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Cinder City is a brand-new original property developed by BigFire Games, a wholly owned NCSOFT studio, and published by NCSOFT. Direction sits with BigFire Games CEO Bae Jaehyun (also stylized Jaehyun “James” Bae), a longtime NCSOFT veteran who currently holds the Vice President title at the parent company. He is also credited as the game's Executive Producer. The game is built on Unreal Engine 5 and represents NCSOFT's first attempt at an original IP in the open-world tactical shooter space rather than another entry in an existing franchise. For a broader introduction to the project, see Cinder City.
Studio and Engine
BigFire Games is a 100 percent NCSOFT subsidiary: per CEO Bae, the team that was making the project simply moved over wholesale into the new label. NCSOFT serves as publisher, with regional service operated by NC Corporation; the Americas, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand tier sits under NC America led by CEO Jeonghee “JJ” Jin. The choice of Unreal Engine 5 underpins the game's visual ambitions and its large, shared open-world spaces. Several key developers reunited from the Blade and Soul launch team, among them Hwang Sung-jin, who worked as a planning team lead on that game; his specific role on Cinder City has not been published. Prior franchise content does not carry over: Cinder City is a new IP with a brand-new world.
The studio describes itself as a shooting-game specialist under NCSOFT, building Cinder City as an open-world tactical shooter that reinterprets a ruined future Seoul as a seamless open world around hero-driven storytelling and tense strategic combat. BigFire Games is incorporated as its own company and works out of NCSOFT's R&D Center rather than as an internal team label only. As of August 2026 it was actively hiring across four disciplines, art, game programming, game design, and development management, with openings spanning character and environment art, animation, VFX, cinematic direction, engine, gameplay and server programming, and level, narrative, system, content and balance design. The design openings include a dedicated PvE design track, consistent with the cooperative player-versus-environment focus the studio has described for the game.
From Project LLL to Cinder City
The game was first revealed in late 2022 under the codename Project LLL and shown again at G-STAR 2023. On August 18, 2025, NCSOFT formally renamed the project Cinder City, and the following day, August 19, 2025, the game made its world-premiere gameplay debut at Gamescom's Opening Night Live. Project LLL and Cinder City refer to the same game; the codename was simply the placeholder used before the official name was revealed. Some early Project LLL design choices, including its earlier orc-hunting field framing, have since been superseded by the current single-player-campaign-leading-into-open-world structure.
Timeline
Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
November 2022 | Announced as Project LLL at NCSOFT NCing |
November 2023 | Shown at G-STAR 2023 as Project LLL |
August 18, 2025 | Renamed Cinder City; brand site and official socials launched |
August 19, 2025 | World-premiere gameplay trailer at Gamescom Opening Night Live; NVIDIA private event at Hafen 12, Cologne |
October 30, 2025 | Playable demo at NVIDIA's Korean GeForce Gamer Festival (25-year-of-GeForce anniversary) |
November 6, 2025 | Microsoft Korea MOU signed for cloud and AI collaboration |
November 13 to 16, 2025 | G-STAR 2025 hands-on demo at BEXCO Busan; NC Cinema dome theater trailer reveal |
Early to mid 2026 | Planned global Closed Beta Test window |
June 30, 2026 | Official Steam store page opened for wishlisting; first Developer Preview video released; official Discord channel opened |
July 30, 2026 | Sign-ups opened for the first Pre-Alpha Playtest |
August 14 to 16, 2026 | First Pre-Alpha Playtest, United States only, under NDA |
August 25, 2026 | New trailer focused on the story and setting scheduled for gamescom 2026 Opening Night Live |
Second half of 2026 | Planned simultaneous global launch on PC and consoles |
Release Window and Beta
Cinder City is targeting a launch in the second half of 2026 with a simultaneous global release as the current intent, though no specific date has been narrowed down. NC America CEO Jeonghee “JJ” Jin reaffirmed the 2026 window at GDC 2026 and said the Closed Beta Test is coming “in the near future,” framing the CBT as the key moment that will inform a final launch date. Bae has previously described the open-beta window as falling between the start and middle of 2026, with internal tests running in parallel. Sign-ups for a separate, earlier Pre-Alpha Playtest opened on July 30, 2026, covered in the next section.
