Theorycraft has announced that it will team up with Nexon and NetEase Games to publish its game, code-name Project Loki, in Asian markets. On top of that, Project Loki is now in alpha testing.
All of that bodes well for Los Angeles-based Theorycraft, which was founded by gaming veterans who managed to raise an astounding $87.5 million from game venture capitalists for a relatively small team.
Nexon will publish Project Loki in South Korea and Japan, while NetEase will publish the title in China.
“NetEase was the lead investor of our first round. And they’ve been a fantastic partner to work with all the way through,” said Joe Tung, CEO of Theorycraft, in an interview with GamesBeat. “And Korea is such an interesting market. It’s such an important market for the types of games that we’re making. But it’s also it has such bespoke dynamics. It is such a unique market. We could have tried to self publish in Korea, but it’s such an important and bespoke market. Partnering with Nexon will mean we’ll be able to make a much, much bigger impact there than we could have on our own.”
Tung was one of the leaders on League of Legends at Riot Games, where he was executive vice president of the League franchise.
Tung said, “We’ve been working on the project for about just over three years. We’re officially announcing this week that we’re in alpha. We’ve been in pre-alpha up until this point,” “We’ve been playing the game with real players since day one.”
Gameplay for alpha stage
Described by players as “League of Legends meets Apex Legends meets Super Smash Bros.,” Project Loki has been iterating with a live playtesting community since Theorycraft’s formation, seeing over 150,000 players signed up to playtest, and running over 50-plus unique playtests in North America and Europe, Tung said.
Tung said the game’s primary mode is battle royale. It has huge elements of multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), hero shooter and other genres as well. It is a modern fantasy title, with its own twists. The game has multiple modes but the primary mode is squad-based combat.
A typical session has four players on a team with a total of 12 teams fighting each other.
“They try to be the last team standing,” he said. “We also have a deathmatch mode that’s sort of more of a classic symmetrical PvP mode. Its biggest differentiation is that it has quite a lot of strategic gameplay.”
He added, “There are team compositions, and the team compositions radically change your play experience in a given session. You have different roles that you play on your squad. There are quite a lot of systems incorporated into it. And so the systemic depth of the game means it does not player like any other battle royale out there.”
The company will try to hit a beta launch — where the open beta is essentially a game launch — later this year or early next year, Tung said.
Partner comments
“It’s rare to come across an opportunity like Project Loki and we are committed to bringing the title to our audiences because we believe they will appreciate its unique combination of deep competition and unpredictable fun,” stated Joo Yi, head of partnerships at Nexon Korea. “With team members having helped build blockbuster franchises such as League of Legends, Valorant, and Overwatch, we firmly believe in the capability of Theorycraft Games and are honored to bring their first title to Korea and Japan.”
It was the strength and reception of those playtests, as well as the veteran team at Theorycraft, that led Nexon and NetEase to bet big on this in-development title.
“Theorycraft’s ‘10,000-hour games’ game design concept aligns perfectly with NetEase’s identity as ‘game enthusiasts.’ The creative game design of Project Loki, along with its competitive potential demonstrates unlimited imaginative space to us,” said Frank Xiang, vice president at NetEase Games, in a statement. “We believe this collaboration will be highly successful, and we have full confidence in the potential for Project Loki in the competitive gaming market in China.”
Tung said the team has taken inspiration from League of Legends, Super Smash Bros., Apex Legends and PUBG. The title will be a free-to-play game where you can purchase cosmetics if you wish. Tung sees it as an open and accessible game with a deep core loop. Some of this sense comes from developing the game in the open with fans during the prototyping and testing phases so far.
Theorycraft Games will continue to self-publish Project Loki for the rest of the world as the studio remains focused on building the game via their live community and monthly playtests.
“We recognize the incredible privilege it is to be a new, independent studio with two remarkable publishing deals while still in alpha development,” said Michael Chiang, head of Asia and global corporate development for Theorycraft Games, in a statement. “We’re thrilled that these two industry titans believe in Project Loki. Like us, we know that both Nexon and NetEase appreciate deeply engaging, community-focused games, as we’ve already seen with their own titles like MapleStory (Nexon) and Naraka: Bladepoint (NetEase). We couldn’t ask for better partners to bring Project Loki to gamers in Asia.”
Theorycraft was formed in December 2020 by a founding team that includes Joe Tung, Mike Tipul, Michael Evans, and Areeb Pirani — former studio leaders at Riot Games, Bungie, and Blizzard Entertainment. Collectively they led the development of games such as League of Legends, Halo, Destiny, Overwatch, and Valorant.
The team has almost 60 people. The company continues to hire people, and Tung is proud of the people the firm has been able to attract. Tung doesn’t foresee needing to raise more funding. The question will be what kind of marketing budget it will be able to have after launch.
Tung said the company will reveal the codename for Project Loki shortly.