Surprised? Not really. I always thought the Nintendo DS could be a perfect platform to embrace MMOG (Massively Online Multiplayer Games). It can wirelesly connect to the internet and voila! you can be gaming in a MMOG persistent world! The PC is the only platform which has successfully embraced the MMOG culture. Others are trying to get into the act. Mobiles have already started to get into this space, and so have the consoles. So why not the DS? It has taken the DS platform 4 long years to get its first MMORPG game. The game is an adaptation of the popular free PC 2D MMORPG game called "Maple Story".
Well still old news, this was announced in E3 2006. The game is been developed by a Korean company and will be released in September 2008. Can't wait to play this game! Considering the official DS Lite launch in Korea is going to happen on the 18th of Jan 08, this game is going to shake up the Korean gaming space. Koreans have already made this game a big hit on the PC. This game is supposed to have a very huge subscriber base.
In a recent interview, Stephen Lee (CEO of Nexen, publisher for the game on DS) said that the game will not be a MMORPG game. It is more focused on a single player campaign with a local multiplayer focus. The game will have though a multiplayer component but the details of those were not discussed. Speculation is that the game could extend itself into the online space to allow complete persistent world capabilities.
Also it seems Ragnorok, another popular MMORPG game, is releasing around the same time as Maple Story. So it is going to be exciting to play both these games considering the rich multiplayer history behind these games.
So when can we expect this game to release outside Korea? Well the Korean developer has said that it has plans to release this game outside Korea, but there are no definite dates against these claims. So we'll have to wait and watch.