NCSoft dropped a bombshell back in August, announcing the cancellation of its new strategy project, 'Tactan'. The game originated within the halls of NCSoft before being bundled into a spin-off studio dubbed Ludius Games. Now, that very studio has seen its headcount slashed from a comfortable 100 down to a mere 25.

The official eulogy for Tactan was delivered during NCSoft's Q2 2025 earnings call in August. CEO Park Byung-moo framed the decision with corporate polish, noting that they had "raised the bar significantly for pre-launch quality assessments." He claimed it was a strategic pivot, suggesting it was better for the core team to leverage their 4X RTS expertise on something entirely new.

Initially, Tactan was touted as NCSoft's ambitious first foray into the real-time strategy genre. But when the company went on a spinning-off spree last year, Tactan was shipped off to Ludius Games. The studio launched with roughly 100 employees, helmed by Seeder Seo Min-seok, who had been overseeing the project from its inception.

According to our own digging, the reality was far grimmer: NCSoft essentially told Ludius Games they wouldn't be publishing the title. The studio was left to scavenge for an external publisher on its own. Unsurprisingly, they couldn't find a single taker. The management at Ludius Games eventually reached the only logical conclusion: scrap the project and start over.

Only 25 souls remain to work on a new prototype. The other 80 were faced with three choices negotiated by the union: transfer to the parent company, move to another subsidiary, or take a voluntary redundancy package covering 20 to 30 months of salary. Most opted for the latter.

To wrap things up, NCSoft left Ludius Games to sink or swim by forcing them to hunt for an external publisher for Tactan. It didn't work, and the studio has been hollowed out to a quarter of its original size. While restructuring and offering severance packages is standard corporate procedure, the entire ordeal leaves a bitter aftertaste.

It is, frankly, difficult to fathom why a parent company wouldn't publish a game developed by its own studio. While they aren't legally bound to publish everything their subsidiaries produce, it contradicts the very 'autonomy' NCSoft touted when spinning these studios off. Sure, they might argue that external partnerships could bring success, but that assumes anyone actually wants the product.

Let’s be realistic: Tactan wasn't some independent passion project; it was a strategy game conceived within NCSoft’s own walls. While NCSoft is royalty in the MMORPG space, they are still very much in the 'learning the ropes' phase when it comes to strategy titles.

From the perspective of any outside publisher, why would you bet your own capital and resources on a title from a competitor’s subsidiary that hasn't proven its market worth? If NCSoft—the actual parent company—didn't see enough value to publish it themselves, how could anyone else? The team at Ludius Games was effectively staring down the barrel of cancellation from the start.

When asked for comment, NCSoft stated, "We have been rebalancing our portfolio to focus on new titles slated for the second half of 2025 and our future roadmap. The decision to cancel Tactan was based on objective internal evaluation. We have since initiated programs for new project development and staff redeployment to the headquarters and other studios."