After a rather sluggish performance last year that forced the company to take a breather, NC is strengthening its overall business direction. NC is dropping 'Soft' from its name, setting a course to move beyond being a single-genre game developer to becoming a comprehensive content and platform company. By diversifying its revenue structure, which previously relied on a small number of franchises, it is accelerating its entry into the global market.

In particular, in addition to the hardcore MMORPG genre it has been diligently operating, it is expanding its genre base by taking on new challenges in open-world shooters and 3D action games. Beyond the hardcore genres currently under internal development, the company is adopting a two-track strategy, with mobile casual genres serving as a major pillar of its new business, targeting the global market through active M&A and publishing.

First, as gaming consumption trends have shifted toward preferring short bursts of immersion over long play sessions, the profitability of the mobile casual game genre has been highlighted. While maintaining its existing strength in MMORPG development, NC is actively pursuing M&A to strengthen its casual game division in line with new consumption trends. NC plans to increase its market share in the Western and global markets through this dual-genre operation.

NC established a new mobile casual business division last year, reorganized the organization by recruiting center head Adel Cheman, who has professional experience, and built a specialized team with the addition of user acquisition and data experts like Anthony Pascal. In December of last year, it acquired 'LiHuHu,' a Vietnam-based developer focused on match-3, number, and hole genres, and 'Springcomes,' a domestic developer specializing in the merge genre.

In addition, the acquisition of the Europe-based mobile casual game platform 'JustPlay' is also being completed. JustPlay has a structure where users are provided with in-game currency or cash-like rewards when they play games. NC appears to be building an independent mobile casual game ecosystem by connecting LiHuHu, Springcomes, and others under the platform in the future.

Additional revenue growth is also expected through the expansion of publishing. While the mobile casual game genre consumes fewer development resources, the low barrier to entry makes market competition fierce. This makes the importance of marketing expenditure for user acquisition significant. NC explained that its mobile casual game business aims not only to generate simple revenue but also to build a value chain and strengthen competitiveness by combining it with in-house AI technology and data. NC's AI technology is scheduled to be applied to the JustPlay platform to increase advertising efficiency.

NC continues to steadily operate and develop its internal hardcore genres. In particular, the new title 'Aion 2,' released last year, is operated in a different way from NC's existing MMORPG formula. It has adopted a business model that can be maintained in the long term if a user base is secured by focusing on character customization, and for this, it focuses on operations and user communication. In particular, there is high demand for character costumes, and the attitude of continuously identifying user needs through more frequent developer communication broadcasts compared to other domestic MMORPGs is also receiving favorable reviews.

In addition to games currently in operation, new titles are also under development. NC is developing 'Horizon Steel Frontiers,' a PC and mobile MMORPG based on Sony's flagship franchise 'Horizon.' Sony serviced the PC MMORPG 'EverQuest' in the global market in 1999. However, it lost its live service infrastructure operation technology and know-how after selling the studio in 2015. It appears that Sony's famous IP will be completed based on NC's server optimization technology that accommodates large numbers of people and its know-how in economic systems, and there has been much praise for the gameplay video first revealed last November.

New titles based on its own IP are also under development. Last April, NC recruited personnel for the development of 'Project NL.' Project NL uses Unreal Engine 5 and is a new title utilizing the 'Lineage' IP. According to the recruitment notice for Project NL posted on the 2nd, it is a next-generation Lineage project and is being developed as a cross-platform title for PC and mobile. Accurate information about the game will be released in the future.

In addition, the shooters 'Cinder City' and 'Bonfire' are also under development. Cinder City is a third-person open-world shooter being developed by the subsidiary BigFire Games. It was showcased at G-STAR in 2023 and 2025 and received good evaluations for its direction and graphics. It is accelerating development with the goal of a global launch in the second half of this year. In addition, the AAA action game 'Project JSY' based on the 'Blade & Soul' IP is also being developed with new personnel recruitment.