Nexon has reassigned roughly 100 staff members from The First Berserker: Khazan's development team following disappointing sales performance, the company confirmed this week. The move comes a year after the action RPG's launch and marks a significant shift in the project's organizational structure.
According to reporting from Yonhap News, the departing staff have been transferred to Neople's "R Team," a reassignment division within the company. A Nexon spokesperson characterized the decision as a necessary pivot now that "the roadmap for the large-scale Kazan Project enters its completion phase."
The First Berserker: Khazan launched to respectable critical reception, scoring 78 on Metacritic and earning an 8/10 from IGN, which called it "a brutal but impressive soulslike." On Steam, the game maintains an 85% positive rating from reviewers. Yet player interest has waned dramatically. The game peaked at just under 33,000 concurrent players on Steam at launch. As of recent checks, that figure has dropped to around 1,000 concurrent players over a 24-hour period.
Nexon explicitly stated that sales "declined and fell short of market expectations." The company also cited licensing delays in China as a contributing factor to the overall underperformance.
The publisher had attempted to frame early results optimistically last May, saying the game "achieved our objective as a strategic first step in a multi-year plan to introduce Dungeon and Fighter IP to a global audience." That same statement, however, acknowledged that Q1 revenue came in "below our outlook."
The staffing reorganization leaves the game's future in uncertain territory. Plans for downloadable content and ports beyond the current PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S releases remain unclear. Nexon insists the team has not been dissolved outright, only dispersed to other internal projects requiring concentrated resources.
In a statement, the company said it plans to "actively support the personnel with the expertise who led the completion of a global AAA title through the Kazan Project so that they can be assigned to projects where they can utilize their respective experience and capabilities."
The First Berserker: Khazan is a 3D cel-animated dark fantasy action RPG rooted in the Dungeon Fighter Online universe. The game celebrated its one-year anniversary this week by distributing an in-game cosmetic set called Immortal Fury, featuring themed weapons including a greatsword, dual-wield daggers, and spear.
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