Dungeon crawling RPG Nevergrind Online’s popularity soars in Japan, causing servers to go down

Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2022-07-19 18:28 JST)

Nevergrind Online, the dungeon crawling RPG from a US-based studio called Neverworks Games, has become so popular in Japan that its servers have been going down.

The game is currently available as an early access title on Steam and includes an online multiplayer mode (save data is separate for single and multiplayer modes). Players take on the role of an adventurer and explore dungeons in a medieval fantasy world. The gameplay loop is incredibly simple: You choose a class, go to a tavern to take on a quest, and then defeat monsters. You bring back loot from your journey, have it appraised, and then challenge even harder dungeons with your new, more powerful gear.

It’s certainly not the most visually appealing game, as it has very simple character graphics and monster animations. The dungeon design is straightforward, there are no unique gimmicks, and the UI can hardly be called intuitive. Yet, despite all of this, elements like the well-crafted gameplay loop and multiplayer mode that requires precise teamwork all come together to form a title with a solid core experience. Of the more than 320 user reviews on Steam, 90% are positive. Many players have favorably compared the game to popular MMORPGs of yesteryear, such as EverQuest.

Nevergrind Online was first released in early access on June 10, but after it was localized into Japanese in July, there was a great influx of Japanese players. The fervor surrounding the game does not seem to be slowing down, and on July 17, the multiplayer servers for the game went down on account of too many concurrent users. After the servers were back up and running, they were improved in an attempt to cope with the large number of players. We spoke to Joe Leonard, the developer of the game, to find out just how popular the title has become in Japan.  

Leonard never imagined that the game would sell as many copies as it has. If you look at the change in number of concurrent players, you can see that while the game had around 200 when it launched in early access, this number dropped to two digits two weeks later. However, from around July 13, once support for Japanese had been implemented, player numbers began to increase. As of July 19, the number of concurrent players has peaked at 701.

This situation came as a complete surprise for Leonard, who mentioned that they never even reached 500 concurrent users in the beta version. When compared to other games, these numbers are still very small in scale, but to Leonard, they are beyond expectations. While on the subject, the servers are currently able to handle up to 1,000 concurrent users.

Leonard was asleep when the servers went down, and he described the way he felt after waking up to that situation: “I had a feeling that something would go wrong because the traffic surge was astonishing and I knew that the netcode still needed certain optimizations. I jumped out of bed with an anxious feeling and discovered that the servers were completely overwhelmed. Honestly, it is a terrible feeling, but this is precisely why the game is in Early Access.”

When we asked whether he was getting much sleep lately, he replied, “No, there is too much adrenaline pumping in my body! If I am lucky, I will get four hours of sleep. I love coffee, but, lately, I barely need to drink coffee, because of the adrenaline.” He joked that after he optimizes the net code and makes the servers completely stable, he will then be able to sleep easy while Japanese players slay dragons to their hearts’ content. 

Regarding sales, Leonard said, “The recent sales have far exceeded the number of units sold at launch.” There has been a total of 6,000 copies sold, with the United States accounting for 39% of sales followed by Japan with 35%. “By the time your readers see this article, Japan will be #1 in units sold for Nevergrind Online. Within the last week, 87% of units sold have been in Japan,” he added.

We asked Leonard whether he considered the game a financial success after selling 6,000 copies. He told us that the game only cost $15,000 to develop, a number that was easily surpassed by the sales of the game within the first few weeks after launch. He continued, saying, “I developed this game in my spare time as a hobby, but that may have to change due to its success. Working on it full-time would be like a dream! Everything Nevergrind Online has achieved should not be possible on paper. Especially when you consider that the western media is not interested in covering this game.”

As mentioned above, the sales and player numbers of Nevergrind Online are still very small when you compare it to big name titles across the world. However, what’s interesting is the phenomenon of the game itself: it didn’t draw much attention after first launching in early access, yet it flourished after adding Japanese support, to the point where it even shocked its developer. This success is a prime example that shows the power of word of mouth exists in the Japanese Steam community.

On July 19, popular Japanese YouTuber group 2BRO., who boast over 3 million subscribers, streamed themselves playing Nevergrind Online. This may provide a spark that can take the game’s success to even greater heights.

The Steam page for Nevergrind Online can be found here.