NCSOFT invests in Swedish game startup Moon Rover Games

NCSOFT Corp., a South Korean game developer, said on Tuesday it has made an early stage investment of $3.5 million in Swedish game startup Moon Rover Games as the sole participant in its seed funding round. 

Stockholm-based Moon Rover will use the proceeds to develop a first-person shooter game based on new intellectual property for play on computers and consoles under the name of Project Aldous.

NCSOFT said it is discussing making additional investments in the game development project and securing its publishing rights.

Moon Rover was established in 2022 by shooting game veterans from EA Digital Illusions (DICE), a Swedish video game developer.

They had participated in the development of top-grossing first-person shooter games such as the Battlefield video game series, Far Cry and Tom Clancy’s The Division.

A first-person shooter (FPS) game refers to a shooter video game seen from a first-person perspective.

The investment fits in well with NCSOFT's strategy of growing beyond massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) to lure young players, as its blockbuster MMORPG Lineage series seems to have lost its luster.

With the investment, the two companies will build a long-term partnership and strategic cooperation, said the Korean game developer.

NCSOFT is seeking to invest in domestic and foreign companies to increase its game portfolio with various genres and release games on multiple platforms for global expansion.

“Moon Rover Games ... is a high-potential company, continuously making new attempts to leverage its expertise in shooting genre games,” Park Byungmoo, co-chief executive of NCSOFT, said in a statement.

The private equity veteran added the Swedish game startup’s Project Aldous will be complementary to NCSOFT's game titles in terms of genre and export market.

In August, NCSOFT is slated to reveal new investments in a Korean game development studio, including the purchase of its stake and publishing rights, as well as a joint project for its foray into Southeast Asia, said the former Korea head of Newbridge Capital. He joined NCSOFT as co-CEO in March of this year.

Write to Seung-Woo Lee at leeswoo@hankyung.com
 


Yeonhee Kim edited this article.