Pre-Alpha Playtest
On July 30, 2026 BigFire Games opened sign-ups for the game's first Pre-Alpha Playtest, the first hands-on access offered to the public away from a convention show floor. The test was held from August 14 to August 16, 2026 and was limited to players aged 16 or older residing in the United States. Play sessions ran in fixed evening windows, from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM Pacific time on the Friday and from 5:00 PM to 11:00 PM on the Saturday and Sunday. Registration was handled through an external playtest platform, and selected applicants began receiving access from August 12, with confirmation sent by email.
The playtest is covered by a strict non-disclosure agreement. Everything encountered during the session, including gameplay and test content, is treated as confidential, and participants are barred from recording, taking screenshots, streaming, publishing posts, or uploading any material related to the test. In practice that means no public footage or firsthand impressions from this build should be expected while the agreement holds, so any such material circulating from this period should be treated with caution.
The studio has said more playtests will follow, with schedules and eligible regions to be announced through the official channels once confirmed. This Pre-Alpha Playtest is an earlier and narrower step than the global Closed Beta Test described above; the studio has not said how the two relate or whether the Closed Beta window has moved.
Microsoft and NVIDIA Partnerships
On November 6, 2025, NCSOFT signed a memorandum of understanding with Microsoft Korea to collaborate on Cinder City's development. The partnership integrates Microsoft's Azure cloud platform, Azure OpenAI services, and Copilot Studio into the game's development pipeline, with the two companies jointly designing a next-generation game-development ecosystem tailored for the AI era. BigFire Games CEO Bae and Microsoft Korea CEO Wonwoo Cho announced the MOU together.
On the hardware side, Cinder City is positioned as an NVIDIA RTX flagship. The PC build is confirmed to launch with DLSS 4.5 Dynamic Multi Frame Generation and Super Resolution, alongside Unreal Engine 5 Lumen lighting, Ray Reconstruction, ray tracing, and NVIDIA Reflex, and the game is planned for NVIDIA GeForce NOW from launch. A playable demo featured at NVIDIA's Korean GeForce Gamer Festival on October 30, 2025 marking the 25th anniversary of GeForce, and at the COMPUTEX 2026 showcase on May 31, 2026 the game was named among the titles launching with DLSS 4.5 support. For platform and hardware specifics, see Platforms and System Requirements.
Public Events
Public demos have been concentrated around three flagship events. Gamescom 2025's Opening Night Live carried the world-premiere trailer on August 19, 2025, with a private hands-on demo for press at Hafen 12 in Cologne. The NVIDIA Korean GeForce Gamer Festival on October 30, 2025 added a second playable build. G-STAR 2025 at BEXCO Busan from November 13 to 16, 2025 hosted the largest hands-on event so far: wait times for the demo exceeded 180 minutes on day two, and NCSOFT's panoramic NC Cinema dome theater debuted a new cinematic trailer that introduced the second named hero, Angel, in its closing shot. Visitors received a Cinder City brand-identity portable battery. The next showing is already on the calendar: in early August 2026 NC confirmed that Cinder City will appear at gamescom 2026’s Opening Night Live on August 25, 2026 with a new trailer focused on the story and setting, ahead of the show itself running from August 26 to 30 in Cologne.
Steam Page and Developer Preview
On June 30, 2026, BigFire Games opened the game's official Steam store page for wishlisting and released its first Developer Preview video. Presented by lead concept artist Samuel King and project manager Shin Ga-hye, the video walks through the ruined Seoul setting, the narrative built around the hero Seven and his search for his daughter Joi, and the open-world cooperative PvE structure the team is building. The store page also published the game's first official PC system requirements, covered on the Platforms and System Requirements page.
Alongside the Steam page, the studio opened an official Discord channel and refreshed the brand website to begin engaging players ahead of the beta. The Steam listing describes the game as an open-world cinematic third-person shooter and marks it Coming soon, in line with the second-half-of-2026 launch window. NCSOFT has continued to describe the project as an MMO tactical shooter in its own materials, even though the Steam page itself does not carry that label.
Business Model
The game's full business model has not been finalized. The one firm decision shared so far is that Cinder City will not be pay-to-win; Bae has confirmed that a battle pass is planned as part of the monetization mix. Whether the game will ship free-to-play, premium, or with a subscription element remains under discussion. As the studio confirms further details on pricing, monetization, and the beta schedule, this page will be updated to reflect the official information.