Nexon Group to Acquire Mobile Game Developer Big Huge Games

Enables Long-Term Service of Critically-Acclaimed Strategy Game DomiNations, Which Has Surpassed 19 Million Total Downloads Worldwide

TOKYO – March 10, 2016 – NEXON Co., Ltd. (“Nexon”) (3659.TO), a worldwide leader in free-to-play online and mobile games, today announced that its consolidated subsidiary, NEXON Korea Corporation (“Nexon Korea”) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire all outstanding shares of Big Huge Games, a developer of strategy gameDomiNations.

Big Huge Games is an independent game studio co-founded by industry veterans Brian Reynolds and Tim Train, renowned developers behind Civilization II and Rise of Nations. Nexon and Big Huge Games announced a strategic partnership in July 2013, and the debut title, DomiNations, has garnered critical acclaim and international success, including surpassing 19 million total downloads[*] worldwide since its launch in April 2015.

Together, Nexon and Big Huge Games will provide long-term, comprehensive service ofDomiNations, including game development, operations, user support and marketing. In addition, combining Big Huge Games’ skilled creative team and development capabilities with Nexon’s global publishing expertise will enable Nexon to consistently provideDomiNations players with fresh content and engaging experiences over the long-term.

“We are thrilled to be joining forces with Big Huge Games. One of Nexon’s core objectives is to empower the best game developers around the world enable them to succeed,” said Owen Mahoney, President and Chief Executive Officer of Nexon. “DomiNations has achieved great success in both the West and Asia, and we’re excited to work with Big Huge Games to deliver the best quality gameplay to fans for years to come.”

Tim Train, Chief Executive Officer of Big Huge Games, commented, “We’ve had such a great relationship with Nexon on DomiNations, and we’re very excited to become part of the family. We share Nexon’s vision that games are most successful when passionate, talented designers can create innovative gameplay, and we look forward to many years of working together to create worldwide hits that change the mobile landscape”

Nexon creates and publishes creative and entertaining games for players around the world. Going forward, the Company will continue to focus on the development and service of high-quality games through in-house development and strategic partnerships.

About DomiNations https://dominations.nexonm.com/
The engaging single- and multiplayer, base-building strategy game challenges players to develop and rule their own civilizations throughout world history, from the Stone Age to the Space Age. In the game, players relive history’s most famous conflicts and build Wonders of the World in an expansive and immersive environment. The title has been critically acclaimed on both stores and selected as “Best of 2015” by App Store in four countries in Asia (Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong). In addition, it was awarded as Google Play’s “Best Games of 2015” in Korea.

About NEXON Co., Ltd. http://company.nexon.co.jp/
NEXON Co., Ltd. (“Nexon”) (3659.TO) is a worldwide leader in free-to-play online and mobile games. Founded in Korea in 1994, Nexon developed one of the world’s first graphics-based massively multiplayer online games. Nexon also pioneered the concept of microtransactions and the free-to-play business model, setting a new standard in which play is free, and users have the option to purchase in-game items to enhance their experience. Nexon currently services nearly 100 titles in more than 190 countries. The Company is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan and its shares are listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

About Big Huge Games www.bighugegames.com
Big Huge Games specializes in mobile strategy games. The studio was founded in 2013 by 25- year game industry collaborators Brian Reynolds and Tim Train, along with several other long- time veterans, and hopes to keep the flame alive of the original Big Huge Games which ran from 2000 to 2012. We build prototypes and improve them constantly until we love playing them ourselves – we know you won’t love our game until we love it. Big Huge Games is represented by Ophir Lupu of United Talent Agency.

Contact information
Nexon Corporate PR  [email protected]

Fractured Space Update Introduces Custom Matches — Battle with or against Friends for Bragging Rights

Guildford, 10^th March 2016.  Edge Case Games, developers of the team-based space combat game, Fractured Space, revealed that today’s eagerly anticipated game update introduces Custom Matches, one of the features most requested by the game’s community.

The system has been designed for matches with friends, including both friendly encounters and clan training. It allows for everything from one-on-one games to full five-on-five matches.

A Steam Community Group, Fractured Fight Club, has been set up to facilitate challenges and the establishment of casual teams.

Team leaders will decide the number of players and game mode before the game begins, and players can invite others to the lobby to quickly and easily fill out a match. During this process, ranks and Matchmaking Rating (MMR) will be fully visible to assist with balancing.

