Anarchy goes Online

Funcom have announced that their massively multiplayer sci-fi role-playing game Anarchy Online has just gone gold and has now been sent off for duplication. The game's servers will be going live on June 27th, with the first copies of the game expected on shelves in Scandinavia and the USA ready for then. Unfortunately the rest of Europe will have to wait - Funcom PR manager Marit Lund told us that "we aim to release the game sometime later this fall in the rest of Europe". Meanwhile beta testing continues as the servers are stress tested by thousands of gamers around the world to make sure there are no last minute hitches when the game is switched on for the public.

It seems likely though that people buying the game may well find a patch ready to download when they log on for the first time. The game has certainly become far more stable and polished since the new Beta 4 was released recently, and it is of course possible that we haven't been given the final version to test yet, but in the latest version we have played there were still a few rough edges that could perhaps have used smoothing off before the game shipped. Gamers should be in for a treat regardless though, as Anarchy Online is shaping up to be the biggest new release in the genre since Asheron's Call almost eighteen months ago. Hopefully we will have a final boxed copy of the game to review in the near future, but in the meantime check last weekend's full hands-on preview of the game if you want to find out what all the fuss is about.