2D MMO Dungeon Fighter Online could quite possibly be the most lucrative game ever made that you've never played. Launched in Korea in 2005 as Dungeon & Fighter, it's since spawned sequels and spin-offs that have earned some $22 billion over the years. Despite being a massive hit in Asia, Dungeon Fighter Online never quite graduated past a cult following in the West. Last month's First Berserker: Khazan could be a back door into helping the series finally get its hooks into more players. That's certainly what developer Neople is hoping for, at least.
It's not obvious at first, but Khazan has deep ties to the DNF series and the developers aimed to leverage its long history and iconography for a different type of experience. During GDC 2025 we spoke with Neople CEO Myeongjin Yun and lead actor Ben Starr (who broke out with his role as Clive in Final Fantasy 16) about the action game's goal of reinventing DNF for a new era.
"It's been close to 20 years since the original Dungeon Fighter Online released, and while a lot of people have enjoyed it, and it has seen great success all around Asia, it's still not as well known in the West," said Yun. "There is a wide span of gamers and their taste when you look at gaming in general, and the original Dungeon Fighter is a 2D, side-scrolling game, and it might be a little bit niche.
"So for us, we thought about what genre we can reach more people with to really draw them into the Dungeon Fighter Universe. The experience of making a fighting game with Duel worked well, but for this time, we wanted to make an action game and stay very true to that core experience of Dungeon Fighter. We wanted to make Khazan to showcase the series' fast, intense action and highlight the storytelling and lore that the Dungeon Fighter IP has built in the last decades."
The original DFO is bombastic with its combat; First Berserker instead emphasizes the lethal soulslike experience with the player's journey and their growth, through the eyes of Khazan as a broken warrior and eventually a powerful, malevolent warlord.
It's very much an action RPG, but it leans into tension and more thoughtful action as opposed to the fast-paced and all-out combat of, say, Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry. According to the CEO of Neople, First Berserker is about getting players invested in a hardcore action-RPG experience that still makes them feel "cool."
"We always want players to feel cool when fighting and that they are in control during a fight," said Yun. "It can be a difficult and challenging game, but since you are playing as Khazan, we want you to feel cool and powerful, which will then give you motivation to try again and do better on new attempts. That aspect was important for us with this type of action game, as you'll then be able to start parrying and really relish that sensation of combat clicking for you. We didn't want players to go through too much pressure—it was more about balancing pressure, so we could make you feel you're growing on this journey."
What makes First Berserker: Khazan compelling as a new game is that it acts as an origin story for the series and its title character, essentially DFO's parallel to Arthas/The Lich King from World of Warcraft. Without an expectation of knowing years of DFO lore, newcomers get an entry point to dive right in. For longtime players it offers a beginning story that provides some context for the large-scale conflicts in DFO.
Set 700 years before the original game, First Berserker begins with the title character exiled into a frozen wilderness by his former allies with the Pell Los empire. After narrowly escaping imprisonment, he soon forms an uneasy alliance with a dark entity known as Blade Phantom, which pushes him to seek revenge against his conspirators and inadvertently leads the kingdom down a darker path—setting the stage for the era of Dungeon Fighter Online and his fate as an antagonist.
First Berserker's story is dark, and this aspect of the character was something that actor Ben Starr found appealing.
Starr is no stranger to playing brooding, and powerful protagonists like Final Fantasy 16's Clive or Warframe: 1999's Arthur. When he auditioned for First Berserker, he was taken in by how cool the character looked, but says that what really won him over was how much "meat on the bones" there was with the character's rags-to-berserker journey and how Neople allowed him to add his own spin on the character.
"For me as an actor, I love the challenge of exploring the things that aren't powerful, where a character is at their lowest, and this game has some great moments that reflect that," Starr said. "This [game] is a profound power fantasy, and you build up this character and get new cool weapons, but it's not just an action game. This has a lot of heart to it, and this is about a world where people are suffering, and what Khazan can do to help, as well as battling his own literal inner demon.
"What really drew me to this role was just how much there was to play with, and I felt like [the developers] were all very open to allowing [the cast] to play in that way with this world." Starr also praised actor Anthony Howell who played the boss Blade Phantom—as well as Elden Ring boss Morgott—for delivering "a brilliant performance" and being "a perfect foil for Khazan."
In addition to the Dungeon & Fighter franchises' turn towards a soulslike with First Berserker, the developers also have an open-world RPG known as ARAD: Dungeon & Fighter, which was revealed in 2024. So far, the developers seem to be keeping their options open for new experiences for the franchise.
"Our entire team is made up of people who loved the original Dungeon Fighter and even grew up with it over the years, and we really want to share those stories with more people, and that's why we started with Khazan," said Yun. "We felt his experience as a fighter and warrior and how that can fit into a hardcore action RPG would translate well to new audiences. And there are so many other characters with depth, leaving more possibilities in the future.
"It could be more character-focused experiences, it could be online, it could be a movie, it could be more manhwas, or an anime series, a lot of different things, but stay tuned; we have a lot in store."
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
