[DigitalToday reporter Ho-jeong Lee] Hound13 said on the 23rd that the Seoul Central District Court rejected Webzen's request for a provisional injunction to ban the release of 'Dragonsword: Awakening' (Dragonsword).

The legal dispute surfaced after Webzen failed to pay a minimum guarantee (MG) under a publishing contract. After Hound13 lawfully terminated the contract due to non-fulfilment of contractual obligations, Webzen responded by seeking an injunction to block the release of Dragonsword.

The court rejected all of Webzen's requests for an injunction, siding with Hound13. The court found that Webzen not only failed to pay the MG, a contractual obligation, by the deadline but also clearly expressed its intention to refuse payment, making Hound13's contract termination lawful and valid.

It also said there was insufficient evidence to support Webzen's allegations of unauthorised use of translations. The court also dismissed the claim that the game's release would cause Webzen damage that would be difficult to recover.

With the court's rejection, Dragonsword will be officially released on the global gaming platform Steam on Wednesday as originally scheduled.

The title was initially a project being developed for online service and a gacha system. About 3 months after the contract with Webzen ended, it overhauled the game structure and shifted to a Steam package game that removed all gacha elements.

Despite preparing for launch without separate large-scale marketing, it has surpassed 450,000 Steam wishlist entries as of launch day, demonstrating strong interest from global users.

Park Jung-sik (박정식), CEO of Hound13, said, "I find it very meaningful that we can proceed with the launch as planned thanks to the court's wise judgment." He added, "I hope Dragonsword becomes a successful starting point for a new intellectual property (IP), and we will continue to develop it into a more complete game through ongoing updates and content improvements."

In relation to this, Webzen said, "We plan to file an appeal in order to seek the court's judgment again on various facts and issues."