Arc Raiders publisher Nexon believes AI is the answer

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Nexon, the South Korean publisher behind Arc Raiders and MapleStory, has told investors it intends to leverage AI tools across every step of its development process and live services. 

During a capital markets briefing held in Tokyo on March 31, 2026, Nexon CEO Junghun Lee offered more details on the company’s AI strategy, which revolves around an initiative dubbed ‘Mono Lake.’

Mono Lake is billed as an “end-to-end intelligence” platform capable of weighing in on every single production decision. Nexon said the technology has been trained on billions of player sessions and decades of live game data, including engagement patterns, retention and monetisation habits, and live game telemetry. 

According to Lee, that vast dataset is what separates Mono Lake from other AI platforms.

“Mono Lake makes the intelligence available across everything we build and operate—every developer, every live ops team, every product decision has access to the base of information we’ve accumulated over decades,” said Lee. 

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“AI without context is just speed. Faster output of a generic outcome. Tools that know nothing about design history, player behavior, or innovation. Without context, AI is a race to the arithmetic middle where everyone’s games look the same. That’s not a competitive advantage. That’s noise, at scale.”

Ultimately, Lee said Mono Lake will enable Nexon’s internal teams to spend more time making creative decisions “guided by context” based on billion of player decisions. 

He claimed Nexon has cultivated a dataset that “precious few companies can match,” providing the company with a competitive edge. “Our methodology doesn’t replace creative people, it frees them to create, with context,” he added. 

Notably, Lee said the commercial success of Arc Raiders—which has now topped 14 million sales worldwide—materialized as something of a “trojan horse.” An unexpected gift that demonstrated how technology can be used to help developers “spend more time thinking and less time typing. More time innovating; less time writing code.” 

This isn’t the first time Lee has advocated for AI usage. The chief exec previously claimed “it’s important to assume that every game company is now using AI.” 

Arc Raiders, meanwhile, leveraged some AI tools to assist with content creation. That’s according to Embark CCO Stefan Strandberg, who detailed how the studio used AI to support the development of its popular extraction shooter during an interview with Eurogamer. He also, however, stated that no generative AI tools were used throughout production.

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At this stage, it’s worth noting that Mono Lake was not described as a generative AI tool by Nexon. 

Nexon will take fewer bets with “more conviction” under newly-appointed chairman Patrick Söderlund 

Embark CEO Patrick Söderlund, who was recently named executive chairman of Nexon, also took to the stage during the briefing and explained he will oversee a company-wide reset to support the creation of successful video games.

It’s unclear whether that means layoffs are in the offing, although Söderlund confirmed that some projects will be cancelled while others are restructured. 

“We’ve been through the entire portfolio of both live games and new projects to determine which can meet or outperform our new floor for contribution margins,” he explained. 

“Revenue assumptions are being stress tested based on realistic assumptions, not what we hope for. Costs are being scrutinized. Some projects will get more funding. Some will be restructured. Some will be cancelled. 

“We’re also applying extra scrutiny to anything that isn’t directly related to making or running games, including corporate G&A, shared services, infrastructure, management layers, support functions, external contractors –everything.”

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Söderlund said Nexon will ultimately be making “fewer bets” with “more conviction.” 

“Cost management and process improvements will be ongoing, but we are taking immediate action,” he added, before stating that the underperformance of some tiles such as Dungeon & Fighter Mobile, loose production timelines, and burgeoning overheads that previously “felt justified” ultimately compressed margins even as revenue hit record levels. 

Still, Söderlund insisted the strategic pivot isn’t about making cuts in service of padding out those margins, and said Nexon is eager to invest in the right opportunities—including mergers and acquisitions. 

“We plan to invest in all new opportunities—deploying capital toward acquisitions that meet one test: can this become something players build their lives around? The revenue growth is coming. The difference going forward is that it stays and won’t be erased by growing costs,” he continued. 

Sharing his own views on AI technology, Söderlund claimed that smart use of the tech can empower teams to deliver quality products at lower costs.  

“At Embark, we started with a blank slate, questioning everything from: How do you get from an idea to a green light?…To what needs to be done by hand versus what a machine can do more efficiently?” he said. “Yes, some of that involves AI. But it’s really about encouraging people to use smarter processes, better tools, and to let go of habits that no longer serve them.”

He said Embark is now bringing that mindset into Nexon to encourage every leader, team, and individual at the company to consider how they can get more done with “better tools, smarter workflows”—all while spending less time on “things that don’t move the needle.” 

“This is an initiative that big companies rarely attempt. Nexon developers are meeting Embark colleagues to understand our process,” he said. 

“They are taking a step back and look at how they work—not just what they’re building, but how. When they open that door, surprising things can happen. People who’ve been sitting on an idea for years speak up. Rather than waiting for orders from the top, teams take initiative. We just needed to make it clear that’s welcome.”

Game Developer has contacted Nexon to clarify precisely how Mono Lake functions. 

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