Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures picked up by Eidos, delayed till 2007

Conan - The Complete Quest (Conan The Barbarian/The Destroyer)Eidos has announced that they have picked up the publishing rights for the upcoming Action single player/MMORPG (first 20 hours or so of the game is single player, before you head out online for the rest of the game) Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, which has now been delayed until March or May of 2007.

Also announced in the new deal is that console versions of the game are planned, most likely for release on the Xbox 360 (a 360 version is rumored to already be in development).

Age of ConanThe deal will have Eidos (which was bought last year by SCi Entertainment) publish the boxed copies of the game in North America, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Conan’s Norway-based developer, Funcom, will “operate servers and provide customer service for the game and collect and retain subscription revenues.”

This marks the first time that Eidos has become involved with either an MMORPG or a game based on the Conan character. The fictional barbarian was created by the late author Robert E. Howard in print during the 1930s and played by Arnold Schwarzenegger on film in the 1980s. (The Conan films also costarred Japanese-American character actor Mako, who sadly succumbed to cancer over the weekend.) The franchise has since spawned novels, comic books, and a short-lived television series starring German bodybuilder Ralf Moeller (Gladiator).

Age of Conan was chosen by GameSpot as their “Best MMORPG of E3 2006“. Now view the awesome trailer for the game.