NCSoft, along with its subsidiary development studio BigFire Games, have officially announced that its in-development title Project LLL now has a name: Cinder City. According to the announcement, the game is slated for release on PC and consoles some time in 2026, and is being developed using Unreal Engine 5.
Along with this a new website, along with social media handles have been created for Cinder City where all future details about the title will be revealed. There is also a brand new YouTube channel where future trailers will likely be released.
Unfortunately, aside from the name and the 2026 release window, no new details for Cinder City have been revealed, aside from reiteration of the facts that it will be an MMO tactical shooter that will take place in a dystopian take on the megacity of Seoul. Some of the locations featured in the game will be based on real-world places in Korea like Samseong-dong and Noyeong-dong.
“Cinder City is a game name that conveys the meaning of humanity in the future, facing a serious crisis, saving the world as a spark of hope in a ruined, decadent city.” said BigFire Games CEO and project lead Jaehyun Bae in the announcement (via machine translation). “BigFire Games will work together to do our best to develop the game in order to satisfy players around the world.”
Cinder City was first unveiled all the way back in November 2022 as Project LLL, and was at the time described as an open-world third-person shooter. The title was announced with a trailer which featured, according to NCSoft, “actual gamepaly footage” from a development build of the game.
Some details about the title were revealed at the time thanks to an interview on the official NCSoft website with Bae, who spoke about the challenges of developing an MMO shooter, as well as NCSoft dabbling in publishing a shooter rather than the company’s tradition of releasing MMORPGs like Guild Wars 2.
“The shooter genre is about understanding terrain and objects, choosing shelters, occupying the high ground, etc,” said Bae. “This is because how you understand and use three-dimensional space is a core part of the decision-making process. We want to create different types of play and experiences in which players either work together or compete against each other by utilizing the two elements of ‘action’ that target and shoot at opponents and fractionalize and occupy ‘space within the environment.”
“We wanted to create a new genre completely different from the recently popular looter shooter or battle royale,” he explained further in the interview. “We want to create a new market exclusive to NC with a new IP which incorporates the keywords ‘shooter,’ ‘MMO,’ and ‘open world.’ We are developing a project that combines different play styles and elements from NC’s previous games, and we are very excited to share a sneak peek with our community.”
When Cinder City was announced, NCSoft and BigFire Games had noted that the game is being influenced by classics in the sci-fi and cyberpunk genre, including seminal works like Blade Runner, Total Recall, Foundation, Dune, the works of Philip K. Dick, and The Man in the High Castle.
