Today is the day that Age of Conan joins what some people call the free-to-play revolution. The free-to-play update previously called Age of Conan Unrated, has been renamed Age of Conan Unchained and includes a plethora of new content with the 2.6 update such as the Forgotten City and The Breach solo instances.

In addition to today’s update, a new Monthly Development Update has been posted that outlines planned content throughout the rest of the year. Tier 4 raids are scheduled to arrive sometime during the last quarter of 2011. Also scheduled to release during that same timeframe is the new House of Crom dungeon and testing on the Blood and Glory PvP server update is ongoing.

The Savage Coast of Turan expansion is also scheduled to release later this year and we can expect more information about that and the first major update to follow its release as the year goes on.

For now, the Age of Conan servers remain down with extended downtime for the free-to-play update, but you can check out a preview of what's in store at PC Gamer. Patch notes for the update will be available later today.

Update: 2.6 patch notes are now available.

Sources:

Age of Conan 2.6 Patch Notes

Age of Conan Downtime Announcement

Age of Conan June Monthly Development Update

PC Gamer