NCSoft has just revealed LLL, an open world MMO third person shooter set in an alternate reality Seoul.
In an interview on their own website, project leader Seeder Jaehyun Bae shared some more details on the project. With LLL, NCSoft is deliberately bucking the trend of making a battle royale game, such as PUBG, which is produced by countrymen in Korean studio Krafton.
Instead, LLL will build its foundation on what NCSoft has had experience in. If you look back at the company’s history, that would be MMOs, such as Lineage and Guild Wars. While these were primarily published and most successful in Asia, NCSoft has produced many MMOs for the Western market as well, including Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa, and City of Heroes. While they haven’t been that successful in their Western endeavors, as one would put it, this wouldn’t be their first rodeo.
Here is how Seeder describes how the company sees shooters and what they want to build:
“The shooter genre is about understanding terrain and objects, choosing shelters, occupying the high ground, etc. This is because how you understand and use three-dimensional space is a core part of the decision-making process. We want to create different types of play and experiences in which players either work together or compete against each other by utilizing the two elements of ‘action’ that target and shoot at opponents and fractionalize and occupy ‘space’ within the environment.”
In a separate video interview, Seeder drops these hints about the game’s storyline:
“The first question is one that’s commonly featured in other science fiction stories. If technology were to advance without limitations, would what it means to be human also change?
The second question is, what if multiple groups at starkly different levels of technological advancement were to encounter each other?
In LLL, humans, mutants and powerful demons from different eras and different levels of technological progress meet on a single stage. What would happen in such a world?”
We had previously reported that NCSoft was contracted by PlayStation Studios to make a spinoff Horizon MMO as well. This will only be one of several high profile projects the Korean studio will be launching in the coming years. While we don’t fully know what NCSoft’s capabilities are today, it’s certainly reflective of broader trends in the industry.
As with PlayStation’s China Hero Project, that supports Chinese game studios in bringing their games to an international audience, Korean game studios have been trying to break through on the console gaming market worldwide, with limited results.
Of course, PUBG’s success is indisputable. Pearl Abyss has been trying to break through in recent years with Black Desert Online and Crimson Desert. And then there’s the sad story of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex – First Assault Online, produced by MapleStory developer Nexon.
Hopefully, this time NCSoft will be prepared to bring the banner of Korean gaming around the world.
LLL will be releasing on 2024 on PC and console.
Source: NCSoft via Video Games Chronicle
