GOA Secures Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning In Europe

The first publishing deal for Mythic's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning was announced yesterday. The second party involved is an obscure company named GOA - a France Telecom-owned publisher of online games, who took it upon themselves to exclusively publish and operate this MAMMORPG (that's "massively anticipated MMORPG", as they put it) all over Europe. I wouldn't be surprised at all if this were the first time you heard about GOA, though some of you might remember them for bringing another one of Mythic's MMO games to Europe some time ago, which actually used to be the number one MMORPG in Europe for quite a few years... That would be Dark Age of Camelot, if you haven't guessed it yet.

A dedicated European website for Warhammer Online is already in place at www.war-europe.com, with a brief F.A.Q. section that clears up a few things, such as targeted languages (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish), beta issues and distribution of future patches between the US and Europe. Rest assured, this won't be World of Warcraft all over again, in that beta admissions and patches will happen at the same time for everyone - as opposed to Europeans still having to wait longer than US players for any WoW updates (though I have to admit it's a lot better now than it was a year ago).

Anyway, back on topic, some recent WAR screenshots can be found in our local gallery, and you can still watch the cinematic E3 trailer here. As mentioned in Mythic's announcement, Warhammer Online is planned for a Fall 2007 release.

"Launching for the PC simultaneously in the US and Europe during fall 2007, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is based on Games Workshop's popular Warhammer fantasy world and features next generation Realm vs. Realm (RvR) game play that integrates Player vs. Player (PvP) and Player vs. Environment (PvE) combat into a seamless, cutting edge, massively multiplayer online experience."

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)