MMO The Secret World Relaunching As A "Shared-World Action RPG"

As it approaches its five-year anniversary, MMO The Secret World will soon be relaunched as part of what sounds like a major revamp.

Set to debut sometime this spring, The Secret World will now be known as Secret World Legends. It'll be available as a free-to-play game that Funcom describes as a "shared-world action RPG." More than just a name change, Funcom says it will feature "a redesigned combat system to make action feel more natural, more intuitive systems to interact with, enhanced visuals, and an improved flow of the quests, as well as the structure of the early game for new players."

Past and future content will all be available for free; Funcom boasts there's more than 100 hours of content to experience for free. Microtransactions come into play for those who want to purchase additional characters (free players are limited to one), weapon pages, inventory space, vanity items, and so on.

Once it's available, Legends will have has its own client that is available for download from Steam. Story progression will be reset for everyone, though existing Secret World players will be able to continue playing on their existing characters on separate servers. A limited selection of things--vanity items like mounts, pets, and vehicles, as well as customization options purchased through the store--can be transferred to Legends, as can existing subscriptions.

A closed beta for Legends kicks off today. You can sign up to participate here.