Overview
Nexon Co., Ltd. is a video game company with roots in South Korea and corporate headquarters in Japan. The company develops and publishes online games across multiple platforms, with a portfolio that includes some of the longest-running live-service titles in the industry. Nexon is the developer and publisher of Vindictus: Defying Fate, building the game through its in-house CAG Studio under game director Dongseok Oh.
History and corporate structure
Kim Jung-ju founded Nexon in South Korea on December 26, 1994. The company pioneered the free-to-play business model for online games in Asia, launching the first graphical MMO (Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds) in 1996. In 2005, the company moved its headquarters to Tokyo, Japan. On December 14, 2011, Nexon went public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TYO: 3659) in what was the largest IPO in Japan that year and the second largest by a technology company worldwide. A subsidiary, Nexon Games Co., Ltd., is separately listed on the Korean KOSDAQ exchange (stock code 225570) and employs approximately 1,626 people. Kim Jung-ju passed away in February 2022 at age 54.
Nexon posted record revenue of ¥446.2 billion for fiscal year 2024, driven primarily by its live-service games. The company maintains offices in several countries. The primary development headquarters sits in Seoul, South Korea, while the corporate parent operates from Tokyo, Japan. The company also has a presence in Santa Monica, California for North American operations.
Major games
Nexon's catalog spans multiple genres and decades. Some of the company's most well-known titles include:
Game | Details |
|---|---|
MapleStory | (2003): A 2D side-scrolling MMORPG that became one of the most popular free-to-play games worldwide. It remains active with ongoing updates more than two decades after launch. |
Dungeon Fighter Online | A 2D beat-em-up MMORPG developed by Nexon's subsidiary NEOPLE. With over $22 billion in lifetime global revenue by 2023, it ranks among the highest-grossing video games of all time. |
KartRider | A casual racing game that became a cultural phenomenon in South Korea. |
Mabinogi | A fantasy life MMORPG set in a world inspired by Celtic mythology, the same mythological framework that underpins the Vindictus series. |
Vindictus | (2010): Known as Mabinogi Heroes in South Korea, this action-focused MMORPG ran on a modified Source Engine. It shares a setting and characters with Defying Fate but played very differently as a fast-paced online hack-and-slash. |
CAG Studio and Vindictus: Defying Fate
Nexon's internal CAG Studio handles development of Vindictus: Defying Fate. Game director Dongseok Oh leads the project. Rather than continuing the original Vindictus as a sequel, CAG Studio chose to rebuild the experience from the ground up using Unreal Engine 5, retelling the story from its beginning while shifting the gameplay toward a single-player Soulslike framework with optional co-op multiplayer.
The Alpha Test in June 2025 drew 426,176 players from 189 countries during Steam Next Fest, earning the #1 spot on Steam's "Most Played Demos" list. The studio continues to refine the game based on feedback from that test, with new characters like Arisha confirmed for future builds.
Other studios and operations
Beyond CAG Studio, Nexon operates several other development teams. NEOPLE handles Dungeon Fighter Online. Nexon also acquired a majority stake in Embark Studios, a Stockholm-based developer founded in November 2018 by Patrick Söderlund (former DICE CEO and EA Chief Design Officer). Embark became a Nexon subsidiary in 2021 after cumulative investments totaling approximately $300 million. Embark developed The Finals, a free-to-play first-person shooter that attracted over 10 million players within two weeks of its December 2023 launch. Nexon also operates game publishing services across Asia, distributing titles from both internal and external studios.