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.

We recently got to see the game in action, thanks to a chunky gameplay trailer that has sparked a ton of hype and anticipation for this game. Project LLL seems to have taken inspiration from many places, ranging from contemporaries of the genre to not-so-obvious sources. And to that end, the time seems ripe to dig deep into Project LLL and try to uncover what makes this game click amongst a barrage of similarly styled games that are vying for a player’s attention.

Project LLL is set in a post-apocalyptic future, one where the country of South Korea is overrun by mercenaries fitted with all sorts of high-tech gadgets and mechs that seem to oppress the denizens of this land. NCSoft’s upcoming action-adventure also takes place in an alternative history which combines its sci-fi premise with lore elements from the 10th century – which can be seen in certain enemy designs.

You take on the role of a soldier, one who takes the fight back to these tyrants with an effort to drive them out of this place. It seems that you might be a member of a rebel group, though we can’t confirm these story elements since the trailer uses Korean as its language and there are no supporting subtitles as well. That said, NCSoft has stated in an interview that it plans to deliver a story that puts its characters at the front and center, and we can’t wait to see that come to life with the final release.

Project LLL is a third-person shooter, and most of your time will be spent carrying out high-stakes missions throughout the futuristic city of Seoul. The trailer opens up with the player character donning a cape on his back as he makes his way through what seems to be an underground network of tunnels. Unlike most MMOs, Project LLL actually has some stealth options, and you can use your drone companion to scout ahead which will reveal the location of enemies through walls. You could try to take the easy way out by sneaking through gaps, or you could try to engage – and from the looks of things, sometimes the former might be the most feasible option of the two.

But when swords do eventually clash, Project LLL completely transforms into a fast-paced shooter where you must make your moves quickly and switch between different tactics on the fly to get through combat encounters. The weapons have minimal recoil, allowing you to spray bullets towards your enemies with relative ease. Enemies seem to have a massive health bar, so you will have to keep chipping away at those shields while dancing around the battlefield.

Your choice of weapons range from assault rifles to automatic shotguns and others, but you also have access to plenty of special abilities – thanks to the futuristic combat suit. You can fire smoke grenades, throw a stasis bomb at your enemies, or lock on to your targets and unleash a flurry of auto-targeting missiles towards your adversaries. Furthermore, you can even turn invisible for a short while – which should allow you to flank the opposition from a different angle or create a distraction to hack a Titanfall-styled mech and ride it into battle with your allies.

All of these abilities will obviously have a cooldown period, and combining these with your standard third-person shooter results in a highly dynamic combat loop that seems like it would be a joy to interact with. It looks pretty open-ended too, so hopefully – players will never have a shortage of options when it comes to tactics or build options as they deck out their characters with specific loot that suits their playstyle.

Project LLL is also set to feature a massive open-world that will span over 30 kilometers of virtual space that players would explore on their own will. The developer has already confirmed that a decent chunk of that landmass is being created through procedural generation, but the content that players will be able to do in these areas will be curated by another algorithm that reacts to a player’s situation accordingly.

Hopefully, it does not fall prey to the cookie-cutter design model that so many MMOs and live-service games have adopted in recent years. On that note, we also don’t know what vehicles players will be able to drive to get from one end of the map to the other, or if there would be vehicles at all – so a clarification on these matters is certainly due at the moment.

NCSoft is positioning Project LLL as a true next-gen experience, and the game is being developed on Unreal Engine 5. And this choice of engine might be the best considering the developer’s ambitions with the project, since Epic’s latest provides plenty of options to craft huge open-worlds with effortless world streaming technology all while boasting a consistently high level of micro-detail within those environments. From what we have seen of Project LLL, these tools are certainly being used to great effect here with high-resolution textures and post-processing effects highlighting the fantastic art direction of the game’s world and the characters.

As for release platforms and timing, NCSoft has remained rather tight-lipped on the matter which is by no means a surprise considering that the game is still being referred to by its project name. No release dates have been specified as of yet, but the developer has said it’s targeting a 2024 release window. Furthermore, the game may be released in early access first – which would allow for a more transparent development cycle as the game nears towards its final release. Thankfully, it has been confirmed that the game would be available globally on PC and console platforms.

In conclusion, Project LLL is looking like a potent mix of ideas drawn from all contemporaries of the genre. You have shooting mechanics that are reminiscent of The Division, a sci-fi story like Destiny, and armored suits with cooldown-based abilities that instantly remind us of Anthem or Titanfall. NCSoft seems to have paid a lot of attention to how these mechanics would work in tandem with each other, and the end product looks like something that could end up being the next smash hit in the realm of MMO releases.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

In an interview, project leader Seeder Jaehyun Bae said, “We wanted to create a new genre completely different from the recently popular looter shooter or battle royale. 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.”

Project LLL is developed on the “latest” Unreal Engine and set in the ruins of an alternate history Seoul. “It takes place in a world that started with the idea that the history we know progressed differently due to a particular event in the past. In LLL, a devastated Seoul, the 10th century Byzantine Empire, and the 23rd century are all blended together in the same lore.”

Influences include Blade Runner, Total Recall, The Man in the High Castle, Foundation, Dune and Philip K. Dick’s works. Unlike its previous titles, characters are predefined with unique names, backgrounds and “driving forces.” Check out the developer diary below to learn more.

Project LLL isn’t the only MMORPG that NCsoft has in development. It’s also working on Throne and Liberty, AION 2 and a rumored MMORPG based on Guerrilla Games’ Horizon franchise. Stay tuned for more details and updates in the coming months.