Anarchy Online development slowed by Funcom lay-offs

Anarchy Online's expansion and upgrade plans have been downgraded slightly as the MMO's development team endures Funcom's recent job cuts.

Game director Fia Tjernberg wrote a touching farewell to departing staff on the Anarchy Online forum, taking the time to reassure players that the sci fi game's future is secured, even if it didn't get off scot free.

"For Anarchy Online, this means that we will not be able to continue growing our team right now, as we had hoped," she said.

"The work will however continue as scheduled with some exceptions; some of the additional features for the new player experience, like the new character creation, will be down prioritized until we have the play experience feature complete.

"The silver lining is that the AO dev team has always been a small but very talented team, even while producing booster packs, so our team is in control and AO will remain strong."

Tjernberg said the team plans to continue with a proposed upgrade to Funcom's Dreamworld engine; parallel development means it will not delay new content.

Funcom made a round of lay-offs last month, shortly before revealing the limited commercial success of The Secret World.

Thanks, Massively.