NCsoft must straighten out its accounts and was considering a launch of Aion 2 this year. The game would instead be postponed until next year. To wait, NCsoft is planning five launches this year.
Obviously, the Korean version of Throne and Liberty does not quite meet the popular success expected by NCsoft – the developer praises its large-scale game mechanics, but the MMORPG is clearly struggling to maintain its place in the rankings of the most played games in Korea. At the same time, the Korean giant recorded a disappointing fiscal year 2023 and must therefore take measures to improve results – and not scare away its shareholders. How to achieve this?
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If we are to believe the Korean institute Hanwha Investment & Securities, NCsoft is currently developing several strategies (which the group already outlined during its quarterly accounts presentation), including in particular mergers and acquisitions projects licenses or third-party studios – under the leadership of the new co-director of NCsoft, financier Park Byung-moo. These purchases would be intended to “produce immediate financial effects” by targeting studios which already display solid profitability, and the institute recalls that NCsoft currently has the equivalent of 1.45 billion euros in liquidity. and could mobilize up to 2.42 billion euros to develop this acquisition policy. Enough to do some shopping and NCsoft has already identified a “global group that does not make MMOs”.
Throne and Liberty in the second half of 2024 in the West, Aion 2 in 2025 in Korea?
However, the most obvious way to boost the group's accounts is to launch new games and Aion 2 would be one of the most serious candidates to attract players. We remember that NCsoft has already strengthened the team in charge of the game in order to accelerate its development and launch “as early as 2024, or even 2025 at the latest”. According to Hanwha Investment & Securities, the exit would now be considered more in 2025 rather than 2024.
NCsoft would already have five game or launch projects for this yearwhich would allow us to wait until next year to launch Aion 2. Among these games planned for 2024, we first find Battle Crush which will welcome testers again soon (according to the analyst, the game should not bring in a lot of money due to a not very aggressive economic model but could help to swell NCsoft's player base), then the Project BSS license based Blade and Soul. Both would be expected in the first half of this year. The international version of Throne and Liberty operated by Amazon Games should follow in the second half of 2024, followed by a “game derived from an existing license” at the same time. Moreover, Blade and Soul 2 could also launch in China in the second half of the year – after a lackluster launch in South Korea in 2021.
These five launches should allow NCsoft to keep its accounts afloat this year, while waiting for the launches of Project G (the next MMORTS from NCsoft) and therefore Aion 2 postponed to 2025. We will obviously wait for official confirmation from NCsoft, even if a launch of Aion 2 this year seemed unlikely as the developer has not yet revealed anything about its content. In the West, we will perhaps rather remember the launch of Throne and Liberty mentioned in second semester of this year – while waiting for the precise schedule concocted by Amazon Games.
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