Patrick Söderlund – founder and CEO of Arc Raiders studio, Embark – has been appointed as executive chairman at Nexon to “accelerate global strategy, transform creative direction, and lead the next phase of growth” for its parent company.
Fresh from the success of Arc Raiders, Söderlund will now be working “closely with [Nexon] CEO Junghun Lee and the executive leadership team”, setting the “strategic direction” that Lee will then implement.
It’s not entirely clear if this position comes in addition to Söderlund’s already pretty meaty role leading Embark – which is owned by Nexon – or is in place of it, but it appears to be the former.
“Nexon has all the assets to unleash dramatic growth – incredibly talented people, iconic franchises, large and committed player communities, and best-in-class live service capabilities,” Söderlund said via a press statement.
“This is an enormous opportunity, but one that will require deep focus and discipline. [Nexon CEO] Junghun and I are aligned on what needs to happen, and I’m ready to get to work.”
It’s a huge appointment for Nexon, which – although bobbing along just fine with its immensely popular mobile titles like MapleStory – has failed to get a bite of the live-service sector, and chiefly dabbled in casual and mobile gaming until subsidiary Mintrocket released the hugely successful Dave the Diver in 2023. It also published Embark Studios’ inaugural title, The Finals, that same year, and the middling The First Descendant in 2024.
As we reported earlier this week, Arc Raiders continues to impress, nearing almost 1m concurrent players on PC alone and pushing onwards with events and regular updates planned out until April.
It has also started to grapple with the consequences of that massive duplication glitch that allowed cheeky players to double anything they were holding in their hands, confirming it has finished a large investigation into how the recent exploits and glitches came to be and how to deal with offenders now and in the future.
