Our eyes must have glazed over the Q4 2023 investor report from Kakao when it dropped a few weeks ago, but it contained some big – and unfortunate – MMORPG industry news that we just have to dredge up: ArcheAge 2 has apparently been delayed yet again.
This isn’t the first delay for the Jake Song-led sequel, of course; the late 2024 projection was already a delay, but now it won’t make this year either. The investor report’s “new line-ups” chart shows ArcheAge 2 now slated for “Post 25,” which initially sounds like 2026, but based on the way the rest of the games on the chart are arrayed, we take it to mean “some point in 2025 or beyond” – in other words, not this year. Either way, it’s at least a half year or delay and potentially much more.
Kakao’s operating profits and revenues soared over the course of the quarter, but its music streaming segment has taken a beating. Revenues saw a 14% increase across the entirety of 2023 as compared to 2022. As Nikkei Asia reminds us, the company will anoint a new CEO, Chung Shin-Ah, next month – corporate’s attempt to tidy its public image in the wake of a stock manipulation scandal.
The company is working on several other games, including the global version of Ares Rise of Guardians, and it’s still set to publish Grinding Gear’s Path of Exile 2 in Korea. Its newly announced collaboration with Npixel’s Chrono Studio on Chrono Odyssey was not shown to investors in the line-up chart.
