Last week, we covered some of the initial events Funcom was rolling out for Anarchy Online fans to celebrate its 20th birthday. As of today, the studio has done quite a bit more, with a full retrospective on the game, including the Walk Down Memory Lane video.
“In its infancy, Anarchy Online began development in Norway as a research experiment in 1995,” Funcom says. “You see, back then, consumer internet access was nowhere near as fast (or as ubiquitous) as it is today; dial-up modems were still the norm, and access to higher-speed connections was prohibitively expensive. This left us with the question of if crafting a persistent online world was even worth it. Some in Funcom’s leadership felt that going online was the future. Many others in the company then thought they were crazy. Both are true!”
I love this bit from the press release.
“Anarchy Online became the conqueror of many firsts. It was the first sci-fi MMORPG, it had billboard advertising and in-game concerts long before battle royale games became a thing. It was the first game to be available via online digital distribution. It revolutionized procedurally generated content, introduced hyperlinked items in chat, and implemented instanced dungeons on a scale like never before. And it was the first MMO to launch an expansion called Shadowlands.”
MOP’s own Game Archaeologist has taken the occasion to pen a two-part piece on the history of the game; the first part ran last weekend, and you can look forward to the second part tomorrowday. In the meantime, here’s your nostalgia video. Happy birthday!
