You read that headline right. Six. Pearl Abyss has had an absolute banger of a second quarter according to its most recent financial earnings report, which not only saw the publisher/developer make big bucks but also sees the company hard at work on a variety of new titles to keep the momentum going.
First, the fiscal stuff: Q2 was Pearl Abyss’s best-ever performing quarter in terms of sales and saw the company see an astonishing 266% rise in profits when compared to the previous quarter. As for those sales figures, 74% of them are from the overseas market, which means that we’ll likely be seeing more games from Pearl Abyss arrive to the West.
Speaking of more games, the earnings report also provided some quick details on a number of games the company is working on:
- First, we’ve got EVE: Aether Wars, which returns this year for another go. Pearl Abyss’s CEO admitted that the test is still extremely experimental but says that clearing technical challenges will be huge for other games from the company in the future.
- There is, of course, Black Desert Mobile, which is still eyeballing a release in the fourth quarter of this year.
- A new “AAA” RPG title removed from the Black Desert IP is Project CD, a new game with its eyes on a global audience. This new project will be primarily for console but working on a simultaneous cross-platform launch with PC, mobile, and streaming services, and will also be utilizing its new next-gen engine.
- The Shadow Arena battle royale mode from Black Desert seems likely to become its own standalone game. Readers will recall this mode launched in February 2019 but was plagued with massive ban waves and subsequently messy redaction of some of those bans until the studio killed it off in April. You can read a summary of the sordid affair in our Desert Oasis column.
- Finally, we have acknowledgement that Project K and Project V are still in development, both of which were described as “casual” shooting games.
source: Pearl Abyss IR website via MMO Culture
