Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Preview

A Conan game where you can't play as Conan? Funcom tells Kikizo why real-time battles and long-term support make this an MMO you'll want to check out.

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For obvious reasons, no one is able to play as Conan in the game. But that's not to say that he plays no part in it. Age of Conan is based on Hour of the Dragon, a novel written by Conan creator Robert E. Howard in the year before his suicide, in 1936.

Conan is a different man in these times. He's in his mid 40s, enjoying life as the King of Aquilonia, reigning from his mountaintop palace. Play far enough into the game and you'll meet the legendary warrior.

By working through the Destiny Quest, players will gain entry to the palace and be able to take orders from Conan himself. Funcom has stayed true to the spirit of the character, though, and the game will star many characters from the Conan gospels.

Another aspect of this faithful approach is the general tone of the game, which is skewed towards an older audience. "We're staying very, very true to the mature rating," Ellingsen says.

If Conan is to succeed, though, what the team needs is to demonstrate its dedication to the game, keeping new content coming over the months and years after release. Funcom is fully prepared.

"On the day we launch we're dividing the team into two parts," Ellingsen says. The first of these will be responsible for the small stuff - squashing bugs and polishing what's already there. The second team will have a different role. It will be tasked with growing the game world through expansions and other regular updates.

"We're going to focus on pushing out huge expansions, pulling more of the lore into the game, creating more areas you can explore, more monsters, more classes, more races more loot - constantly expanding," says Ellingsen.

"That's one of the success recipes of MMOs, that you constantly renew yourself and you update the game and you create new content. That's how we're going to keep the game living in the long run."

There's also the Xbox 360 version to think about. There's no confirmation on when the game will arrive on console, but the team is confident that the more action-oriented gameplay will help it succeed where other MMOs have failed.

"I think Age of Conan is the first MMO that can really work on a console because of the combat system," Ellingsen says.

It's clear that Funcom is thinking about Age of Conan as a long term project, and the team has secured use of the license "for years to come". Already Funcom is looking to 2009, when the new Conan The Barbarian movie from writers Joshua Oppenheimer and Thomas Donnelly (Sahara) arrives in theatres.

"We really hope to be able to do some really cool stuff with that," says Ellingsen.

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures will be released on PC in May with an Xbox 360 version to follow. For more on the game, visit www.ageofconan.com.

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