With the opening of Korea's largest game exhibition, G-STAR 2025, just a day away, the scene is bustling with last-minute preparations. As gamers from across the country gather in one place, Korea's game industry is set to unveil a slew of new titles aimed at them.
On the afternoon of the 12th, the Busan Exhibition & Convention Center (BEXCO) in Haeundae-gu, Busan was busy getting ready to welcome visitors to G-STAR 2025. The weather was overcast with thick clouds that day, but the colorful, oversized promotional posters of game companies hanging brightly on BEXCO's exterior walls drew the eye.
In front of Exhibition Hall 1, which houses the B2C (corporations-consumer transaction) pavilion, the outdoor booths of Netmarble and NCSOFT were preparing to welcome visitors. At Netmarble's outdoor "SOL ENCHANT" booth, final equipment checks and structure installations were in full swing. The black-and-gold-themed booth exuded a grand atmosphere, like the gates of a fantasy world castle.
Korea's game industry plans to unveil a large lineup of new titles through G-STAR 2025 to target gamers nationwide and the global market. NCSOFT will participate in G-STAR as the main sponsor for the first time this year, setting up a large booth with 300 sections and revealing the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) "Aion 2," slated for release on the 19th of this month. In addition, it will showcase the open-world shooting game "Cinder City," being developed by its subsidiary Bigfire Games, as well as publishing titles "Time Takers" by Mistyl Games and "Limit Zero Breakers" by Big Game Studio. NCSOFT will also newly unveil an unannounced title.
A regular participant at G-STAR, Netmarble will set up 145 demo stations across 112 booths and present four new titles: "Project Evilbane," "Solo Leveling: KARMA," "The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin," and "MonGil: STAR DIVE." Among them, "Project Evilbane" and "Solo Leveling: KARMA" will be unveiled to the general public for the first time worldwide at this year's G-STAR. Netmarble will also operate an outdoor booth for the unannounced title "SOL: enchant."
KRAFTON will also unveil for the first time at this G-STAR its next title, long shrouded in secrecy, "Palworld Mobile." Palworld Mobile is a mobile game under development by PUBG Studios, a KRAFTON subsidiary, based on the intellectual property (IP) of "Palworld," a global hit developed by Japanese game studio Pocketpair. WEBZEN will exhibit the subculture title "Gate of Gates," a new game under development by domestic studio Retrail, at G-STAR. It will also premiere a cinematic video of its self-developed new project "Project G (working title)," based on the "MU" IP.
Gravity will also set up a booth at this year's G-STAR, preparing demo spaces for a total of 18 titles, including "Ragnarok Online Project 1.5 (tentative title)," "Ragnarok 3," and "Ragnarok Abyss." Devsisters will join the Google Play booth exhibition to showcase "Cookie Run: OvenSmash." NEOWIZ, which has actively invested in the indie game ecosystem, will unveil "SANABI Gaiden: The Day of Possession," a follow-up to Wonder Potion's "SANABI."
While Korean game companies cluster in Exhibition Hall 1, global game companies are coming to Exhibition Hall 2. In G-STAR's Exhibition Hall 2, overseas developers and publishers such as Warhorse Studios, Sega/Atlus, Bandai Namco Entertainment, Unity, and Blizzard Entertainment will set up booths, offering exhibitions and on-site events for fans of existing titles. Valve, the developer of the handheld gaming PC "Steam Deck," will also participate, as it did last year, in "Indie Showcase 2.0: Galaxy" through its distributor Komodo.
G-CON, G-STAR's main conference, will take "narrative" as its keyword and explore storytelling not only in games but also in various popular culture contents such as film and comics. Leading the lineup is game designer Horii Yuji, creator of the flagship "Dragon Quest" series from the major Japanese game company Square, joined by "NieR:Automata" director Yoko Taro and director Byun Sung-hyun of the film "Good News," bringing together luminaries from the game industry.