Revision 9

Pearl Abyss is the South Korean game studio developing DokeV. It has been working on the project since the title was first revealed as Project V in late 2019, and it is also publishing the game. For a wider look at the title itself, see the overview article.

Studio Profile

Games

Pearl Abyss has shipped two large MMOs and is actively building three more games. The current public lineup looks like this:

All five projects share the same in-house technology base, which lets rendering, animation, and tooling improvements roll forward from one title to the next.

Studio History

Pearl Abyss was founded on September 10, 2010 by Kim Daeil and Youn Jaemin, both of whom had previously worked at the Korean online-gaming companies Hangame and NHN. The pair started the studio specifically to build a next-generation MMO with an in-house engine rather than licensed technology. That decision shaped everything afterwards: every Pearl Abyss title to date has shipped on the studio's own engine, and the same tooling underpins DokeV.

The company's first release, Black Desert Online, launched in Korea in 2014. Its success funded steady expansion and built the engine, animation, and combat foundations that the studio has been iterating on ever since. By August 2024 the company had grown to roughly 1,331 employees, with primary operations in its Gwacheon headquarters.

CCP Games Ownership

On September 6, 2018 Pearl Abyss completed its acquisition of CCP Games, the Icelandic studio behind EVE Online, for 225 million US dollars in cash plus up to 200 million more tied to performance targets. CCP kept its independent studios in Reykjavík, London, and Shanghai and continued to operate EVE Online under its own brand throughout the ownership period. In 2026, however, Pearl Abyss divested CCP, selling the studio back to CCP's own leadership for roughly 120 million US dollars to focus its resources on its in-house titles. CCP, and EVE Online with it, is therefore no longer a Pearl Abyss company. The acquisition never redirected DokeV's day-to-day production, which has always remained a home-team effort at the Gwacheon headquarters.

DokeV Leadership

DokeV is led by founder Kim Daeil, who is executive producer. Day-to-day production is handled by lead producer Sangyoung Kim, who previously worked as the lead animator on Black Desert Online. That combination of founder-level oversight and a senior animator at the wheel matches the look of the project: a long-running passion piece backed by deep in-house craft. In the studio's May 12, 2026 Q1 earnings letter, Pearl Abyss confirmed that DokeV is in the pre-production stage and that the company is prioritising resources on it as part of a planned title-release cycle of every two to three years.

Engine

DokeV is being built on the BlackSpace Engine, Pearl Abyss's proprietary technology stack. The engine has been in development at the studio since its founding, was originally deployed on Black Desert Online, and was substantially expanded for Crimson Desert. Pearl Abyss formalised the BlackSpace Engine name during a 2024 marketing show. The same tech now powers every active project at the studio, which is why DokeV's Dokebi, environments, and combat all benefit from features originally built for the studio's other games.

Unconfirmed Details

Some specifics about Pearl Abyss's DokeV team have not been publicly broken out. Open questions include:

• Full DokeV team size

  : how many of the studio's roughly 1,331 employees are assigned to DokeV at any given moment.

• Regional team distribution

  : whether any DokeV development is handled outside the Gwacheon headquarters, including any contributions from the studio's wider network.

• Exact development start date

  : the project went public in November 2019, but the internal kickoff date has not been disclosed.

• Total development time so far

  : full hours, person-years, or budget figures for DokeV have not been broken out from the studio's overall financials.

Until those numbers are reported, anything beyond the figures in the studio profile above should be treated as speculation.