The MMO market has been fairly oversaturated in recent years. Most can’t compete with the juggernaut of World of Warcraft and others are going the route of Free-to-Play in the hopes of lasting long enough and earning some money. Norwegian studio Funcom, known for the long-running Anarchy Online and last year’s Age of Conan are working on their third MMO, entitled The Secret World and I got to see what it holds for MMO fans and potentially enticing new players into their world.

The Secret World takes plays in a present-day setting. You will get to choose from one of three secret societies in the quest of not only controlling the Earth but the underworld and battling an evil forced called ‘The Darkness’

The three factions available to you are Templars based in London, Illuminati based in New York or Dragon based in Seoul. All three have varying views on the way in which the world functions and how they hope to control it. Templars are holy crusaders who believe they are the war on evil; the Illuminati run their organization like a corporation and believe in survival of the fittest. The third and final side you can choose from, called Dragon, believe that the Art of War is Chaos and Deception. All three have very different ideologies but all have the same goal in being the influential group in the world. If you head over to the game’s teaser site (www.darkdaysarecoming.com/), you can take part in a cool little test to see just which of the three factions you’d be best suited for.

Rather than combating each other, your goal in the game is to join with other party members in defeating the evil forces that lurk everywhere. You will not only battle it out on the streets but the fight in the game’s underworld, currently called Hollow Earth.

The developers also made mention of a game within the game in what they are calling Agartha. This aspect will be heavily focused in the underworld part of the game and will have Real-Time strategy elements. This will certainly be connected with the three factions controlling parts of Hollow Earth and will shift depending on how the battles between the three play out.

Unlike other massive multiplayer online games, your character doesn’t simply level up but rather improves based on skills. Depending on the types of things you do in the game, your character will improve upon that. Also, the game will work heavily on a ranking/leaderboard system that keeps track of everything you do in the game. You will earn titles and respect for your faction based on your skills in combat, trade and other categories. It is this system that will aid in giving your group the upper hand in the world. Working with guilds, called Cabals, will also be an important aspect of the game. Cabals will be able to establish themselves in various locations and will also be heavily involved in leaderboards with their own separate rating system.

While The Secret World takes place in present day earth, it won’t contain every aspect of the World at your disposal. You will still battle it out in your home-base cities but you will also interact in locations throughout the world, including places like Egypt and fabled locales like Atlantis. When asked just how players would travel from one location to another, Funcom stated while you won’t get on a Plane and travel, there will be a fairly intuitive and creative way to get around the world.

Very little combat was shown for the game, but the little snippets did include a lot of battling with the undead and other supernatural characters. Your arsenal included both ammo and melee based weapons and magic will be involved.

 

There is still a lot more that needs to be revealed and like the Illuminati, the guys at Funcom are staying very secretive about the game. The biggest question marks revolve around the game’s combat system. It seems that while a real-time battle system will be place, just how it works and what features it will include is still to be worked out. Hopefully we’ll uncover more as time progresses but this feels like a game that MMO fans should keep on their radar.