NCSOFT unveiled its new title Cinder City at an NVIDIA private event held on the 19th (local time) at Hafen 12 in Cologne, Germany. Hafen 12—a former industrial site converted into a cultural-arts venue—carries an atmosphere reminiscent of Seoul’s Seongsu-dong.

Cinder City is an MMO tactical shooter in development for PC and consoles, targeting a 2026 launch. In collaboration with NVIDIA, NCSOFT is applying the latest graphics tech, including DLSS 4 and Ray Reconstruction, and the game is also planned for release on NVIDIA’s cloud gaming service GeForce NOW.

This Cinder City demo clearly showcased gameplay that is a step forward from when the project was previously revealed as Project LLL at G-Star.

Back then, the game leaned heavily toward an MMOTPS experience—large numbers of players roaming an expansive field to hunt orcs. This time, Cinder City was presented as a single-player, story-driven campaign, following a tightly constructed narrative. Players engage humanoid enemies, allowing for deeper immersion in a tale set against the backdrop of a desolate Seoul.

The demo sequence took place on the streets of a futuristic city, where the player engaged in fierce firefights with hostile forces. Helicopters streaking overhead and frequent explosions all around lent a palpable sense of being thrust into the heart of a battlefield.

That said, even in a short hands-on window, it was clear there’s still room to refine the shooter’s core hit feedback—the crucial “feel” of landing shots.

A shooter’s hit feedback is a composite of factors: recoil, muzzle rise, recoil control, and the instantaneous sensation when a round connects. In Cinder City, recoil behavior and control felt on par with leading shooters, but the moment-to-moment impact when bullets hit came off somewhat muted.

Now that Cinder City is set in Seoul, that choice can register as a fresh hook rather than a liability in the global market. With the clear step up from the G-Star build already evident, if the team can nail the “taste” of the shooting—that decisive sense of impact—then the true fun that BigFire Games CEO Jaehyun Bae aims to deliver with Cinder City has every chance to shine.

This article was translated from the original that appeared on INVEN.