Netmarble's Solo Leveling: ARISE to launch in May

Industry

Published: 19 Mar. 2024, 19:21 Updated: 19 Mar. 2024, 19:25

Netmarble's Solo Leveling: ARISE to launch in May

Netmarble Managing Director Cho Sin-hwa, Netmarble CEO Kwon Young-sig, Netmarble Neo Executive Director Kim June-song and Netmarble Neo Producer Jin Seong-gun pose for a photo at a media showcase to introduce the upcoming title Solo Leveling: ARISE in Guro District, western Seoul, on Tuesday. [NETMARBLE]

Netmarble’s highly anticipated action role-playing game (RPG) Solo Leveling: ARISE is slated for global release in early May, the game publisher said on Tuesday.

CEO Kwon Young-sig is confident that the title will live up to its global fandom's expectations and contribute to uplifting the company's sagging profits, he said during a media showcase at Netmarble’s headquarters in Guro District, western Seoul.

“Netmarble has series of long-awaited game lineups that will be released in the first half of this year, including Solo Leveling: ARISE, which will be released in early May,” Kwon said. “I am confident that the company will achieve a turnaround by the first half of this year.”

Including Solo Leveling, Netmarble will release four new titles by the first half of this year — Arthdal Chronicles: Three Factions, Raven 2 and King Arthur: Legends Rise.

The company posted an operating loss of 69.6 billion won in 2023 while revenue dipped 6.4 percent to 2.5 trillion won.

Solo Leveling centers around protagonist Sung Jin-woo and his maturation into a high-class hunter — a human with magical abilities who can fight monsters. The upcoming RPG was adapted from a massively popular web novel by Chu Gong, which has a committed fandom. It has been adapted into both a webtoon and an animated series, both of which were highly successful.

Netmarble, however, hasn't been entirely successful in adapting popular IP in the past. The publisher previously attempted to leverage K-pop phenomenon BTS, fronting its seven members as the main characters of its BTS World in 2019 and BTS Universe Story games in 2020. Both services were terminated last year with lukewarm and negative reviews.

Massively multiplayer role-playing game (MMORPG) Marvel Future Revolution, adapted from Marvel comics, also shut down its service, two years after its launch in August 2021, due to underwhelming game performance.

Netmarble's team insists that things will go better this time. The CEO emphasized that its developers are consistently communicating with the novelist, Chu Gong, and are establishing, with his permission, gameplay narratives and alternative stories that did not originate in the web novel or webtoon.

“In-game main stories will be updated quarterly, and there will be other stories centering around other hunters that will be updated every month,” said Kim June-sung, executive director of Netmarble Neo.

Kwon also hinted of a possibility of a console version — if the game does well as he hopes it will.

“The RPG will opt to launch on Steam this year first,” Kwon said. “Based on feedback from the platform, we may adapt the game into console format as well.”

The RPG started accepting preregistration on Tuesday and will kick off open beta testing in two countries — Thailand and Canada — on Thursday.

“Thailand and Canada were chosen because of their concentrated IP fandom,” said Netmarble Managing Director Cho Sin-hwa. “We project that the game will be popular in regions in North America, Japan and, of course, Korea, where the animation series is seeing much success.”

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]