Age of Conan "Most Mature MMO Ever Made"

In an interview with CVG.com, Game Director Gaute Godager speaks about the upcoming MMO set in that good ol' age where men were men, women were women, and bumping into the wrong guy by accident could net you an axe to the forehead (in retrospect, it's kinda like New Jersey).

How closely does the game follow the Conan mythology created by Robert E. Howard and what familiar locations and characters can fans of the books look forward to?

[B]Godager:[/b] I will actually start be being rather bold and say that Age of Conan is most likely the truest depiction of Hyboria ever in any computer game. That might not be saying much, but let me put it this way: We take the lore, Hyboria, extremely seriously! Not only are the bulk of the team avid Conan, and Hyboria, fans - we have lore specialists inside the team and as "consultants" to the team.

We for instance work closely with Mongoose Publishing, the renowned authors of the Pen-and-Paper Conan roleplaying game. As to the details of which characters you can meet, I truly would like to keep some of that under wraps. I can drop a few names, though: Kalanthes - is found in the opening scene of the game, and later you will meet him again. You meet Conan (more on his role below), his wife Xenobia, Valeria and many others.

Naturally, the Arch-Enemy of the story and setting of the MMO is that of the most notorious villain Conan ever encountered, without saying who ;)

Now, the original stories by Howard--and certainly the Ahnold movie--were rather, shall we say, "barbaric." Godager says that Age of Conan will certainly fit the bill, and will in fact be the most "mature MMO ever made."

Godager:Let me start by saying: Conan will be the most mature MMO ever made, and that involves a lot of blood and sensual undertones, even though its not going to be tasteless.
The books are many things. They are violent, somewhat sexual, and they are a product of the 1930's.

We are adapting to our times and the MMO media, but we try to keep what is there - in essence, detail and spirit. There will not be any intercourse or hidden "coffee modes" or anything like that, but there will definitively be some "showing of skin".

There will be plenty of violence though, but there are two important things here: a) Conan is a mature game. We aim at that rating and want to make sure it hits that rating. We do not want to become "adult" by accident and end up sold at specialist stores and on grizzly Internet sites with a million pop-ups.

This means we will err on the side of caution in terms of how we display nudity in the game. b) It is up to you what you want to see in terms of violence (fatality deaths) and nudity in the game. We want to make sure these are things you can turn on and off as you want.

For the full interview--which covers pretty much everything from character to creation to PvP and PvE content, head on over to CVG.com.