One year after the launch of The First Berserker: Khazan, an action RPG set in the Dungeon Fighter Online universe, Nexon has reportedly reassigned a significant portion of the game's production staff due to what appears to be disappointing performance.
According to Yonhap News, a Nexon official disclosed that despite achieving a Steam concurrent player peak of nearly 33,000 at launch, sales have since "declined and fallen short of market expectations." This, combined with licensing delays that hindered the game's release in China, led to approximately 100 team members being informed on April 8 that they are being moved to the "R Team," a reassignment division at Neople (as reported by GamesRadar).
While player numbers have indeed dropped—SteamDB indicates the highest concurrent peak in the last 24 hours is just 1,013 players—the game maintains a 'Very Positive' Steam rating, with 85% of reviewers leaving positive feedback. It also earned a respectable 78 on Metacritic. Publisher Nexon stated in May that the game had "achieved our objective as a strategic first step in a multi-year plan to introduce Dungeon&Fighter IP to a global audience," though it acknowledged that Q1 revenue was "below our outlook."
A Nexon spokesperson explained to the outlet (via machine translation), "As the roadmap for the large-scale Kazan Project enters its completion phase, we have decided to separate the organization responsible for completing the remaining missions from the personnel assigned to other projects that require a concentration of human resources." The spokesperson added, "We plan 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 company emphasizes that the team has not been completely disbanded, but this move leaves plans for DLC or future ports beyond its current availability on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S in uncertainty.
The First Berserker: Khazan is described as a "hardcore action role-playing game" featuring a 3D cel animation graphical style and a dark fantasy setting. It received an 'Great' 8/10 score in IGN's review, which praised it as a "brutal but impressive soulslike that makes pushing through its devastating bosses worth the effort." Earlier this week, the action RPG marked its one-year anniversary by rewarding players with an anniversary armor and weapon set called Immortal Fury, which includes the Greatsword of Chronicles, Dual Wield of Immortal Adamantine, and Sanguine Vanguard Spear.
