Because Conan is one of the most popular figures in fantasy fiction, the stories have also inspired several games. The first, called Conan, came out in 1984 for the Commodore 64. The most recent, also called Conan, was released for the PC, Xbox, GameCube, and PlayStation 2 in 2004--in Europe. However, the game's publisher, TDK Mediactive, could not find a US distributor.

Now, Conan fans yearning for adventure on their computers have something to look forward to. North Carolina-based publisher Funcom announced today that it is developing Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, a new role-playing game featuring the brawny barbarian. However, unlike the company's most famous game, Anarchy Online, the game will not be a traditional massively multiplayer role-playing game.