“Fractured Space is at its heart a team game, and Custom Matches will bring a number of important player benefits, from playing fun matches with friends to full-on clan training exercises,” said Sam Bennett, Community Director at Edge Case Games. “Thanks to our open development model, ECG is able to listen and adapt to features that are important to our community.”

Fractured Space is a team-based space combat game fought in gigantic capital ships with the intensity of a shooter and the big-picture-thinking of a strategy game.

Originally launched on Steam Early Access in November 2014 to critical and commercial success, Fractured Space has attracted over 500’000 players as the game continuously evolves using an open development model where the community is encouraged to talk directly to the development team, highly influencing the development of the final game.

For updates on Fractured Space please follow:

https://www.fracturedspace.com/
https://twitter.com/fracturedspace
https://www.facebook.com/FracturedSpace

https://twitter.com/RenaissancePRUK
https://www.facebook.com/RenaissancePR

About Edge Case Games
Formed in 2014 from the team behind the hit space game, Strike Suit Zero, Edge Case Games brings its expertise and passion for space games to its inaugural title, the tactical space MOBA, Fractured Space. Based in the development hotbed of Guildford, UK, the team is dedicated to expanding the scope and scale of space-based gaming through an open development philosophy that leverages the enthusiasm of the gaming community.
About Fractured Space
Fractured Space is team-based space combat fought in gigantic capital ships with the intensity of a shooter and the big-picture-thinking of a strategy game. Fractured Space is currently available for PC on Steam Early Access and is set for a wider free-to-play release in 2016.

Today kicks off Naughty Dog’s five episode behind-the-scenes series, ‘The Making of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End’.

The video team at PlayStation has been given incredible access to the Naughty Dog studio, game assets, and many of the people working on Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End including Creative Director Neil Druckmann to craft a compelling series to cap off this final chapter for Nathan Drake.

The first episode, titled ‘The Evolution of a Franchise’, kicks off the series with a brief look at how Naughty Dog and the Uncharted series has evolved, since Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune made its debut on the PS3 in 2007. It also includes mentions of the lasting influence of The Last of Us on the team and its development process.

You can view the first episode here.

The five-episode series is scheduled to be released throughout March and April, so we hope you tune in to each episode. The rundown of episodes is:

• The Making of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End: The Evolution of a Franchise
• The Making of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End: Growing up with Drake
• The Making of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End: Pushing Technical Boundaries Part 1
• The Making of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End: Pushing Technical Boundaries Part 2
• The Making of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End: In the End

Several years after his last adventure, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End sees retired fortune hunter Nathan Drake forced back into the world of thieves. With the stakes much more personal, Drake embarks on a globe-trotting journey in pursuit of a historical conspiracy behind a fabled pirate treasure. His greatest adventure will test his physical limits, his resolve, and ultimately what he’s willing to sacrifice to save the ones he loves.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is launching exclusively on PlayStation 4, 10 May, 2016. 

You can read the full blog post here.

Software update adds additional items, modes and features, giving players even more opportunities for creativity in ‘block-buster’ game

10^th March 2016 – A new software update to Super Mario Maker for the Wii U console has added additional items, modes, and features to the critically-acclaimed game, making it even more fun to create, share, and play levels from all around the world. You can check out the new trailer here.

One such new addition is the Key item from Super Mario World for the Super NES: when grabbed, it unlocks the new Key Door item, granting access to new parts of the level. Accessed by shaking the P Switch and Door items respectively, the Key and Key Doors can be used in conjunction in order to create challenging new levels. The Key can even be attached to enemies, forcing players to defeat them in order to retrieve the Key and move forward, meaning it’s now possible to create courses with mandatory boss battles.

When players shake a coin while creating a course, it will now change into a Pink Coin, and if all of these are collected in a course, a Key will appear. By combining the Key, Key Door and Pink Coins, players can expand their imagination and create unique puzzle-solving levels.

A new Spike Pillar obstacle will also be added to the game. Originally featured in Super Mario World, this huge, foreboding column comes slamming down from where it’s placed, and appears in a course by shaking the Thwomp item while creating a course.

