Nexon is the corporate parent of Mintrocket, the South Korean studio building NAKWON: LAST PARADISE, and is also the publisher attached to the project.
Publisher Summary
Item | Detail |
|---|---|
Developer of record on Steam | Nexon (Steam lists Nexon as both developer and publisher). |
Developer (studio level) | Mintrocket, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nexon Korea. |
Publisher | Nexon. |
Parent of Mintrocket since | 11 September 2024, when Nexon Korea spun Mintrocket out into a wholly-owned subsidiary corporation. |
First subsidiary CEO | Jaeho Hwang, former game director on Dave the Diver. |
Strategy framing | Mintrocket sits in Nexon's "Big & Little" approach as a smaller, higher-creative-risk subsidiary alongside Nexon's flagship live-service projects. |
Two Renderings of the Same Relationship
NAKWON's makers can be described in two slightly different ways. Both are correct and reflect the same corporate structure.
Steam page rendering. The Steam store page lists Nexon as both the developer and the publisher. This is the legal-entity rendering: Nexon holds the storefront agreement and signs the build for distribution, so both fields print "Nexon."
Studio-level rendering. Official communications credit Mintrocket as the developer with Nexon as the publisher. This is the studio-level rendering. The team writing design documents, building the levels of Seoul, and shipping the Closed Alpha build is Mintrocket. Nexon's role on that side is publishing, distribution, and platform support.
Both descriptions match the same fact: Mintrocket is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nexon Korea, so anything Mintrocket builds is, at the parent-company level, also a Nexon product. The Steam fields collapse that distinction; the studio-level rendering preserves it.
September 2024 Spin-Off
On 11 September 2024, Nexon Korea spun Mintrocket out of its main organization and incorporated it as a separate, wholly-owned subsidiary corporation. Jaeho Hwang, previously game director on Dave the Diver, was named the first CEO. NAKWON was already in development before this change; the spin-off moved responsibility into a standalone company with its own CEO while keeping ownership inside Nexon Korea.
"Big & Little" Strategy
Nexon frames Mintrocket as part of a "Big & Little" approach. Flagship live-service titles sit on the "Big" side. The "Little" side is reserved for smaller, higher-creative-risk projects that depart from the live-service template. NAKWON, with permadeath loot rules and a stealth-first zombie-extraction design, fits the "Little" framing. Letting a smaller subsidiary carry the project keeps that creative risk separated from Nexon's larger services.
Distribution and Release Status
Nexon's publishing role covers the Steam store listing, the two pre-alpha playtests in 2023 and 2024, the March 2026 closed alpha, and the localization rollout (English and Korean full audio plus seven additional languages). Mintrocket builds the game; Nexon ships it.
No official launch date has been confirmed. Western press has reported a target of 2027 following an earlier 2026 expectation, with the shift attributed to a desire to avoid extraction-shooter market saturation. Until an official date is posted, the reliable statement is that the game is unreleased.
Related Articles
See Mintrocket for the studio-level view, Overview for a top-level introduction, and Seoul for the in-fiction setting.