Funcom is proud to reveal the first ever in-game footage from the highly anticipated modern-day massively multiplayer game ‘The Secret World’. The location footage consists of grainy and distorted black and white shots that give a unique and mysterious glimpse into the town of Kingsmouth – one of the many locations from all over the real world to be featured ‘The Secret World’. In the game, as the video shows, horrific events have befallen the sleepy New England town.

"There are darker and far more terrifying things in Kingsmouth than the walking dead," says Senior Producer and Director Ragnar Tørnquist. "The video simply scratches the surface and reveals only a tiny glimpse of what this location is all about. Kingsmouth harbors ancient secrets and dark conspiracies that players have to work together to uncover – along with a menagerie of evil, including creatures from myth and legend, and horrors from the sea. A mysterious mist has enshrouded the entire Solomon Island, and it will be up to the players to figure out what’s happened and to stop this terror from spreading further."

Video from Gametrailers after the break:

"SweetRobot will be focusing on publishing games outside the traditional high-end MMO-segment which Funcom has been focusing on the last years," says Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas. "This will allow us to explore new market opportunities that differ from what we have been doing before while still retaining Funcom’s familiar profile. This definitely marks a new and exciting direction for us."

A team of fifteen people have been working on ‘Pets vs. Monsters’ for almost two years, during which time the team has also focused on developing a highly flexible game engine that can easily be customized to work with multiple concepts. ‘Pets vs. Monsters’ is the company’s first venture into the more casual, social gaming segment, and SweetRobot will use this as an opportunity to experiment with different concepts, gameplay mechanisms and business models. No release date has been set for ‘Pets vs. Monsters’, and the upcoming public beta is intended to help the developers gather early, but valuable feedback from the target audience that will prove important to the game’s direction and development.

"Our passion and dedication for high-end online games remains the same, and ‘Age of Conan’ and ‘The Secret World’ are still our primary focus", says Aas. "But we are also eager to explore new opportunities within the industry, and it felt natural for us to step into the social gaming segment especially considering our outstanding experience with making online worlds and communities. ‘Pets vs. Monsters’ is very much an exciting project for us, our first attempt at creating an online game for a younger target audience with gameplay mechanics and production values that differ from what we have done before. The fact that these productions require significantly lower budgets and smaller teams to develop is very attractive to us, as it allows us to try out several concepts instead of placing all our resources into one single bet."

‘Pets vs. Monsters’ is a massively multiplayer online game intended for children between eight and twelve years of age. The user is treated to a quick download and will be logged in and playing in no time due to the game’s streaming technology. Players will adventure through numerous different ‘worlds’ – from deserts to jungles – accompanied by their trusted pet which they ride into exciting battles. It is also possible to chat and play with other players from all over the world, and the game employs typical role-playing mechanics such as statistics, equipment and loot to incentivize progress.

For more information on ‘Pets vs. Monsters’ please visit the game’s official website.

Update: Here’s video from GameTrailers:

 

Funcom is pleased to announce the establishment of a new development studio in Montréal, Canada, where it will build a strong and competent development team that will work on several games in the Funcom portfolio. Besides tapping into the excellent talent pool available in the region, Funcom will also move a certain number of key personnel over to the new studio.

"Montréal has established itself as one of the world`s most important locations for video game production, and we are looking forward to taking part in that success," says Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas. "In addition to strengthening our North American presence, the new studio will take advantage of the great incentive programs offered by the Québec region, incentives that makes Montréal one of the most cost effective locations in the world for developing MMO games. This will in turn allow us to better balance our costs, making it possible for us to continue to expand our investments into the MMO segment." 

Funcom is one of the most multi-cultural game developers in the business, with over 320 employees from all corners of the world employed at the company`s offices in Norway, the US, China, and Switzerland. The company is responsible for the best-selling MMO `Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures` that shipped over 1.2 million copies to retail in 2008, as well as the pioneering sci-fi MMO `Anarchy Online`. The company has developed more than 20 titles since its founding in 1993; including the critically acclaimed `The Longest Journey` and `Dreamfall`adventure games. Funcom is currently working on the expansion pack for `Age of Conan` called `Rise of the Godslayer` as well as its new MMO `The Secret World`. Developers at the Montréal studio will play an important role in the development of both of these games.

Update: Les Affaires has a short interview with CEO Trond Arne Aas.

They will be hiring 150 people withing the next 18 months and their first project will be a MMO called The Secret World.

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