Players looking for a serious challenge are in luck, as after downloading the free update, a new “Super Expert” difficulty will be added to the 100 Mario Challenge. This new difficulty pulls random courses that have been categorised as being “Super Expert” after their creation. By completing 100 Mario Challenge on this difficulty, five new Mystery Mushroom costumes can be won, as well as three new costume rewards from completing the mode on “Normal”, and four for finishing it on “Expert”.

The new additions aren’t just reserved for the game itself: the Super Mario Maker Bookmark website, which lets users sort and search for levels using a smart device or browser, will now display Super Mario Maker World Record players.

Recently, there have also been some new costumes added to the game, including the always smart and sometimes zany Professor E. Gadd from the Luigi’s Mansion games. Fans of Daisy can play through the Adventures in Sarasaland Event Course and also get the Daisy costume. Players should check Event Courses often for new levels to play.

Super Mario Maker has a staggering 6.2 million different user-created playable courses, which in turn have been played more than 400 million times as of 27^th January. For more information about the game, visit http://gamesites.nintendo.com.au/super-mario-maker. To view these updates in action, watch the Super Mario Maker 9^th March update trailer on YouTube.
Additional Links:
Nintendo Australia website: http://www.nintendo.com.au 
Nintendo Australia Twitter: https://twitter.com/NintendoAUNZ
Nintendo Australia Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NintendoAUNZ
Nintendo AU on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/nintendoau

ODIN SPHERE® LEIFTHRASIR SKILLS AND COMBAT TRAILER RELEASED!

NIS America have already announced that Odin Sphere Leifthrasir will be joining its European RPG lineup in June 2016 and now they have released the new ‘Skills and Combat’ trailer. You can watch it via the YouTube link here: https://youtu.be/uhV4MVXiTC8

Odin Sphere Leifthrasir is a 2D sidescrolling action RPG, steeped in Norse mythology or a Wagnerian opera. The new game is a complete HD remake of the original PS2 classic Odin Sphere from Vanillaware, the team behind the hit side-scrolling action game Dragon’s Crown and Muramasa: The Demon Blade. Atlus U.S.A. will be publishing this game in North America.

About the story:

The kingdom of Valentine was the most powerful country on the continent of Erion. Its people thrived using the magical power of the Crystallization Cauldron, but it was destroyed in one fateful night. And so, a war over the now master-less Cauldron has begun, involving all the nations of the land and growing more intense by the day. Is the End near, as the Prophecy states?

For more information about Odin Sphere Leifthrasir visit: http://atlus.com/osl/

Click here to view the new Skills Trailer https://youtu.be/uhV4MVXiTC8

Click here to download the assets for Odin Sphere Leifthrasir: http://we.tl/ShAaVYFOME

Tour the World of Assassination in interactive 360-degree format & The Real Life HITMAN Experience 

SYDNEY, 10^TH March 2016 – Io-Interactive today released a unique 360-degree video welcoming viewers into a world of killer fashion. Set in Paris, the Sanguine Fall Fashion Show is the red carpet event of the year and you are invited to join in this interactive video experience. Shot in 4K resolution, it shows off the Paris location from the first episode of the upcoming HITMAN game in stunning visual fidelity, allowing viewers to enter the fashion show itself and even inviting them backstage for a peak behind the curtains of mystery that surround this event.

From moment you move through the flashy entrance of Palais de Walewska to the second you see the outside fireworks setting off in the evening sky, the video gives you an immersive experience inside the secret World of Assassination unlike anything you’ve seen before in a Hitman game.

The HITMAN Sanguine Fall Fashion Show 360 video can be experienced here on YouTube. For a fully immersive experience, we recommend mobile as the preferred viewing platform.

Io-Interactive and Realm Pictures also recently invited a select group of people to become Agent 47’s handler as he goes on a mission to eliminate a Serbian arms dealer in a real life Hitman experience unlike anything created before. Among the participants were YouTubers AliA, NukemDukem, SUP3R KONAR and Pietsmiet as well as Jane Perry, the voice actress behind Agent 47’s handler Diana Burnwood. The full video experience is available here and you can go behind the scenes with Realm Pictures here to learn much more about the elaborate setup required to pull this off.

HITMAN will launch on March 11^th for the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system, Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, and early on March 12^th for Windows PC (ANZ).

Related Links

Official Website: hitman.com / Official Facebook Page: facebook.com/hitman / Follow @Hitman on Twitter: twitter.com/hitman / Visit the subreddit: reddit.com/r/hitman