Huxley (video game)

Lore & Background

Huxley was initially planned as a cross-platform title, but at the 2008 E3 Expo press conference that feature was excluded from development. In February 2007, the contract to operate the game in China was sold to The9 for $35 million USD, reportedly the largest export transaction at that time for a Korean-developed game. In June 2008, NHN USA secured the rights to distribute Huxley via its ijji portal, and in June 2009 released the first English closed beta test via ijji.com. The initial test had a small number of users over two weeks, with keys available globally through ijji and in the US and Canada via FilePlanet.

Reader's Guide

Huxley represents an ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to merge the fast-paced action of twitch shooters like Unreal Tournament with the persistent character progression and large social spaces of MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft. Its development history illustrates the challenges of cross-platform and cross-region game publishing in the late 2000s. The game's initial promise of supporting up to 5,000 players in cities and over 100 in battles was scaled back due to engine and budget changes, ultimately supporting 64 players (32 vs. 32) in Battlefields. The sale of Chinese distribution rights to The9 for $35 million in 2007 was a notable milestone for Korean game exports. Despite a soundtrack recorded by an 80-piece orchestra and a visual style reminiscent of StarCraft, the game failed to maintain a lasting player base, with the Korean service ending in December 2010. Huxley's legacy is as a cautionary tale of overambitious design and the difficulties of sustaining a hybrid MMOFPS in a competitive market.

Did You Know?

• The game's name was inspired by Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World, but Webzen stated there are no direct tie-ins to the book's story.
• The soundtrack was composed by Kevin Riepl and recorded by an 80-piece Hollywood Studio Symphony at Warner Bros in March 2007.
• The contract to operate Huxley in China was sold to The9 for $35 million USD in February 2007, reportedly the largest export transaction for a Korean-developed game at that time.
• The number of players in battles was reduced from over 100 to a maximum of 64 due to major changes in the game's engine and budget.

Roots in Academic Computing and the First Graphical Worlds

Long before commercial gaming companies or the modern Internet existed, students on university mainframe computers were experimenting with text-based multiplayer adventures. Titles like Rogue and Dungeon, running on the PDP-10, introduced persistent shared worlds that would become foundational to the MMO concept. The leap from text to visuals came in 1986 when Kesmai released Air Warrior on the GEnie online service, marking the first graphical multiplayer online game. Kesmai subsequently upgraded the title with three-dimensional rendering, claiming the distinction of the first 3D MMO. The genre's commercial footing was laid by Kesmai's GemStone series on GEnie and by Neverwinter Nights, which debuted on AOL in 1991 as the first MMORPG to include graphical elements. Early technical constraints were severe: Neverwinter Nights initially supported only fifty simultaneous players, a ceiling that expanded to five hundred by 1995. These pioneering efforts, born in academic and small-service environments, established the persistent-world architecture and cooperative play structures that would define the genre for decades to come.

The Late-1990s Boom and the Rise of a Dominant Franchise

The final years of the 1990s witnessed a wave of landmark titles that transformed the MMORPG from a niche curiosity into a mainstream phenomenon. Realm Online, Meridian 59 (the first fully three-dimensional MMORPG), Castle Infinity (the first designed specifically for younger audiences), Ultima Online, Underlight, and EverQuest all arrived in quick succession, each pushing the genre's boundaries. By the turn of the millennium, multiple MMORPGs were simultaneously hosting thousands of players, a dramatic leap from the fifty-player cap of 1991. This infrastructure growth paved the way for juggernauts like World of Warcraft and EVE Online. World of Warcraft in particular became the genre's commercial anchor, sustaining eight to nine million monthly subscribers worldwide. Even after losing roughly one million subscribers following the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, the title retained its position as the most popular Western MMO. In 2009 it commanded a 58 percent share of the Western subscription MMO market, and between 2005 and 2009 it accumulated over 2.2 billion dollars in consumer subscription spending.

Virtual Economies and the Blurring of Real-World Finance

A defining characteristic of most MMOs is the presence of in-game currency that players earn, trade, and accumulate, creating virtual economies that increasingly intersect with real-world financial systems. This interplay was not new; even Ultima Online featured exchanges of real money for virtual goods. As these economies grew more complex, the need for professional oversight became apparent. CCP Games made headlines by hiring the first dedicated real-life economist to analyze and advise on the production and trade systems within EVE Online. The economic significance of these virtual worlds was quantified in December 2003 when the Financial Times published an analysis valuing the virtual property in EverQuest. The resulting per-capita GDP of 2,266 dollars would have ranked that virtual nation seventy-seventh in global wealth, comparable to real countries like Croatia, Ecuador, Tunisia, or Vietnam. Tensions also arose between game publishers and third-party services selling in-game currency, with publishers citing intellectual property and terms-of-service violations while sellers argued they were trading the time and labor invested in acquiring virtual goods rather than the digital data itself.

Crossing Platforms and Expanding Beyond Fantasy

Although the MMO genre originated and thrived primarily on personal computers, its reach steadily expanded across hardware and thematic boundaries. The sixth-generation console era brought titles like Phantasy Star Online to the Dreamcast and helped establish Xbox Live as a platform for online play. EverQuest Online Adventures appeared on the PlayStation 2, while Final Fantasy XI achieved the notable distinction of spanning multiple console systems simultaneously. The mobile frontier opened in 2001 with Samurai Romanesque, set in feudal Japan and distributed through NTT DoCoMo's iMode network in Japan. Later mobile entries such as CipSoft's TibiaME and Biting Bit's MicroMonster (which supported both online and Bluetooth multiplayer) broadened accessibility further, and SmartCell Technology developed Shadow of Legend to let players continue sessions on a mobile device while away from a PC. Thematically, the genre branched well beyond fantasy into science fiction with titles like Mankind, Anarchy Online, EVE Online, Star Wars Galaxies, and The Matrix Online. As developers applied MMO mechanics to other genres, new subcategory labels such as MMORTS emerged, and the umbrella term MMO solidified as a generic descriptor. AI-controlled characters, including quest-giving NPCs and hostile mobs, remained staples of MMORPGs while appearing less frequently in action-oriented MMO variants.

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