Nexon gears up to present nine new games at G-Star 2022

Tech

Published: 08 Nov. 2022, 19:24

Nexon gears up to present nine new games at G-Star 2022

Lee Jung-hun, CEO of Nexon Korea, gives a preview of nine new games Nexon will present at G-Star 2022 ahead of the game festival next week on Tuesday at the company's office in Pangyo, Gyeonggi. [NEXON]

Nexon gave a preview of nine new games it will present at G-Star 2022 ahead of the game festival next week.

Three games — The First Descendant, KartRider: Drift, and Dave the Diver — will be available on consoles and either mobile devices or computers, and are aimed at penetrating the Western market, according to Nexon Korea CEO Lee Jung-hun.

“This is the first time for us to present console games, and visitors to the booth will be able to try them out at G-Star,” Lee said during a press conference held Tuesday at the company’s office in Pangyo, Gyeonggi.

“We want to highlight our efforts to provide our games on multiple platforms, because we believe that console games are indivisible to a game company’s success in the Western market. Console users in markets like Japan and Europe are huge, like mobile and PC users are in Korea.”

Returning to the festival’s offline venue for the first time in four years, Nexon will be taking up 300 booths at Busan’s Bexco, the largest space among all participating companies.

The space will be used to let visitors try out four upcoming games on 560 devices, including the aforementioned three console games and Mabinogi Mobile, a massively-multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG). Each game will be available for 10 to 25 minutes of play.

Developers of each game will pop in for surprise talk sessions with visitors, but the company did not detail when.

Lee Jung-hun, CEO of Nexon Korea [NEXON]

Trailer videos of five games that are still being developed will also be played on LED screens at the site: 3-D action roleplaying game (RPG) Project AK, or Arad Chronicle: Kazan; 3-D shooting RPG Project Overkill; Godsome: Clash of Gods, a massively-multiplayer online real-time strategy game (MMORTS); Gensei Suikoden Online MMORPG; and Night Walker, a multiplayer online roleplaying game (MORPG).

The word “Return” was chosen as the company’s theme for its exhibitions this year, meaning both that Nexon has returned to G-Star and that the company will return to the basics and concentrate on providing quality services to its users, Lee said.

“We promised in 2019 that we would return to the basics and make better choices and concentrate on them,” Lee said. “We’ve spent the last four years trying to stay faithful to that promise, and you will be able to see that at G-Star.”

The publisher terminated the service of its mobile game Durango: Wild Lands on Dec. 18, 2019, less than two years after the company ambitiously released the much-anticipated MMORPG on Jan. 25, 2018.

The game was shut down after suffering from poor user reviews and glitches regarding its servers, and was considered one of the biggest misfortunes for the company.

Nexon has announced it will be bringing it back under the name Project DX, a new MMORPG taking the dinosaur-era survival theme from the original. A date has not been set for release, nor any further details on what kind of game it will be.

A 3-D rendered image of Nexon's exhibition booth at G-Star 2022 [NEXON]

“To be quite honest, Durango was one of the most meaningful and most heart-breaking titles for Nexon,” Lee said. “We’ve always wanted to bring it back, and the developers are working on making a high-quality revival of Durango."

The company will also expand its portfolio in content outside of games, Lee said. As a part of that effort, Nexon participated in the production of a film titled “Rebound,” which revolves around the true story of a high school basketball team that was on the verge of dissemination. It is set for release next year.

“I believe that the key factor to a game company’s survival is the possession of intellectual properties [IP], by which I mean not just owning the games but also the story-telling abilities based on those titles,” said Lee.

“We can create games and expand them to webtoons, novels or films. And that’s the kind of revolution that will help us survive in the global market in the long term. That’s why we teamed up with Hollywood production company AGBO and why we will keep on collaborating with companies outside of games.”

This year’s G-Star game festival will take place from Nov. 17 to 20 at Busan’s Bexco convention hall in tandem with the Esports Championships East Asia, which will take place from Nov. 16 to 18 at the Brena Esports arena.

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]