Korean echoed from the 'Opening Night Live (ONL)' stage. It was the trailer for 'Like or Die', which NC revealed as the official title for the game previously developed under the working title 'Project Bonfire'.

ONL is an English-speaking stage. Hosted by Geoff Keighley and broadcast live worldwide, developers from around the world present trailers tailored to English voiceovers. It had long been standard practice for Korean game companies to apply English dubbing when stepping onto global showcases, as erasing marks of being a Korean game and presenting it as a "global product" was the established playbook.

The backdrop that made this choice possible also exists outside of games. Western players' resistance to subtitles has dropped noticeably over the past few years, and Japanese subculture games, far from hiding Japanese voiceovers, embraced them as their core identity to attract global audiences. Chinese developers took the same path. Game Science introduced 'Black Myth: Wukong' with a Chinese-dubbed trailer, followed by 'Black Myth: Zhong Kui' using the same approach. Precedents have accumulated showing that keeping the native language is not an obstacle to global expansion. Original voice tracks have become a matter of texture, not a handicap.

Looking at the game's concept, the choice becomes even clearer. 'Like or Die' is a team-based survival FPS where players become streamers on the universal platform 'Quaya Stream' and broadcast combat live. In a game that uses streaming as its format, speech accent and rhythm are not background noise, but a key component of the content. Instead of replacing that layer with English dubbing, they opted to overlay subtitles.

The combination at Gamescom sends an even clearer signal. Companies usually present what they do best. For NC, that is MMORPGs. Yet both new titles revealed were shooters, and at the Gamescom B2B booth that opened on the 26th, another pillar the company put front and center was mobile casual. It was a venue to showcase not what they excel at today, but what they aim to excel at.

Shooters are already forming a cluster. 'Time Takers', a third-person shooter developed by Mistil Games and published by NC, is gearing up for a Steam global playtest on September 5, while 'Cinder City' is an open-world cinematic third-person shooter, and 'Like or Die' is a team-based survival FPS. Even within the same genre, their perspectives, structures, and gameplay systems differ. The "shooter cluster" vision announced by Co-CEO Park Byung-moo during an earnings call early last year has now materialized into a lineup of actual titles.

Shooters and mobile casual games share one thing in common: they are not sectors where NC was traditionally strong in Korea, but they represent major pillars globally. In designating mobile casual as a new growth engine, NC cited the fact that this sector accounts for over 30% of the global gaming market. In short, the company aims to target demand that cannot be reached through the playbook of the domestic market.

The mobile casual business moves fast. NC established a Mobile Casual Center in August last year and brought in Anel Ceman. It subsequently acquired a 67% stake in Indigo Group, the parent company of Vietnam's Lihuhu, for 153.4 billion won, and in March this year bought a 70% stake in German reward platform JustPlay for $202 million. This structure secures organization, talent, and platforms all from Europe and Southeast Asia.

Nor is the company simply exporting its existing strengths as-is. 'AION 2' will undergo early access on September 30 before launching simultaneously across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia on October 5 via Steam and PURPLE. Unlike its domestic service, the mobile version has been dropped in favor of PC exclusivity with regional servers. In terms of business model, it excludes paid loot boxes and opts for a structure centered on memberships and passes, directly addressing Western gamers' resistance to pay-to-win. This means NC has voluntarily stripped away the proven monetization formula of Korean MMORPGs.

The language chosen at ONL, the genres brought to the stage, the organization highlighted at B2B, and the business model trimmed from AION 2. What NC showed at this Gamescom may seem like separate matters, but they point in the exact same direction. Instead of translating and exporting what was made for the Korean market, NC is restructuring the company with "global" as its default setting. NC is going global.