Weekly Anime & Game in Asia 2026-W41 (2026-10-03~2026-10-09)

NCSOFT’s Aion 2 reached a Steam peak of nearly 400,000 concurrent players after its full global launch, and Amazon Games set the dates for handing Throne and Liberty’s Western service to NCSOFT. Nexon signed with Chernin Entertainment to adapt ARC Raiders and THE FINALS for film and television, and Shinsegae is putting USD 1 billion into the Warner Bros. acquisition. Sony introduced an AI upscaler for the standard PS5, and Steam access problems in Vietnam spread to downloads and updates.

Company Strategy

Capcom, the Osaka publisher behind Resident Evil, Monster Hunter and Street Fighter, released RE:Dox, a data-representation and serialization library, as open-source software on GitHub on October 2, AUTOMATON reported. Capcom presented it as one of the base technologies of REX (RE neXt ENGINE), the project, disclosed in October 2023, to move its in-house RE ENGINE to a next generation step by step, and published it on the day its engineering event, CAPCOM Open Conference RE:2026, opened with a talk on REX. RE:Dox is a token-based structured-data engine for .NET. In Capcom’s benchmark, parallel deserialization from JSON ran up to about 2.84 times as fast as .NET’s standard System.Text.Json, with results varying by data shape, environment and CPU. It is published under the Apache-2.0 license, which permits commercial use and modification.

Nihon Falcom, the Japanese RPG developer behind the Ys and Trails series, said on October 7 that its Trails series has sold more than 10 million units, up from the 8 million it reported in 2024, AUTOMATON reported. Falcom also said its results will beat its initial forecast, with net sales, operating profit, ordinary profit and net income all expected to reach record highs, and it revised its dividend forecast. It cited the global release of Trails in the Sky the 2nd on September 17, 2026, steady sales of Kyoto Xanadu: The Blooming Phantom, released in Japan and Asia in July, and global sales of Trails in the Sky the 1st, the September 2025 full remake of the 2004 game that started the series.

NCSOFT, the South Korean studio behind Lineage that is now trying to publish worldwide itself instead of licensing out, will take over the Western service of its MMORPG Throne and Liberty from Amazon Games, which has run it there. Amazon Games said in a notice on October 8 that transfer maintenance starts on November 10 Pacific time (November 11 in Korea), Inven reported; it had announced the transfer in August. Characters, items, in-game currency and progress move to NCSOFT’s service unless players opt out by October 30, and those who opt out start over. The auction house and sales of some paid items stop from maintenance on October 26 Pacific time until the transfer is complete. Steam, PlayStation and Xbox accounts carry over; Xbox players will need to install a new NCSOFT-published app afterward.

Platforms

Sony Interactive Entertainment, the Sony subsidiary that runs PlayStation, announced QSSR, an AI upscaling technology for the standard PS5, 4Gamer reported on October 2. It was developed from PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution), the upscaler used on the PS5 Pro, which the base PS5 could not run because of its processing limits. The first supported titles are Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei, and according to the PlayStation Blog, QSSR will be offered widely to developers of PlayStation titles.

Nintendo, the Kyoto console maker behind Mario and Zelda, will release a Nintendo Switch 2 “Choose Your Software Set” — the Japanese-language, Japan-only model — on November 12 for JPY 63,980, JPY 4,000 more than the standard console at JPY 59,980, GAME Watch reported on October 6. A download code in the box redeems one of three games at no extra cost: Mario Kart World, Nintendo Switch Sports Resort or Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. No titles will be added, and the code must be redeemed by March 31, 2027.

Users in Vietnam have reported since October 2 that, beyond the store and payment pages restricted earlier, they can no longer download or update games on Steam, reach community pages or sync cloud saves without a VPN, Inven reported on October 3, citing Vietnamese games outlet GameK and posts by local users; some users on the same internet provider still had normal access. Neither the Vietnamese authorities nor local carriers had announced a new block as of the report. Vietnam confirmed in May 2024 that it had blocked some Steam services, saying games distributed there need a local license and that Valve, the Bellevue, Washington company that runs Steam, had not responded to the authorities; a decree in force since December 25, 2024 requires licenses for online games offered in Vietnam, including by foreign operators. On September 23, Vietnamese newspaper Thanh Niên reported that the authorities were considering blocking the PC version of PUBG, which is not licensed there; Inven said no direct link between that and the Steam disruption has been confirmed.

