NC is making a renewed push into the anime-style game market, partnering with developers behind Nexon Games' hit title Blue Archive and preparing to launch a closed beta test for its latest title.

The company announced on July 20 that it will hold the first closed beta test (CBT) for Astraea Oratio, an anime-style role-playing game developed by Dynamis One. NC plans to begin recruiting testers in August, with detailed schedules and participation methods to be announced later. The publisher made a strategic investment in Dynamis One in January 2026 and secured domestic and global publishing rights for the game.

Alongside the CBT, NC is stepping up its efforts in Japan, the world's largest market for anime-style games. The company will participate in Comic Market (Comiket) in August and showcase the game's systems at the Tokyo Game Show in September.

NC previously entered the anime-style segment with Hoyeon, which launched in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan in August 2024. Based on the Blade & Soul intellectual property, Hoyeon featured more than 60 collectible characters and cartoon-style graphics, leading many to classify it as an anime-style title.

The company, however, distinguished Hoyeon from conventional anime-style games. Unlike the genre, which places strong emphasis on attractive male and female characters and character-driven storytelling, Hoyeon was designed as a field-combat massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) with cartoon-style visuals. Amid debate over its genre identity, the game's Asian service was discontinued in February this year.

Astraea Oratio, by contrast, is positioned as a full-fledged anime-style title. Much of the attention surrounding the game stems from the involvement of Park Byung-rim, chief executive officer of Dynamis One and former producer of Blue Archive at Nexon Games. Park founded Dynamis One in 2024, and several key Blue Archive developers, including scenario director Yang Ju-young and art director Kim In, also joined the studio. Given Blue Archive's strong performance in the Japanese market, the development team's track record is viewed as one of the game's biggest strengths.

Dynamis One, however, also faces legal and reputational challenges. The studio's first announced title, Project KV, drew criticism for alleged similarities to Blue Archive in its worldbuilding and character designs. In addition, several Dynamis One executives are under investigation over allegations that they unlawfully removed development materials related to MX Blade, an unreleased title from Nexon Games. Police referred Park and other individuals to prosecutors without detention in October 2025 on charges including violations of Korea's Unfair Competition Prevention Act, and prosecutors requested a supplementary investigation the following month. Dynamis One has denied the allegations, saying many of the claims are inaccurate. No indictment has been filed and no court has found the individuals guilty.

Industry observers say Astraea Oratio's success will depend on whether NC avoids applying the same live-service operating model commonly used in MMORPGs. Players of anime-style games tend to place greater importance on character design and storytelling than on combat systems, making the genre fundamentally different from conventional MMORPGs.

As a result, the first CBT is expected to provide an early indication of whether the game offers compelling reasons for players to collect and develop characters, and whether its world and narrative can build lasting player attachment.

The launch also marks NC's first clear commitment to the anime-style genre after Hoyeon occupied an ambiguous position between genres. Its decision to work with an external development studio and actively engage Japanese players before launch reflects a different strategy from the company's previous approach.

Selvas AI announced on July 20 that it has partnered with robotics company Clobot to deploy its artificial intelligence (AI) voice interface technology, SELVAS Trigger, on more than 20 AirStar guide robots at Incheon International Airport. Passengers can now activate the robots' voice guidance service simply by saying the wake word "AirStar," without touching the display.

AirStar is Incheon International Airport's autonomous guide robot equipped with autonomous navigation, speech recognition and AI technologies. The robot provides information on boarding gates and major airport facilities and, when requested, guides passengers directly to their destinations.

SELVAS Trigger is a wake-word solution that recognizes a predefined activation phrase before launching downstream voice functions such as speech recognition. The technology serves as the initial point of interaction between users and physical AI devices. Because it operates entirely on-device, it can be deployed across a wide range of AI-enabled hardware, including robots and AI kiosks.

Building on the deployment at Incheon International Airport, Selvas AI plans to expand its AI voice interface business into broader physical AI applications, including AI kiosks for the financial sector, while pursuing new opportunities in robotics and mobility markets.

BitPlanet has been selected as the lead contractor for the 2026 Railway Facilities Information System (RAFIS) Maintenance Project commissioned by the Korea National Railway. The award marks a follow-on contract after the company secured the previous RAFIS maintenance project in 2024. The contract is valued at approximately 6.1 billion won.

RAFIS is the Korea National Railway's information system for managing the complete lifecycle of railway infrastructure assets, from installation and inspection to maintenance and upgrades. Since 2024, BitPlanet has maintained the system through a consortium with DreamICT and Allforland. For the 2026 project, the company has formed a new consortium with LT Metric and KL Information & Communication. As in the previous contract, BitPlanet will serve as the lead contractor with a 50% ownership stake in the consortium. The new contract is worth approximately 6.1 billion won, representing a 27.1% increase from the previous project's value of about 4.8 billion won. The project will run for 21 months from the contract signing date.

The consortium will focus on three major objectives under the new project. First, it plans to review and correct approximately 230,000 railway facility records that have not been properly registered in RAFIS to improve the integrity and consistency of the system's data. Second, it will reorganize RAFIS's complex menu structure to better align with users' operational workflows while strengthening security by improving user access controls and identity verification procedures. Finally, the consortium will build a management information system (MIS) that enables users to monitor railway facility maintenance activities through integrated dashboards and will enhance statistical reporting services to improve operational efficiency for personnel at the Korea National Railway and the Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL).