It doesn't feel like seven years since DokeV was first announced, but indeed, Crimson Desert studio Pearl Abyss's open-world Pokemon-like creature-catcher made its debut in 2019. It's changed forms a lot since then, from MMO to open-world action adventure with K-pop and skating, from a game potentially launching in 2022 to who the heck knows when, and after years of silence that had me convinced DokeV had been reduced to vaporware, it sounds like things might finally be back on track.
Talking to South Korean publication Inven at the company's 17th annual shareholder meeting, CEO Heo Jin-young confirmed the studio's core development team is shifting over to DokeV following the release of Crimson Desert. Jin-young also said, via machine translation, that the developers will be able to "pick up the pace" with DokeV and estimate it'll take "about two to three years from the current timeline to completion and polishing."
Being built in the same proprietary BlackSpace engine as Crimson Desert, DokeV has long been billed as something of a "next-gen" game, whatever that means these days. Its "world premiere" trailer from 2021 is visually dazzling to this day, although it's unclear what it'll actually look like at launch. All I know is, I love weird games, and DokeV looks exceptionally weird, featuring confetti guns, llama mounts, jet skis, jet-powered skateboards, and some truly wild monster designs inspired by South Korean mythology. Oh, and dancing. Everyone's dancing, all of the time.
