Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is launching tomorrow, but Funcom has still managed to work another postponement into the release of its oft-delayed game: The DirectX 10 version will not be included in the initial launch.
Funcom announced today that the Collector’s Edition of the game, numbering 111,000 units, is already sold out in all markets, including those which were restocked with additional print runs as a result of high levels of demand. Roughly 700,000 copies of the game are being shipped to support the launch, and Morten Larssen, vice president of sales and marketing at Funcom, said Age of Conan generated “the highest pre-order number for any global launch of an original PC game, ever, including the original World of Warcraft launch.”
But the publisher also revealed that while the game will meet its May 20 launch date, the DirectX 10 version of the game will not be ready in time. In a statement, Funcom said, “The company regrets to inform gamers that the DirectX 10 version of the game will not ship with the initial launch. As Microsoft’s DirectX 10 is undoubtedly the future of PC gaming, Funcom has decided to ship only the DirectX9 version at launch, giving the team more time to focus on building a DirectX 10 version worthy of Microsoft’s great vision for the future of PC gaming. This postponement will let Funcom include even more features in the DirectX 10 version of Age of Conan than originally planned.”
The DirectX 10 version of the game is now scheduled to premiere at the Leipzig Games Convention, running from August 20-24, with a “special preview” taking place at Nvidia’s NVISION event, running from August 25-27 in San Jose, California.
Funcom also announced that it is currently unable to fully meet the demand for the game in several markets due to limits in its server capacity, but that it has placed orders for more servers in order to facilitate more players.
