April 20, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] South Korean game company NCSoft on March. 2 unveiled its first virtual reality game based on its hit online PC game “Blade & Soul,” at the ongoing Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

“Blade & Soul Table Arena” is a real-time strategy game featuring the characters from NCSoft’s original role-playing game “Blade & Soul.”

The Korean game maker introduced the new VR game as a partner to the US-based VR headset maker Oculus. It was included as one of 20 upcoming VR games to be launched via the Oculus platform, NCSoft said.

“It marks our first attempt to merge NCSoft’s intellectual property with virtual reality,” said Son Dong-hee, head of NCSoft’s game innovation division. “We will continue expanding research and development into next-generation technologies like VR.”

NCSoft has yet to set an official release date for “Blade & Soul Table Arena,” according to a company official. The company is also in talks with other VR platform companies to introduce “Blade & Soul Table Arena” to a wider audience.

GDC 2017, one of the biggest game industry events of the year, kicked off at San Francisco on Feb. 27 . It is scheduled to run until March 3.

By Sohn Ji-young/The Korea Herald (jys@herladcorp.com)