After almost two decades developing and publishing games predominantly in its home country, 2023's Lies of P helped establish Neowiz as a global company. Eager to capitalize on the Soulslike's success, the publisher has a selection of projects in the works, with the plan being to keep introducing fresh properties over the coming decade.
"Our goal is to consistently introduce successful IP that fans will continue to support and look forward to over the long haul, even five or ten years down the line," Sean Kim, co-CEO of Neowiz, tells Game Informer. "Currently, we are internally developing more than five new PC and console titles, while also focusing on discovering global IP through collaborations with Western studios such as Zakazane and Wolfeye."
He adds the company plans to "continue investing" in "strong partners worldwide" as part of this MO. That said, emphasis remains strong on homegrown talent, such as Wonder Potion, the studio behind stylish cyberpunk roguelike Sanabi, and Lizard Smoothie, who put out the fantasy action-RPG Shape of Dreams.
Naturally, none of this precludes Lies of P, which has done extremely well across PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. After two years of updates and DLC, there's a sequel on the way, but Neowiz isn't eager to pigeonhole itself into Soulslikes or roguelikes.
"Of course, the Lies of P franchise will need to be continued. That's a given," Kim states. "In general, our development cycle does not begin with a particular genre. Instead, it starts with the creative vision of our directors. We tend not to begin development by fixating on a play-style or game concept first."
It's believed that Lies of P 2 will draw from The Wizard of Oz in a similar fashion to how the first uses Pinocchio, with Dorothy as the central figure. But beyond that, we'll just have to see what dark delights Neowiz has in store.
