[DigitalToday reporter Ho-jeong Lee] NHN said on Tuesday it has completed the recruitment-linked hackathon “Next AI Network 2026 (NAN 2026)” to discover game and AI talent.

Ten teams advanced to the finals after a preliminary assignment review. The competition ratio for a finals berth was about 59 to 1, and visitors to the application page exceeded 150,000.

The finals were held from Sept. 4 to 6 at NHN’s PlayMuseum headquarters building in Pangyo, Gyeonggi province. Participating teams developed games for 48 hours starting at 3 p.m. on Sept. 4.

Each team was assigned by lottery 1 source keyword from among time, domain, connection, senses and the laws of physics. Teams developed games by combining that with 1 functional keyword among fusion, exchange, growth, restriction, twist, prediction, disassembly, collection, replication and luck, along with the shared theme word “2026.”

A panel of 15 judges handled the evaluation, including 6 executives from NHN’s game business division and 9 staff members in development, server, business and art. They assessed entries based on ability to use AI, completeness, creativity and the degree of keyword implementation.

The grand prize went to “Doppelganger” by the Journey to the West team. “Doppelganger” is a 3-on-3, base-capture, real-time, turn-based combat game that uses the “domain” and “prediction” keywords. Using territorial disputes between wild animals and robot AI that imitates them, it implemented AI that learns user tendencies and predicts the next action.

The top excellence award went to “Small Gallery, Big Picture” by the third-person observer-view team, and the excellence award went to “23” by the Bugs and Feature team. Prize money of 50 million won, 20 million won and 10 million won was awarded for the grand prize, top excellence award and excellence award, respectively.

All winners will be offered final interviews at NHN, and if hired, they will receive bonuses based on years of service. Seven finalist teams that did not win awards received a challenge prize of 500,000 won per team.

Kim Sang-ho (김상호), head of NHN’s game business division, said, “We were able to confirm the high passion of talent for games and AI.” He said, “Based on the AI game specialists discovered through this event and the data and service operation capabilities we have accumulated, we will continue game innovation using AI.”