Posting by the game director on their forum.
Aside from the recent Krafton drama with Subnautica 2, that rose colored glasses outlook by Cobler above regarding this acquisition (Krafton acquired 100% of Eleventh Hour Games) will likely not end up being that way in a few years given how most of the companies prior buyouts have panned out. Krafton’s (and before its rebranding, Bluehole) leadership now is something only a fool would trust.
If Cobler and his team actually did their research and due diligence (which I doubt was very in-depth), they would’ve uncovered the actual reality of the company they are now owned 100% by. They may not have found this blog (since I had search disabled on Blogger and have it reduced search visibility enabled here as well), but MassivelyOP (not an exactly unknown site) has long covered a lot of this (and I’ve provided a few of those tips to them in the past).
At least for the principals of Eleventh Hour Games, it was a nice payday. But they literally have signed Last Epoch’s future death warrant now that Krafton owns them (they have “free” reign now, but don’t expect that to be lasting because the usual power dynamic with these South Korean studios is eventually reporting to a Korean overlord). Myself, I only played the game very early on and never did try it again even after release because my general interest in ARPG’s fell off a cliff during this period. Now (if say my interest might have been piqued), I wouldn’t bother. As for those who kickstarted or bought the game later, enjoy the game while it lasts. Anyone thinking of spending money on it now though should reconsider supporting Krafton.
Since I hadn’t been following the ongoings of the company since they shutdown development and service of TERA PC in June 2022, I learned that the Callisto Protocol did eventually launch in late 2022 and it was plagued with issues (unsurprising). In this case with Last Epoch, Krafton has acquired a working game (which they will eventually screw up once the KR leadership begins taking over).
The old Bluehole Alliance/Krafton Game Union is littered with studios and games that ended up in Krafton’s Challenges (what I prefer calling FAILURES). Search this blog for Krafton, Bluehole Ginno (and it’s eventual renaming to PUBG Corp), Devilian (an MMO-ARPG that was part of the Ginno Games acquisition where once they signed various publishing deals, quickly abandoned development of the PC version).
That “Krafton shares the same passion for ARPG’s” is part of how Devilian was created. Current Krafton CEO Chang-Han Kim (aka CH Kim) was the co-founder for Ginno Games (which Bluehole acquired in 2014). Back then, acquisitions were rebranded and became part of the Bluehole Alliance (Ginno Games -> Bluehole Ginno). Kim was also the CTO for Bluehole Ginno and Devilian’s executive producer. Yes, he and the other co-founder (Park Won Hee) were big ARPG fans. They ended up killing Devilian in the process by their decisions though.
Krafton also tried their hand with a buy-to-play turn based RPG called MISTOVER in 2019, and quickly abandoned further development of it after release. They finally decided to stop selling/delisting it across all platforms in 2022 (this is a decision that should’ve happened by 2020). The one saving grace is that it was a single player game that didn’t have its logic running on a game server (thus anyone who owns the game can continue to play it).
But yeah, Krafton “loves” (A)RPG’s so much that they’ve killed two of them already (3 if you count Devilian Mobile). No, the company just wants something to quickly cash grab while hoping it becomes wildly successful like PUBG such that they have another cash cow. I hate to take this negative line of thinking, but this is just going to end up being another in that list.
I give it less than a year before Krafton corporate starts pushing the current team out of the way in favor of Korean leadership and start turning Last Epoch into a rehash of their other dead titles. I mean, when a company shows you who/what they are the first time around, believe them.
