Two weeks ago, Funcom unleashed the precursor to The Secret World. Called “The Secret War”, the game is a Facebook type social game with players joining any one of TSW’s three factions: Templar, Illuminati or Dragon. Depending on successful world domination, players help their faction unlock unique rewards, images, movies, etc. Each week, a few lucky players are also chosen for guaranteed access to the ongoing TSW closed beta.
Players first heading into The Secret War will find themselves placed on a multicolored map of the world. Each color represents a different faction: Blue for Illuminati, Red for Templars and Green for the Dragons. The amount of coverage on the map is indicative of the amount of “influence” the faction has gained. As influence is gained, players earn unlocks in the form of custom screenshots and more.
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In addition, and as with most social games, daily rewards are earned by playing the game. Other rewards are earned by recruiting friends from Facebook and deploying them throughout the game world to help your faction increase its influence.
What’s quite cool about The Secret War is that the items players earn while playing will show up in their inventory when the game launches. Things such as elixirs, specialized t-shirts and other clothes, weapons and more. Those who play enough can also earn guaranteed access to the closed beta.
This from the recently released press document from Funcom:
“One of the most interesting features of ‘The Secret World’ is the three profoundly different secret societies that players can join,” says Funcom SVP of Sales & Marketing Morten Larssen. “Since we first announced the game we have gradually revealed more details about them, and what we have seen is that hundreds of thousands of gamers in our community have come to identify with them and form a loyal bond to other community members belonging to the same society. With ‘The Secret War’ experience we are excited about the prospect of allowing for even more community interaction and engagement.”
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Funcom is investing a lot of PR into The Secret War by posting daily updates (to the humiliation of the poor Templars who are being kicked back to central Europe as of this writing) and detailing weekly rewards for even more fun. Here is what players were challenged to during the second week of The Secret War:
- Spread influence in other countries and maintain your faction’s own influence at home. The Dragons won this last week and will receive Talisman of Time when the game launches which will give players an XP boost.
- Recruit more members to your faction. The Illuminati took this one and the entire faction received a 15% boost to their unlock potential.
- Personal challenge to recruit five members to join the war. Everyone who recruited five new players received 100 points added to their individual score.
As you can see, playing The Secret War is a lot of fun but, more importantly, a way to earn in game rewards for trying it out. This week marks the mid-point for The Secret War leading up to The Secret World’s launch on June 16th.
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Have you tried it yet? What did you think of The Secret War? Let us know in the comments.
