NCSoft releases trailers of two upcoming games

South Korea’s gaming behemoth NCSoft Corp. released trailers for two new titles named Throne and Liberty and Project E on Thursday. 

The company explained the two games are connected to one another. The stories are set in two different continents in a shared universe. 

Throne and Liberty is set against a continent dubbed Solisium, modeled after the Middle Ages in Europe. The new product is being developed for console and computer titles with a plan for international release in the latter half of this year.

When the company released previews of five intellectual properties last month, experts had widely expected them to be MMORPGs or Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games. The trailers confirmed that to be the case.

The trailer for Throne and Liberty shows the in-game contents from a first person perspective. The player can transform his or her character into different animals that are optimized for surface, water, and air combat. 

Project E takes place in Laisak that mimics the same period in Asia. Industry insiders say the letter 'e' in the title stands for East and that the game has borrowed different components from traditional Korean culture. 

Last month, NCSoft revealed some details of the game through a preview. The newly released trailer shows its own narrative and a glimpse of the shared universe with Throne and Liberty.

The narrative begins with a star that falls onto the planet, affecting its geography and vegetation.

An elf that appears towards the tail end of the trailer symbolizes the connection between the two games.

Korean gaming shares have been hit hard by the worse-than-expected earnings. 

On Feb. 17, NCSoft anounced it posted Q4 revenue of 757 billion won ($623 million) and operating profit of 110 billion won. The financial market’s consensus estimate for its operating profit was 221 billion won. 

Online game developers in Korea have also been affected by investors’ lack of confidence in the companies’ ability to reap profit in new business sectors including non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the metaverse.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, game developers in Korea significantly increased salaries and financial incentives for developers to recruit the best talent. 

Write to Jee Abbey Lee at jal@hankyung.com