Pre-Launch Test in North America, Japan, and More on September 18
"Building a Dark Fantasy Fandom and Focusing on Long-Term Service"
"At next month's Tokyo Game Show, we aim to heighten anticipation for the launch and expand both the game's universe and its user fandom. We are putting significant effort into localization and balancing."
Kim Juhyung, Head of Business at Smilegate, made these remarks at the media demo event for "Chaos Zero Nightmare" (hereafter referred to as Kazena), held on August 28 at the WDG Studio in Mapo-gu, Seoul. He stated, "Following the establishment of our Japanese subsidiary, we are continuously working on branding and user acquisition to penetrate the market."
Kazena is a role-playing game (RPG) currently being developed by Supercreative, set in a world where humanity has been overtaken by a chaotic entity (Chaos). Players collect characters and assemble their unique "card decks" to engage in battles. The character decks evolve during exploration, and users can select different decks for each battle, enabling a variety of play styles.
Although the game features beautiful girl characters in the style of Japanese animation, the overall atmosphere is not bright. Horror elements have been added, such as characters losing their memories or experiencing mental breakdowns.
Kim Hyungseok, Co-CEO of Supercreative, stated, "We have taken many bold risks," and expressed confidence, saying, "I believe there will not be another game like Kazena in the future."
He added, "In the past five years, works with dark themes and atmospheres have dominated the animation industry, but such attempts have been virtually nonexistent in the gaming industry. I think we might be the first case. We are preparing content that will make your heart race with excitement."
He continued, "Each character has 25 unique cards and there are 100 shared card abilities, which players can combine to build their decks," emphasizing, "We have worked hard to maximize the core fun elements while maintaining balance."
Efforts in localization were also highlighted. Kim stated, "I believe localization is not just about making the game more enjoyable, but also about resonating with the emotions of each region. For example, we are paying close attention to voice recording by recruiting famous voice actors."
Kazena, which is currently accepting pre-registrations, aims for a global simultaneous launch within the year, excluding China. From September 18, a four-day pre-play test will be conducted in Korea, North America, Japan, and Taiwan to further refine the game. The game will support Korean, English, Japanese, and Traditional Chinese. Having surpassed 1 million pre-registrations, Kazena recently obtained a foreign game license in China. This is considered encouraging, as the license was secured before the official launch.
Kim expressed expectations for the expansion of Kazena's intellectual property (IP). He said, "We plan to provide information about Kazena outside of the game through various communities and social networking services (SNS), and to build the IP together with users. We are also considering ways to actively support derivative works."
He added, "I do not believe that subculture games should focus only on short-term revenue and making a brief appearance at the top of the charts. Our goal is long-term service rather than short-term results, and we consider traffic metrics more important than revenue indicators. Our top priority is to attract as many users as possible at launch, maintain their retention, and keep them engaged for three months, six months, and beyond."
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