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[Update] Age of Conan's Free-To-Play Era Begins Now
Update: Funcom's Age of Conan is now officially free to play. This new model replaces the existing version of the game, and can be downloaded here at no cost.
“After 1.4 million copies sold, having experienced fantastic critical acclaim, and still to this day going strong with a large active player base embarking on thousands of daily adventures, there is no doubt that ‘Age of Conan’ has made a significant impact on the online gaming genre,” says Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing Morten Larssen. “The great potential provided by the hybrid business model, and with the ever growing interest for free-to-play games, bringing ‘Age of Conan’ into this market is undoubtedly the logical next step for the title.”
Original story: Funcom's barbaric MMO Age of Conan will be relaunching this summer. This relaunch will bring a couple of big changes for the franchise. Specifically, the game will allow for both free and paid premium subscriber play in the game. Also, the game will shed its former Mature rating and head out for the wilds of unrated, brutal content. So says developer Funcom: "Age of Conan has always been a Mature gaming experience, but going Unrated gives the development team freedom to stay even more true to the original works of Conan author Robert E. Howard, and use even more of the barbaric, brutal, and sexy setting that is Howard's Hyboria. Funcom is already in the process of developing new locations, monsters, equipment, and storylines for Age of Conan: Unrated.
The game's new free-to-play model will allow players to experience most of the games content free of charge, but will allow premium subscribers access to more classes, a larger personal bank, and other bonuses. For a complete breakdown of the differences between a free account and a paid account, check out the games Free-to-Play FAQ.
Of course, there will also be an in-game store where players can buy items and other content. Paid subscribers receive a five percent discount on items in the store.
The game also plans to do tie-in content to the upcoming Conan movie, for more read our story from yesterday.
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