With The First Berserker: Khazan, Nexon hopes to push its multi-billion-dollar Dungeon Fighter IP past Asia 

Made by Nexon-owned Dungeon Fighter Online developer Neople, The First Berserker: Khazan is a hardcore action-adventure RPG coming to consoles and PC in early 2025. In a recent interview with 4Gamer, Nexon’s CEO Junghun Lee talked about how the South Korean game company decided to make The First Berserker: Khazan a full-price game in order to better reach US and EU markets. 

At first glance, the game’s title may seem like a brand-new IP, however it is set in the same world as the Dungeon Fighter Online franchise (which is known as Arad Senki in Japan and Dungeon & Fighter in South Korea). The Dungeon Fighter Online game has been running for nearly 20 years, spawning mobile spin-offs and an anime adaptation (Slap Up Party: Arad Senki). It has been highly profitable for Nexon. To put this in perspective, the franchise’s lifetime revenue was reported to be several billion dollars more than the box office gross of the Star Wars and Harry Potter movies, and approximately double the revenue of the entire Avengers film series (Source: Nexon Q1 2020 Investor Presentation, page 36). 

The First Berserker Khazan

Although Nexon’s decades of experience lie in running successful online games, The First Berserker: Khazan will be a full-length console and PC release (i.e. a packaged game). Lee explains that the reason for making Khazan a packaged game is not only due to the aforementioned success of the Dungeon Fighter IP but also Nexon’s global expansion aims. “Dungeon Fighter Online has over 850 million players worldwide, however, awareness of the IP is concentrated in Asia,” Lee explains. “We would like to further expand recognition of the IP worldwide, including in Japan, Europe and the US.” He describes Khazan as “a bridge that will increase recognition (of the Dungeon Fighter IP) worldwide.” 

Although it has soulslike elements, the devs previously revealed that they view The First Berserker: Khazan more as a satisfyingly challenging game that will bring the essence of Dungeon Fighter Online into a full price, 3D console game. Lee mentions that Nexon’s long-term goal is to combine their experience in running online games with console/PC game production. 

The First Berserker: Khazan is scheduled to launch in early 2025 for the PC (Steam), PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.