The Secret World’ is Funcom’s third MMO and features a unique modern-day setting. Players will be able to discover real world locations such as New York, London and Seoul as they battlethe forces of evil together with thousands of players from around the world. ‘The Secret World’ uses no classes or levels, thus giving theplayer complete freedom of choice when creating and developing his or her alter-ego.

I got a chance to sit down with some of the nice guys from Funcom, and designers for The Secret World while I was at PAX this past weekend.  They showed shared some exciting new information, videos and screenshots about The Secret World, and I can now share what I know with you.

First up, as Trina posted while I was gone, they’ve announced the three factions for The Secret World: Dragons, Templars and the Illuminati.  We now also know that the Dragons will be headquartered in Seoul, Korea; the Templars have set up shop in London, England; and the Illuminati will work their manipulations from New York City.  Each of these factions are working to fight the evil in the world: vampires, werewolves, zombies and all other kinds of supernatural or perfectly natural evil creatures.  And of course, just because these three factions are the ones that players can choose from, doesn’t mean they’ll be the only ones in the world.  If you haven’t already gone over to the http://www.darkdaysarecoming.com/ website to find out what faction you are, you should.  You’ll be able to sign up for some cool stuff, and possibly get into the beta once it launches.

Yesterday, Funcom released the first ever in game screenshots for The Secret World, which I think looks awesome.  See the four new screenshots for yourself:

The meeting with the developers at PAX was pretty enlightening as to the feel and purpose of the characters and the factions within the game.  While the factions are all fighting against evil, there will be a PVP area: Hollow Earth where players can battle against other factions for Cells  of Anima.  I asked if the story outside of Agartha (Hollow Earth) would change based on which faction was leading, and was told that there isn’t news about that yet.  But, they do plan on having some really extensive leaderboards for the game, for cabals (guilds), factions and countries, so I expect there might be some impact on the topside world in the game.

Oh, and for the record; I’m a Templar.