Secret World delayed by Funcom lay-offs
20 per cent of workforce cut.
Age of Conan developer Funcom announced that it's laying off 20 per cent of its workforce today, with the result of a delay of "several months" in the development of its next MMO, The Secret World.
That's according to Norwegian business site E24, as spotted by GI and translated by Google.
The Secret World had no release date, although we expected to see it next year. A 2011 launch now looks more likely for the contemporary, occult, conspiracy-themed MMO by Dreamfall creator Ragnar Tornquist.
It's not clear what impact the job cuts will have on the release of the first Age of Conan expansion, Rise of the Godslayer - although this too had no firm date.
Funcom's Oslo HQ is hardest hit by the redundancies as the company transfers its development focus to Montreal, where it recently set up a new studio to take advantage of the tax breaks and lower wages on offer in Canada.
If you want to learn more, we recently previewed The Secret World, spoke to Tornquist and previewed Rise of the Godslayer.