Secret World Legends Agent Network Coming Next Week

Funcom has been teasing Secret World Legends' upcoming Agent Network for a while now, noting that it will be a bit of a lead-up to the long awaited Season 2 content. Today, during a stream on Twitch, it was confirmed that the system will be arriving "sometime next week". Originally, the dev team had said they wanted to have it out before the end of February, so if they stick to that, we'll see it before Wednesday.

To prepare players for the system, today's entire stream was dedicated to the Agent Network System, giving a brief overview -- although a more in depth one than the video Andy posted last week.

As noted before, the system is designed to compliment the next big content update. It should help players in their progression by granting more rewards (anima shards, distillates, and the like). It also offers players a chance to experience more of the Secret World story by sending the agents off to places the player character can't go themselves. So, while we won't be making it to Los Angeles, Mexico, or some other places for a while, we'll have a better idea of what's going on there.

The Agent system is available pretty early on in the game -- at Faction Rank 3 (or level 15). Once a player hits this level, they will receive a message from their handler that will introduce them to the system. This means that newer players can start getting rewards early on.

The Agent system menu is available via the "P" key, and once in there you'll see spots for active missions, the agent roster, "supporting agent" stats (these are the bonus stats granted to the player character), and an agent specific inventory. Clicking on an agent will open their dossier which will offer information on everything from the character's background story, to level and traits. These are the same dossiers that players must pick up and add to their roster and they can be inspected beforehand to see if the agent in question is one you want to keep or would rather trade.

There are currently six different categories of missions with diamond ratings that indicate their difficulty. These loosely correspond to agent rank. Sending a player on a mission will require resources and each mission requires different kinds of resources. Luckily, the missions also reward resources, so players will just need to be aware of what they have and what they need to get to complete the missions they're after.

Another important thing to know is that successfully completing missions can open up more missions, similar to the mission chains that already exist in the game's main story. And, like main missions, these aren't completed until the report is sent. The missions will also come around again, so if one wasn't completed as successfully as a player might have liked, it can be redone in order to get the better rewards.

As for how to get agents, they're available pretty much everywhere. You can earn them through any action or sabotage mission, elite dungeons, lairs, scenarios, and as achievement rewards. They're also rewards for completing missions in the agent system. And yes. There will be Agent Network specific achievements.

For those players who are less interested in the system, Funcom has designed it to be as hands on or off as desired. In fact, the system will offer players one weekly mission with super low requirements that is guaranteed to succeed and offers nice rewards.

Finally, on the "real money" front. Yes. Some agents can be acquired with Aurum. Not all agents are available this way and those that are will also be able to be obtained normally in game.

That's the basics. If you're interested in a more visual rundown of the system, the stream vod can be watched below.