Funcom is excited to announce that the next Beta Weekend for its upcoming modern-day massively multiplayer online game ‘The Secret World’ will start on May 18th at 9am PDT / 6pm CET and run until Sunday May 20th at 11.59pm PDT / May 21st 8.59am CET. During this Beta Weekend players get to pick up where they left off with the same character they played during the first Beta Weekend, as they get to meet all-new characters in Kingsmouth each with their own unique missions and storylines.
The best way to gain access to the Beta Weekend is to pre-order ‘The Secret World’. This grants access to all Beta Weekends leading up to launch. Funcom is also teaming up with major websites all over Europe this week to conduct a massive giveaway of keys for this weekend only, and this is a great way for gamers to have a look at the game before pre-ordering.
Funcom executed a successful first Beta Weekend from May 11th to May 13th, both in terms of player numbers, feedback and technical stability on both client and server side. The company is also encouraged by the fact that this Beta weekend saw higher player numbers, longer play-times and higher return visits than for beta week-ends conducted for its previous MMO, “Age of Conan”. Funcom also teamed up with the world’s largest gaming site GameSpot to bring thousands of keys for the first Beta Weekend to its readers. During the Beta Weekend ‘The Secret World’ featured as the most popular game overall on the site, and as of today the game has a higher number of active followers on GameSpot than any other massively multiplayer online game in development.
“The results from the first Beta Weekend are very encouraging,” says Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas. “The majority of the feedback we have received from players is very positive, and also looking at it from a development perspective the Beta Weekend was undoubtedly a major success for the company.”
The international gaming press has also been playing ‘The Secret World’ for the past week, and many of them have provided their impressions. Leading gaming site GamesRadar says in their preview that they have “…just started to scratch the surface of ‘The Secret World’, and already, we’re awfully impressed.” Leading MMO site ZAM says in their preview that “… ‘The Secret World’ is a tremendously immersive experience that will invite you in to stay.”
