Webzen will officially launch open-world action RPG "Dragonsword" on Jan. 21. In an interview held ahead of the release, developer Hound13 set out a goal of transplanting the action system proven in its previous title, Hundred Soul, into an open-world environment. It also defined the core of the game as "party combo action" and "popularising action."

Jeongsik Park, CEO of Hound13, said, "I wanted to make a game that combines open world with action, which is what we are most confident in." He added, "I hope it will be remembered as a game where players can feel differentiated fun in action amid competitors."

◆ 'Hundred Soul' action DNA evolves into party combos

Creative Director Nochan Kwak said it carries over the action elements validated in Hundred Soul, while adopting cartoon-rendered artwork to improve accessibility. The strategy is to add a light, casual main story to make it familiar to everyone, regardless of age or gender.

Party combo action is the game’s biggest feature. By building a character party combination with status effects, tag action and combos, players can keep dynamic combo action going without interruption, from aerial combos to monster mount attacks. Kwak stressed that the core fun is triggering a status effect in battle and then using party members’ signal skills through tag action without pause to take down giant open-world bosses and monsters that can seem impossible to defeat.

◆ Focus on input feedback and distinct feel for each character

Park said the most important consideration in delivering tactile action was conveying intuitive feedback for inputs. He said he judged that, across thousands of repeated plays, the quality of elements such as hit reactions, effects and camera shock has a major impact on how the game feels, and that the team spent the most time on that area.

Technically, the game is designed so action flows naturally in various situations, including hitmap detection, terrain elevation differences, maintaining an airborne state and mount action. It finely tuned hit detection and physics so aerial combos or successive attacks do not break in certain terrain or situations, and made near-infinite combo play possible depending on the user’s control and judgement.

Character differentiation was implemented by designing combat rhythm and unique points of satisfaction to be completely different. Beyond melee versus ranged distinctions or attribute differences, it aimed to make action patterns, combat tempo and skill mechanics themselves feel clearly different by character. Reina is a character who pulls enemies from the ground into the air with fast attack speed and continues combos. When skill cooldown management and control come together, players can feel the tactile play of continuing attacks in the air without dropping enemies. Calsion maximised explosive satisfaction in area combat with a structure that detonates enemies afflicted with a fire attribute in multiple stages and pulls airborne enemies to a single point to stack sustained damage.

◆ Signal skills lower the barrier for beginners

A representative feature for beginners is the signal skill system. When a specific status effect occurs, a skill button that reacts to that status is activated, and it is designed so the skill lands reliably and its effect is delivered stably with a single button, without separate complex inputs.

Park explained, "Signal skills can be used with just a right mouse button input, so even if you use only 2 active skills, you can execute most actions relatively simply with the basic attack on the left mouse button and the skill input on the right mouse button."

The mobile environment was also considered from the initial design stage. The combat system is based on Hundred Soul, and the interface - consisting of a combination of active skills and signal skills and a party member summon button - also carries over a structure optimised over years in the mobile service process. Park added, "We implemented it so you can change the camera view at the same time as pressing the attack button for basic or ranged attacks, so precise control is possible for both melee and ranged on mobile as well."

◆ 13 characters at launch, expansion every 4 weeks signalled

Producer Yoonjin Jang said 13 characters will be introduced first at launch, with the character pool to be expanded through later updates. As launch content, the main quest will release 5 chapters, and characters can be levelled up to level 60.

After completing the main story, progression continues through equipment farming and rune settings via raid dungeons. Jang said that early play will focus on character levelling and equipment farming, and after characters’ abilities reach an appropriate level, the structure naturally funnels players into record-competition content.

Multiplayer content includes hunts and raids, with raids as the main multiplayer-focused content. Dragonsword’s multiplayer content focuses more on the fun of playing together than on tackling high-difficulty challenges, and it also adjusted play counts and play time so they are not burdensome to prevent stress from building up due to multiplayer play.

The business model mainly centres on summons to acquire characters, and Jang drew a line, saying products that would cause problems for game balance are not being considered for now. Updates will be carried out about every 4 weeks, with new character reveals and regular updates. The first update after launch will release main quest chapters 6 to 8 and the northern region.

In a CBT conducted after the first hands-on at G-STAR2024, there were many positively received elements such as combat and field artwork, but there were also aspects that divided opinions. It invested as many resources as possible to improve optimisation, which drew the most criticism.

Kwak said, "We also adjusted pacing in areas where story direction and the individuality of certain characters came across too strongly." He added, "We supplemented it so the characters’ appeal can emerge naturally in line with the planning intent, and applied full dubbing by well-known voice actors to the main story to increase story immersion."