The virtual world of Anarchy Credits takes place on the planet Rubi-Ka some 30,000 years into the future. In our future, mankind has evolved into becoming almost god-like creatures through the use of technology and a substance called Notum, which can be found only on Rubi-Ka. Notum is the force behind the advanced nano-technology that enables your avatar to fly, cast spell-like formulas, and generally manipulate the world around you. The fight for control over this most precious of all substances is at the heart of Anarchy Credits, as the players must enter one of three sides in the conflict for control over the planet. And it has turned out in this expansion that not only humans are interested in its god-like effects.

With the coming of our third expansion pack, we have thus further evolved our ongoing storyline, and it's a direct continuation of the events that culminated with the players killing the final guardian in the Shadowlands add-on. This guardian was placed there by... someone, and its function was to guard the most powerful secret of them all. By killing the guardian, the players opened up a can of worms, and suddenly, an entire alien armada stood knocking at the door.

Now, there are suddenly two species fighting against each other for control over the Notum, and the planet. At the same time, the three original factions keeps on bickering among each other for control. The tension and political climate in Anarchy Credits is definitely heating up.

The Inspiration
Since Anarchy Credits is a science fiction game, it's a perfect vehicle to use the most classical of all creatures in the area, aliens. So far, we have not used them in Anarchy Online, and for a good reason - which will be partly revealed soon. That we are finally using an alien presence opens up a whole new venue for us to use in Anarchy Online. We can now progress on the epic story arcs we have planned for the future, while also adding cool new gameplay features.

The Team
Funcom is a Norwegian based developer and publisher of adventure, action and massively multiplayer online games. We have development offices in Norway and customer service offices in Durham, USA. Funcom has developed games since 1993, and Alien Invasion is the 24th product we bring to the market.

The development team for Alien Invasion consisted of about 30 people, ranging from designers, programmers, graphic artists and world builders to our music composer. In addition, there are lots of "external" Funcom people working on aspects like testing, infrastructure, customer service, and sales and marketing. We also utilized an outside contractor on the project.

All the leads on the team have years of MMO experience from working on Anarchy Credits, while we have also been staffing up with fresh blood. I therefore think the mix of very experienced MMO developers and newcomers breathed fresh new ideas and life into Anarchy Online as a whole. I do not want to highlight anyone in particular, as I am very proud of and satisfied with the entire team as a whole.