Apple told app developers on October 5 that every app submitted to the App Store from April 2027, games included, must come with screenshots for the iPhone Duo, its first foldable iPhone, AUTOMATON reported; the outlet read the requirement as showing users how an app appears on the device whether or not the app supports it. Apps optimized for the iPhone Duo can be submitted through App Store Connect from October 5, and existing apps get support by recompiling with Xcode 27.1. The iPhone Duo, with a 5.4-inch outer and a 7.6-inch inner display, opens for pre-orders on October 16 and goes on sale on October 23, from JPY 364,800 in Japan.

Indie Game Marketing

Studio Sazanka, a Tokyo studio founded in December 2024 by Kenji Ozawa, who worked at Bandai Namco and at NetEase Games’ Ouka Studios and directed Visions of Mana, said on October 2 that it is entering indie-game publishing, AUTOMATON reported. Its first title is [AFANTASIA], a narrative exploration adventure from Brazilian studio noidnoidnoid, in development since around 2023, for PC (Steam) with no release date set. Studio Sazanka said taking on the game’s sales secures its development and lets the team speed up, and Japanese is among the confirmed languages. Ozawa said he chose it for its surrealist art and for its theme — the feeling, familiar to any creator, that the well of ideas has run dry. The studio’s website lists an action game as its next publishing title.

At OSAKA INDIE GAMES SUMMIT 2026, the Kinki Bureau of Economy, Trade and Industry, the regional office of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry for the Osaka area, held the first committee meeting of its survey and pilot project on building a game-development ecosystem in the Kinki region in public, 4Gamer reported. The six committee members, from indie publishers room6 and PLAYISM, console developer HEXADRIVE, BitSummit organizer Skeleton Crew Studio, Osaka Electro-Communication University and a company that runs a game-making community in Wakayama, said game engines and, in the past year or two, AI have lowered the barrier to starting a game, but finishing one and then selling it remain hard. room6 has hired a dedicated progress manager. Skeleton Crew’s Masahiko Murakami said Kyoto’s BitSummit, which began in 2013 as a place for solo developers to show each other their work, now adds influencer streams, B2B matching with publishers and appearances at overseas events to carry exhibitors’ games further.

Live-Service Launches & Shutdowns

Aion 2, NCSOFT’s MMORPG, moved to full global service, free to play, on Steam and NCSOFT’s PURPLE platform at 10 p.m. KST on October 5, after five days of early access for Founder’s Pack buyers that began on September 30. It peaked at 397,905 concurrent players on Steam on October 5 (UTC), according to SteamDB — 226,375 more than the early-access peak of 171,530 reported last week, and 61,605 above the Steam peak that NCSOFT’s Throne and Liberty set in October 2024, Inven reported. The figure excludes PURPLE; NCSOFT put the peak above 400,000. Aion 2 also topped Valve’s global weekly revenue chart for September 29 to October 6.

Nexon, the Tokyo-listed, Korean-founded publisher behind MapleStory, launched Mabinogi Mobile in Japan on October 7. The game, the newest in the Mabinogi series that has run for more than 20 years, supports cross-play between mobile and PC and offers life content such as cooking and housing alongside combat, 4Gamer reported; pre-registrations passed 300,000, unlocking rewards for all players.

The New Denpa Men, a free-to-play game, will end service on December 7 at 11:00 JST, its official website announced, saying the staff had judged it difficult to keep providing a service that meets fans’ expectations, Anime News Network reported on October 5. Sales of its paid Jewel currency and other paid items have stopped, and details on refunds of unused currency will be posted after service ends. The game launched in July 2024 as a timed Nintendo Switch exclusive, later came to iOS and Android, and received a Nintendo Switch 2 version on April 5. It belongs to the Denpa Men RPG series that Japanese developer Genius Sonority began on Nintendo 3DS in Japan in February 2012.

