The Chinese mega-corporation Tencent has acquired another developer studio: Funcom. This means that the Chinese are entering the survival MMO Conan Exiles as well as the MMORPG Secret World Legends. But that’s probably not a bad thing.
Who bought Conan Exiles? The company behind the purchase is Tencent. In a press release, Funcom announced that Tencent has acquired 29% of the shares in Funcom and thus holds the majority of shares.
The CEO of Funcom, Rui Casais, sees this as a positive development:
Tencent has a reputation for being a responsible long-term investor and for its renowned performance in online games. The insight, experience, and knowledge that Tencent brings is of great value to us and we expect close collaboration as we continue to develop great games and create a successful future for Funcom.
Rui Casais, CEO of Funcom
What the change means for Conan Exiles: At the moment, the purchase by Tencent does not mean anything special for Conan Exiles. Everything continues as usual for now. What effects the change will have in the future remains to be seen.
Tencent now owns significant shares in many western studios. The corresponding games seem to be doing even better since then. These include:
- Fortnite
- Path of Exile
- League of Legends
As Funcom itself is an indie developer (or was), the support from Tencent could actually help the studio to expand further and also bring some new features to Conan Exiles – such as the promised magic, which is still missing.
What’s next for Conan Exiles?
Here are the plans for the future: In the near future, Funcom has already announced that Conan Exiles will receive mounts. This will be a free update that will be released together with the ninth DLC “Riders of Hyboria” in December.
According to the corresponding roadmap for 2019, only the “Mysteries of Acheron” DLC is expected to be released, which has already been renamed to “Debauchery of Derketo” on Steam. What will follow afterwards and in 2020 remains open.
