Rank 7: Age of Conan
Developer: Funcom | Platform: PC | Release Date: May 23, 2008 | Payment Model: Initially Pay2Play, since 2011 Free2Play | Status: Still running and getting occasional small updates
What do I need to know about the license? “Conan the Cimmerian” is a character from the mind of Robert E. Howard, who first appeared in the 1930s in the fantasy stories of Weird Tales magazine.
There followed appearances of Conan in comic adaptations from Marvel and Dark Horse, and of course the films “Conan the Barbarian” and “Conan the Destroyer” with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead role. Conan evolved to become the archetype for barbarians, which should have influenced the design of He-Man, among other things. Today, there are countless games, films, and series based on Conan.
The trailer for the Unchained relaunch of Age of Conan:
What do I need to know about the game? Beautiful graphics, naked skin, bloody finishers, adult setting: Age of Conan was supposed to be the MMORPG for all genre fans who found WoW too colorful, Azeroth too tame, and tab-targeting battles too dull. And it came from Funcom, which already had experience in the genre of online role-playing games with Anarchy Online.
And indeed, the first impression was good. The quests from the settlement of Tortage and the associated island were fun, and the combat system excited players because it differed significantly from the competition with its combos while still functioning well. This suited the martial aspect of the Conan franchise.
However, Age of Conan was simply released too early. Once you had mastered the first 20 to 30 level-ups, you increasingly faced content gaps, a multitude of bugs, as well as faulty or unfinished systems like PvP or crafting. It was an alpha for which you had to pay, and that too with a subscription.
While the developers eventually managed to tackle all these problems over time, it took far too long due to the mass of issues. A significant portion of players had already moved on disappointed. Even the mandatory switch to a Free2Play model initiated in 2011 did not manage to pull Age of Conan out of the niche it had maneuvered into due to its disastrous launch.
The truth is, however, that Age of Conan implemented the rough homeland of the Cimmerian quite well. The refined combat system and bloody finishers suited the IP. This is likely also reflected in the good survey results of the game last year: Age of Conan narrowly made it into the top 20 of the best MMORPGs of all time.
