Loading...
Loading...
XL Games
September 9, 2026 at 10:37 AM
Added the September 2026 ArcheAge IP transfer to Align Studio and the studio's move to publishing Chronicles itself
XL Games (stylized as XLGAMES) is a South Korean game developer founded in 2003 by Jake Song. The studio is best known for creating the ArcheAge franchise. Headquarters are in Seoul. The company was acquired by Kakao Games, which purchased a 52.97% controlling stake in February 2020 for approximately KRW 120 billion (roughly $100 million), making it a majority-owned subsidiary.
Song founded XL Games after leaving NCSoft, where he had created Lineage. He brought several former Lineage team members with him. The studio's first project was XLRacer, a persistent online racing game that Song later described as a "miserable failure." Development of ArcheAge began in 2006, consuming nearly seven years before its Korean launch.
XLRacer - A persistent online racing game (cancelled)
ArcheAge (2013-2025) - The studio's flagship MMORPG, running for 12 years across multiple publishers and regions
Civilization Online - An MMO adaptation of the Civilization franchise developed in partnership with 2K Games / Take-Two Interactive using CryENGINE. Eventually cancelled.
ArcheVille - A mobile/casual spinoff
ArcheAge War (2023) - A mobile strategy game that launched in March 2023
ArcheAge Chronicles - Currently in development on Unreal Engine 5
In February 2020, Kakao Games acquired a 52.97% controlling stake in XLGAMES for approximately KRW 120 billion (roughly $100 million), bringing the ArcheAge IP under Kakao's control. This gave Kakao direct control over both game development and publishing, eliminating the developer-publisher friction that had complicated ArcheAge's history under Trion Worlds and Gamigo.
After Jake Song's departure in January 2025, ArcheAge Chronicles development is led by Executive Producer Ham Yongjin. Ham has published Producer's Letters and conducted interviews at events like Gamescom 2025, positioning himself as the public face of the project. As of Kakao's second-quarter 2026 earnings announcement, ArcheAge Chronicles targets a Steam Early Access launch in Q4 2026, with the full release not yet dated.
On April 5, 2023, NCSoft sued Kakao Games and XL Games, claiming ArcheAge War plagiarized Lineage 2M's UI design and weapon enhancement system. NCSoft sought 1.1 billion won (roughly $830,000) in damages. Kakao Games argued the similarities were common genre conventions found across the mobile gaming industry.
On 8 September 2026, XLGAMES filed a business-transfer disclosure covering the sale of the ArcheAge intellectual property and the ArcheAge S development business to Align Studio, a newly established developer funded by Kakao Games. A corrected filing the following day published the schedule of transferred assets. The total consideration is roughly 39.2 billion won, itemised as roughly 28.9 billion won for the ArcheAge S development business and roughly 9.9 billion won for the intellectual property. The transfer takes effect on 27 October 2026.
The studio stated the purpose as securing liquidity and improving its financial structure. Korean reporting identifies Align Studio's head as the producer who led ArcheAge S at XLGAMES and who had earlier served as a planning lead and producer on the original ArcheAge.
Asset | Destination |
|---|---|
ArcheAge trademarks, copyrights and domains, including marks covering the ArcheAge Chronicles name | Align Studio |
The ArcheAge S development business, with its assets, contracts, staff and liabilities | Align Studio |
The ArcheAge Chronicles development project | Retained by XLGAMES; not named as a transfer target |
The distinction between a development project and the underlying rights is the crux of it. Chronicles stays with XLGAMES as a project, but the intellectual property it is built on does not. The filing does not describe what licence or other arrangement will govern XLGAMES developing and operating the game after 27 October 2026, and no separate announcement has addressed it.
Through 2026 the studio moved into the publisher role for Chronicles. The Steam listing now names XLGAMES as both developer and publisher, and the official website moved from a publisher-hosted subdomain to one the studio hosts itself, carrying an XLGAMES copyright line alone. Second-quarter earnings materials described the game as self-published by XLGAMES. The PlayStation and Microsoft storefronts have not been updated and still name Kakao Games as publisher, so the position is best described as in transition. See Platforms and Business Model.
