"Lost Ark Mobile Most Anticipated"... Kwon Hyuk-bin's Surprise Visit to G-Star

Kwon Hyuk-bin, the founder of Smilegate, visited the Busan BEXCO G-Star venue on the 16th.

Kwon Hyuk-bin, founder and Chief Vision Officer (CVO) of Smilegate, made a surprise visit to ‘G-Star 2023’ held at BEXCO in Busan on the 16th. Visiting the G-Star venue for the first time in four years and touring several booths, CVO Kwon said, “Lost Ark Mobile is the most anticipated.”

On that day, CVO Kwon visited the first exhibition hall of the G-Star BTC (Business to Consumer) zone at 3 p.m. It was his first visit to the G-Star BTC booths in four years since 2019. The year 2019 was also when Smilegate RPG’s PC online game, Lost Ark, won the grand prize at the Korea Game Awards.

When asked why he returned to the G-Star venue after four years, CVO Kwon replied, “I came to show support.” Regarding questions about the official release schedule or sales targets for Lost Ark Mobile, he refrained from commenting, saying, “It would be appropriate for Jiwon Gil, CEO of Smilegate RPG, to answer that.”

Kwon Hyuk-bin, founder of Smilegate, is demonstrating 'Legend of Mir' at the Wemade booth at Busan BEXCO G-STAR on the 16th.

That day, he first visited the Wemade booth and demonstrated ‘Legend of Mir.’ Wearing headphones and directly controlling the character, CVO Kwon showed great interest in the game. He asked several questions related to game development to Song Mo-heon, President (COO) of Wemade, and Seok Hoon, PD of Mir, who were present at the demonstration.

Known for being ‘serious about games,’ CVO Kwon visited several booths despite his busy schedule and personally tried out competitors’ games. After the Wemade booth, he visited the Netmarble booth and demonstrated ‘The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin.’ During nearly 10 minutes of gameplay, he carefully examined each game element.

Later, at the Krafton booth, CVO Kwon demonstrated ‘Project Enjoy,’ spending the longest time on this game among those he tried that day. It is reported that he was particularly interested in the genre’s characteristics as a PC life simulation game. He also visited NCSoft to personally try ‘BBS’ and received explanations about ‘LLL,’ showing high interest in competitors’ games.

After touring the booths for about an hour, CVO Kwon said, “Lost Ark Mobile is the most anticipated. I support everyone.”

Smilegate showcased its new MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game), ‘Lost Ark Mobile,’ at G-Star. This game is a blockbuster MMORPG developed by Smilegate RPG using the Unreal Engine 5, leveraging the IP (intellectual property) of Lost Ark. The VR content, which was revealed as a surprise on the day, is expected to be utilized in various ways in conjunction with Lost Ark Mobile in the future.