IP Expansion

Nexon signed a partnership with US film and TV producer Chernin Entertainment on October 6 to adapt ARC Raiders and THE FINALS, shooters from its subsidiary Embark Studios, for film and television, AUTOMATON reported. Chernin produced the rebooted Planet of the Apes films and The Greatest Showman, and co-financed the Backrooms feature film with A24. THE FINALS has passed 30 million registered players, and ARC Raiders has sold more than 16 million copies, with a peak of 700,000 concurrent players across platforms. Patrick Söderlund, Embark’s founder and CEO and the chairman of Nexon’s board, called the partnership the next big step in growing the two games into a more deeply integrated transmedia experience.

Shinsegae Property, part of South Korean retail group Shinsegae, will invest USD 1 billion (about KRW 1.4 trillion) in the Warner Bros. acquisition alongside Skydance co-CEO David Ellison and US investment firm RedBird, the group said on October 6, Inven reported. Shinsegae plans to use Paramount and Warner Bros. IP such as Mission: Impossible, Harry Potter and Game of Thrones in its Starfield shopping malls and in the Hwaseong Starbay City theme park it is developing, and to tie HBO Max and Paramount+ to memberships at E-mart and other affiliates. Warner Bros. Discovery’s board accepted Paramount Skydance’s offer for the whole company in February, and the merger closed on October 6 under the name Skydance. It brings in Warner Bros. Games and its studios, including NetherRealm, Rocksteady, Avalanche Software and TT Games.

Roco Kingdom, a monster-collecting IP that began in China as a browser game in 2010 and has more than 350 million cumulative registered users, is coming to Japan as an open-world RPG, with a closed beta from October 27, Denfaminicogamer reported from a Japanese launch event held in Shibuya on September 21. The new game, from Chinese developer Morefun Studios, launched in mainland China on March 26, 2026, and passed 15 million registrations on its first day. Morefun said players meet its monsters, called Genies, through exploration rather than gacha, and that paying does not directly decide PvP results. About 400 Genies are in the game, with a dozen or so to be added every two months; localization covers about 1.5 million characters of text and is handled by a team of 20.

US streaming service Hulu is developing a live-action series of The Mafia Nanny, an English-language romance webcomic with more than 420 million global views on WEBTOON, the platform of Nasdaq-listed WEBTOON Entertainment, which South Korea’s NAVER majority-owns, Deadline reported on September 17, according to Anime News Network. Charlize Theron is an executive producer, and WEBTOON Productions is among the producers; Deadline said the project is believed to be the first English-language live-action series adapted from a WEBTOON IP.

Also This Week

• Tapas, the North American webtoon platform of Kakao Entertainment, the story-IP arm of South Korea’s Kakao, will close on March 31, 2027, after which readers lose access to the platform and to episodes they unlocked; purchases cannot be moved to KakaoPage or Kakao Webtoon, and Ink, its virtual currency, can no longer be bought or earned from October 1 and is generally non-refundable, according to an updated FAQ that Tapas published on October 1, Anime News Network reported. Kakao Entertainment announced the planned shutdown on September 22.
• GRYPHLINE, the publishing brand of Chinese studio Hypergryph, will release Arknights: Endfield on Steam on October 15, free to play; it announced the date along with Steam wishlists passing 300,000. The game launched in January on PS5, Android, iOS and PC, where it had been available only through the Epic Games Store and the official site; progress carries over.
• WePlay, a game expo that began in China, will hold WePlay Expo JAPAN 2027 at Makuhari Messe on April 2–4, 2027, with the first day for business visitors, IGN Japan reported. It is organized by a committee of IID, the Japanese media company that runs Game*Spark and INSIDE, and San-ei, the organizer of the Tokyo Auto Salon car show, with the China Indie Game Alliance (CiGA), one of WePlay’s organizers, as licensor and producer; the organizers plan demo areas of their own and merchandise sales at exhibitor booths.

Company in Focus

Nihon Falcom — a developer and publisher of role-playing games based in Tachikawa, Tokyo, founded in 1981. Its two long-running series are Ys, which began in 1987, and The Legend of Heroes, including the Trails sub-series that started in 2004. It is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and had about 65 employees in 2024.