed to make the entire game look better and give the developers the tools they need to add a number of new features that the previous tech could not support.
In parallel with the transition, Funcom is also working on new content, although Fia Tjernberg has not offered clear details about what players can expect.
Funcom was forced to lay off staff during August because the most recent title it launched, The Secret World, failed to be commercially successful.
The mystery and puzzle focused MMO has sold just a little over 200,000 copies since it was launched during July, despite the fact that it has received a number of positive reviews.
Funcom has announced that it plans to focus on smaller online projects in the coming years.