Secret World Legends launches as free-to-play in June 26

Funcom has just announced that the reboot of the horror MMORPG The Secret World is going to launch in June 26. Relaunching as a free-to-play shared world game – they're avoiding the word ‘MMORPG' whenever possible – and rebranded as Secret World Legends, this game comes with a host of new features and revamps. Currently in closed beta, the developers are calling it an actual beta and not the most common one-week-before-launch stress test that many games seem to do.

The announcement goes on to clarify as to why Funcom decided to revamp the game and relaunch as free-to-play and the answer was… because they can! Well, not really, we just made that up. Funcom actually wanted to “bring a new wave of players into the game” (hence the move to free-to-play) and while they knew it was a risk move, it was better than “seeing the game fade away”. Season 2 is also in the works.

As for some of the changes, you can expect a new tutorial, the ability and progression system was redesigned, new starter classes were added, and possibly the most important change was regarding combat, with a more action feel where players will be able to aim with the mouse and move with the keyboard. The dressing room went through an overhaul, with a more simple way of keeping track of “thousands of available clothing options”, and the character creation system was also improved. Not bad, we would say!

If you want to know more about Secret World Legends straight from the mouths of some of the developers, just hit play on the video below.