With Throne and Liberty, a major MMORPG is set to launch again in the West in 2024. The developers of the game are said to be working on the successor soon.
What are these clues? On Reddit, resourceful users have scoured NCsoft’s job postings and came across job listings for a new MMORPG team. It states: “A cutting-edge 3D MMORPG of the next generation is being developed based on the Unreal Engine 5 using Lineage IP.”
The Lineage IP is the brand for the MMORPGs Lineage I and Lineage II. However, it has also been used for the designs of Aion (initially developed as Lineage Forever) and Throne and Liberty (initially developed as Lineage Eternal). Throne and Liberty is the latest installment in the series and has been running in Korea since December 7, 2023.
According to users on Reddit, the team for the MMORPG is said to consist of 39 employees, 12 of whom are supposed to be veterans of the Lineage brand. However, we could only find 8 job listings for “Project NL” on NCsoft’s career website, making it impossible to confirm the exact number of staff working on the project.
The working title could already provide hints about the MMORPG. Users suspect that NL stands for “Next(-generation) Lineage.” However, they also believe that the MMORPG will be released for mobile devices.
Here you can watch the trailer for the current expansion of Throne and Liberty:
Concerns About a Mobile MMORPG
How do the users come to think of a Mobile MMORPG? The users argue that Project NL is to become a mobile MMORPG due to the number of developers. In their opinion, 39 developers are not enough to design a full-fledged MMORPG. Instead, the team, according to players’ speculations on Reddit, is supposed to rely on existing assets, graphics, and mechanics.
However, it is likely that the MMORPG is still in the conceptual phase. This phase of development lays the foundation for a game and works out the game concept and elements that will later differentiate the MMORPG from other titles.
Only when the framework of the MMORPG is established will more developers be brought in to develop the individual elements of the game. It is also important to note that both Aion and Throne and Liberty initially took different directions. Aion was initially developed as Lineage Forever, and Throne & Liberty was originally supposed to be Lineage Eternal. This shows that new Lineage projects can change significantly during their development.
Currently, it is not even clear what exactly is to come from the project or whether it will ever be realized. There are simply still many puzzle pieces missing outside the job postings that only hint at the development of an MMORPG with Unreal Engine 5.
Additionally, NCsoft is currently investing many resources into Throne and Liberty, which suggests that a new large project is unlikely. It will probably take years before a potential Lineage 3 becomes a reality. Until then, you can continue to play the latest game of the Lineage brand: Amazon Games celebrates “significant influx of players” for the latest MMORPG on Steam
