Under the deal, Games Workshop is solely financing the project and Climax is providing its development and project management expertise. 12 months on and Warhammer Online is now keen to start talks with publishers regarding a marketing and distribution partnership, and with technology providers about hosting the game online.

“The last year has been a high speed roller coaster ride for all of us,” commented Robin Dews, general manager of Warhammer Online. “We knew from the outset that delivering an online game was going to be an exciting and challenging project, but the development has progressed well and the time is now ripe for us to move forward in terms of building the strategic alliances we’ll need to get the game to market.”

“Over the past few months we’ve had numerous conversations with world class ISPs who can provide the level of technical support, co-location and bandwidth we’ll need to deliver the game to our players. As we move towards ECTS at the end of August, we are in a position to show the game to publishers with a view to doing a deal by the end of the year.”

“Although Games Workshop already has a global distribution network for its own products, we realise that publishing and placing computer games is a highly specialist area. So we’re looking for a publisher that can take a self-funded project and give us the best possible marketing and distribution for the game.”

Karl Jeffery, CEO of Climax, added: “Warhammer Online has been a great partnership for us and the game is beginning to look truly spectacular. We’re really looking forward to getting out there and selecting a world class publishing partner over the next few months.”