Will Night Crows be Korean game developer WeMade’s savior?

WeMade Co. on Thursday officially launched Night Crows, a new massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG), in South Korea as the major domestic game publisher makes a push for profitability.

Night Crows, based on a new intellectual property, topped the game lists of both the App Store and Google Play as of Friday with its revenue on Apple’s app market at No. 1 and Google’s market at No. 8.

The popularity of the new title pushed up WeMade’s share prices by 15.35% in Seoul’s stock market although the wider Kosdaq lost 0.87%.

WeMade is targeting a turnaround with Night Crows. The developer of the global-hit MMORPG Mir4 logged an operating loss of 84.9 billion won ($63.4 million) last year amid weak sales of the flagship title, swinging from a profit of 97.4 billion won in 2021.

The country’s play-to-earn game pioneer also suffered the delisting of its cryptocurrency from local virtual currency trading platforms in late 2022.

REALISTIC GRAPHICS

Night Crows attracts users with realistic graphics as WeMade created it based on Unreal Engine 5 developed by Epic Games Inc., the latest version of the world’s most open and advanced real-time 3D creation tool. Currently, Epic’s Fortnite and Night Crows are the only games developed with Unreal Engine 5.

Some frames on Night Crows, however, did not work smoothly when users played the game on high-performance smartphones, which WeMade is expected to resolve through further optimization.

Users select one character from Warrior, Swordsman, Hunter and Witch to participate in the Night Crows Knights’ missions in Europe in the 13th century, right after the Fourth Crusade. The game allows players to automatically complete quests and battles.

Night Crows has a special feature – Glider, which players can obtain only when they reach a certain level. The flying vehicle is used not only for long-distance transportation but also for fights in the sky, depending on players’ levels, the company said.

Night Crows relies on loot boxes, in-game lucky draws, for revenue, which have been criticized as players are not sure if what they buy will upgrade the abilities of their characters even though they pay in cash.

Write to Seung-Woo Lee at leeswoo@hankyung.com
 
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.