With G-STAR 2023 under way in Busan, South Korea, some of the biggest Korean game studios are exhibiting their current AND potential new titles. One of them is NC (aka NCsoft) which everyone knows, is slated to launch Throne and Liberty domestically in a couple of weeks. NC’s presence at G-STAR this year is huge. They are taking up over 200 booths of floor space to unveil and show off these new projects (and also for Throne and Liberty). They also showed off Battle Crush and more Throne and Liberty footage during NC’s day 1 opening speech (which starts 30 minutes in):
But they also teased trailers of some other projects they are working on. The one that really caught my attention was Project G. It’s an RTS with a hell of a lot of inspiration from StarCraft (back in the “old” days, besides being into RPG’s like Wizardry and Diablo, I was also into RTS’ like Ancient Art of War (and its sequel, Ancient Art of War at Sea), Command & Conquer, Warcraft, Myth: The Fallen Lords, Age of Empires, and StarCraft just to name a few. Project G goes where Blizzard did not after putting StarCraft II into maintenance mode; it’s an MMO-RTS.
Blizzard has remained mum when it comes to what is next for the StarCraft franchise (they barely even mentioned this IP at BlizzCon; I finally watched the VODS a few days ago and came to the conclusion that even the key organizers who ran prior BlizzCon’s, have left the company because the whole thing was underwhelming – but this is really something for another posting). Digressing, it always made sense (at least to me) to just extend the multiplayer part of an RTS into an MMO style world (and to also have that element available in the main story campaign). Competitive StarCraft is still huge in South Korea, so it sort of makes sense for one of the domestic studios to give the genre a shot (and potentially steal mindshare away from Blizzard (a smart move IMHO).
The lead for this project provides a bit more insight in the opening speech video. I think it’s fantastic that part of their design expands on the usual RTS aspects (he even specifically mentions StarCraft) with MMO elements including guilds, and having those guilds play a huge role in competitive wars (normally, it’s been 1v1 through 4v4 where the latter requires a lot of team coordination on maps; scaling it to guilds in a persistent open world environment, turns it into a more challenging macro/micro design without such sieges becoming zerg/cheese fests). NC still has to deliver on a lot of the base core systems, balancing, an actually immersive story (which is still a huge part of the StarCraft universe) AND support for competitive play globally in order for this to potentially supplant StarCraft/StarCraft II as the RTS of choice for this segment. I expect there to be smaller scale arenas for the usual formats.
The next teaser looks like NC’s response to Genshin Impact, Project BSS (a collectible character action RPG). You can see the characters drawing their inspiration from a key NC IP, Blade & Soul. This is absolutely a smart move on their part.
Going off on a short tangent/rant, Krafton/Bluehole IMHO, missed out on an opportunity to create something like this for TERA. They had an Elin Online early on, but missed the mark since it was also a half-assed effort (like most all of their attempts post-TERA/pre-PUBG). Devilian was another attempt at utilizing parts of the TERA IP (once Bluehole had acquired Ginno Games and renamed it to Bluehole Ginno), but that team could not seal the deal (but ironically, Bluehole Ginno ended up putting out the thing that saved the entirety of Bluehole, PUBG). Current day Krafton is basically all about PUBG (since it still rakes in money), but has also resulted in a loss of the identity that made the company relevant in the first place. They’ve yet to deliver on the major projects they hinted about (they’ve released minors ones that have been shuttered though), and I don’t expect them to even try entering this space even though TERA on console is still chugging along (but for how long more, it’s only a matter of when, not if the service termination notice comes; I still believe it will not last past 2024).
Digressing, Project BSS is another unexpected thing from NC that I am going to keep my eye on should it actually release. This too will have an uphill battle with taking any sort of mindshare away from Genshin Impact (or miHoYo/HOYOVERSE) in general since this also includes Honkai: Star Rail and their impending and completely new IP, Zenless Zone Zero (which while I expect it to have a completely unrelated cast of characters, will employ the same systems that make Genshin and the Honkai franchises successful).
The next teaser is for something currently called LLL. It’s an open world “MMO” shooter that seems to draw inspiration from games like Destiny, Warframe (or the failed Anthem). How MMO this will be is unknown but I view it more as a shared open world experience that is set in a post-apocalyptic world. As someone who isn’t (and has never been) into shooter style games of any type, this one also doesn’t interest me any (it does look good graphically though).
The final teaser is for Project M; NC’s stab at doing an interactive adventure story/fighting style of game that Japanese developers have long been known for with well known franchises like Final Fantasy or the Yakuza series (to name a few).
Korean game studios have been interested in tapping into the console market, but don’t have the long term expertise like western and Japanese studios have had. To date, it’s been primarily ports of MMO’s like Black Desert Online, TERA, and the yet to be released ArcheAge 2. But it’s these whole other genres of interactive role playing and shooter games they have long been missing out on (the exception being Smilegate with Crossfire which has been popular mainly in China). Krafton has long been teasing the Callisto Protocol, but has yet to deliver on this (and many other so called “active in development” titles). As a matter of fact, Krafton’s G-STAR (non-PUBG related) announcements were lackluster by comparison.
To be even more blunt, NC is the only major Korean game studio that seems to have a pulse (and that is a lot considering my long stance on how I feel about NC/NCsoft in general). It’s just that I look at NEXON as being even worse of a company, while Krafton has dropped way down to the bottom for me along side Pearl Abyss and Kakao Games/XLGAMES. Smilegate (for me) is somewhere in the middle; they are supposed to finally unveil Lost Ark Mobile at G-STAR. This version of the game has been in development for at least 6 years now (their prior “close to unveiling game play” timeline was based on releasing Lost Ark PC in their original target regions). This one will be interesting since they have noted it being cross play across multiple platforms; so it will be interesting if they tie this to the current PC version in some fashion or if it will be tied to certain stuff that is added to the PC version which allows it to work in conjunction with mobile). But that will be for another post (once they announcement is made/the game demoed).
