Dungeon Fighter Online News & Events & Guides

Neople is the developer of Dungeon Fighter Online, a 2D action-based MMO which is soon to enter closed beta in North America through Nexon. The game has been in service in Korea for some time (asDungeon Fighter gold [video]), where it has been incredibly popular, and in Japan as Arad Senki since 2006. Currently, the major market for DFO is China, where it's reaching a over 1.5 million peak concurrent users. 

The game borrows heavily from side-scrolling classics like Capcom's Dungeon Fighter gold& Dragons, and represents a different style of game than one traditionally finds in the MMO space.

In DF director Yunjong Kim's own words: " Dungeon Fighter gold is basically an action game, it's about hacking and slashing, beating the opponents and beating the enemy. It's based on a part of human nature, which is the need for violence. We think that this could appeal to anybody all over the world."

"Of course the result will be a little bit different because of the environment and network. But once you play it then we're sure you're going to have a good time."

Since launch, the game has rather consistently been among Korea's top 10 MMOs, and the company looks to repeat that success in the West, after a rather lackluster reception in Japan. To that end, Neople has been acquired by Nexon, the reasons for which are revealed within, and both companies began service of the game within the last few months.

In this interview, conducted in Neople's Korean offices, we discuss the game, the acquisition, the flagging state of the Korean online market, and the viability of 2D as a game delivery medium.

Dungeon Fighter gold
I really like 2D games myself - but for you, why did you decide to make Dungeon Fighter 2D? Because certainly in the Western market, developers have turned away from it but sometimes consumers may think, now that 3D games are now the norm, that maybe 2D is kind of unique. I'm wondering what you think about 2D games as a viable medium.

Yunjong Kim: Well, there are three main reasons why we chose 2D. The first is, since it's a side-scrolling action game, whether we make it in 2D Dungeon Fighter Online gold or 3D wouldn't really affect the gameplay much.

The second reasons is that Dungeon Fighter Online gold when I began the project, I was looking at Dungeon Fighter as a character oriented game, but at the time I couldn't find any 3D games that could capture the look and feel of the original illustrations of the characters. The last reason is that, at the tim within Neople, our strength was in 2D, not 3D. So dfo gold I thought that if we made a bigger 2D game that it would be more successful.