GamePea Exclusive — Reproduction Prohibited. As Nexon pushes forward with diversifying the Dungeon & Fighter (DNF) IP, one of its most anticipated single-player projects is entering a contraction phase in an unceremonious fashion. Recently, Neople, a subsidiary of Nexon, confirmed that it has restructured the development team behind the DNF spin-off single-player title The First Berserker: Khazan, moving approximately 100 developers to an internal transition department. The company emphasized that the project team has not been formally disbanded, but the move casts uncertainty over the future of downloadable content (DLC) and sequels.
Released in March 2025, The First Berserker: Khazan is an action role-playing game developed by Neople. Set within the DNF universe, it features a “Souls-like” combat system and represents one of the IP’s rare forays into a purely single-player, hardcore action experience. Historically, DNF’s success has been built on its online service model. Khazan marks a clear departure, aiming to extend the IP into the console and PC single-player market. This move was widely seen as a key step in Nexon’s strategy to globalize the DNF brand.
However, from GamePea’s perspective, this restructuring was not entirely unexpected. It is common practice for companies to reassign team members after a single-player project’s release to new initiatives. According to Korean media reports, a Nexon representative stated: “As the large-scale roadmap for the Khazan project enters its completion phase, we have decided to separate the organization handling remaining tasks from teams that need to allocate human resources to other projects. We plan to actively support the reassignment of professionals who led the global AAA game development through the Khazan project to roles where they can leverage their experience and skills.”
Meanwhile, the commercial performance of The First Berserker: Khazan has indeed fallen short of expectations, as previously disclosed in financial reports. During Nexon’s Q1 2025 earnings call, the company acknowledged that the game “failed to meet internal sales targets” and that related revenue was below expectations. According to estimates from third-party analytics firm VG Insights, the game sold approximately 295,000 copies on Steam in its first two weeks, generating around $14.1 million (approximately RMB 100 million) in revenue. For a title positioned as a AAA, multi-platform release, this scale is insufficient to cover development and marketing costs.
It is worth noting that poor sales do not necessarily equate to poor quality. The First Berserker: Khazan has received positive player reviews since launch, maintaining a “Very Positive” rating on Steam, with media scores generally around 8 out of 10. Nexon also emphasized in its earnings report that the game achieved some success in its strategic goal of “expanding the global influence of the DNF IP.”
As the Khazan project enters a period of adjustment, other business lines within the DNF IP are also undergoing changes. Not long ago, Neople announced that it would fully transfer local operations and user management of the DNF mobile game in China to Tencent. This move came shortly after Nexon’s chairman diagnosed the DNF mobile game as “structurally weak” during a capital markets briefing in Japan. At the same time, the return of DNF’s core producer, Yoon Myung-jin, is seen as a key signal to strengthen the mainline product’s operations and stabilize the core user base. All signs point to Neople and Nexon refocusing their efforts on the more predictable core business system at this juncture.
Tags: DNF, Nexon, Personnel Changes, Khazan