A new independent studio is developing a AAA online game, and NCSoft's given it a multi-million dollar investment to get off the ground. Molten Games is staffed by leaders from Blizzard, Sony Online Entertainment, and Relic Entertainment.
Molten hasn't tipped its hand about its first project, but it describes itself as "breaking free from the traditional developer/publisher relationship and putting gameplay first and foremost."
CEO and co-founder of Molten Jungwon Hahn described its first project as "epic." While big-league online games are a notorious drain on resources, it sounds like Molten at least has the talent to know what it's getting into.
“Our team understands not only the creation of online games, but the ongoing management of them, better than anyone else in the industry," Han said in a statement. "As we continue to build our team and work on our initial product, gameplay and player experience is going to come first with every decision.”
CORRECTION: This story previously misidentified Relic Entertainment as Runic Games. We regret the error.