A New Chapter for Eleventh Hour Games

Travelers,

Today I have some very exciting news to share about the future of Eleventh Hour Games and Last Epoch.

As many of you know, I started Last Epoch as an after hours passion project in 2017 where I took to Reddit to form a group of ARPG obsessed enthusiasts in the pursuit of making “The Next Great ARPG”. We were excited to come home from our day jobs and discuss, debate, and build the early stages of Last Epoch late into the evenings over Discord, eventually leading to our name “Eleventh Hour”. From there we brought our ideas and passion for what we wanted to develop through a successful Kickstarter, followed by Early Access, and years later launched Last Epoch 1.0 in early 2024. It’s been an adventure of constant learning, struggles, excitement, grit, and undying enthusiasm. Starting a gaming company with no funds or game development experience is quite the adventure.

Although we have created something now enjoyed by millions, we are far from done with our mission. While we’ve done well punching above our weight, we know that to truly execute on creating the absolute best ARPG experience available it will require continuing our aggressive growth of the last 7 years. We are no strangers to growth as EHG has gone from me, with zero funding working out of my kitchen (easy access to late night snacks) to a team of over 100 amazing people working on the game. We’ve been vetting potential partners over the last year, and we’ve finally found the right one to empower our studio and help us complete our mission.

Today I’m excited to announce that Eleventh Hour Games is joining Krafton, the powerhouse behind PUBG, who shares our passion for the action RPG genre and is ready to help fuel our efforts in raising Last Epoch to new heights. With this partnership we will have the opportunity and resources to execute on our goal of creating the very best ARPG in the genre.

After speaking with dozens of potential strategic partners, Krafton clearly demonstrated that they’re aligned in helping us achieve our goals and can both enable and guide us through some of the largest upcoming challenges we’ll face as a studio. This partnership will allow us to deliver things we’ve only dreamed of previously and I’m excited to share details on those at a later date.

I rarely reflect on the journey as we’re still very much in the thick of it, but it’s nearly unbelievable that with only a dream and unyielding pursuit that we’ve reached this new epoch and now know that the future of the franchise is secured for bigger and better things. All while getting to supply great remote jobs for these passionate, amazing people that share in the excitement and vision for what we’re accomplishing.

With this news I’m excited to say that EHG will be hiring many roles in the near future. If you’re still reading this it’s likely that you have an interest in this genre of game which means we have an interest in you. If you think you have the skillset to help build The Next Great ARPG you can check our hiring page that we’ll be appending new open roles to over the coming weeks and months.

We know there are going to be questions about what this means for upcoming content/roadmap. We’re not ready to share anything there yet, but just a reminder that Season 3: Beneath Ancient Skies launches August 21st, and our Season 4 release will be roughly 4 months after that.

Thank you to our fans and the ARPG community that we come from. EHG will continue to be what it always has been - the studio of ARPG enthusiasts that rose up from the community with one goal in mind - to make the ARPG we’ve always dreamed of playing. We’ll continue to listen, engage, and craft the best experiencers we can for all of us - now with more wind under our wings.

Cheers,

  • Judd Cobler, Founder of Eleventh Hour Games.
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Huzzah!

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That’s some morning breakfast news right there for me.

But I have a question, does this mean EHG will merge into Krafton or will you guys stay independent and keep the name?

Call me ignorant, but I have no clue who Krafton is, never heard of them before :thinking:
And with briefly looking them up it doesn’t look like they have any merits towards the loot-driven ARPG genre. But I am sure you would not take a partnership like this lightly so I am sure they convinced you to help you guys achieve your goals.

Anyway congrats on everything you achieved already with your team Judd and I am looking forward to what is ahead of you guys. Even though I am cautiously optimistic.

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Well still remain as EHG as a subsidiary. Same old team with some new faces joining soon. Thanks Heavy!

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Big Pog

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Please tell me you’re joking! Did you not hear what happened with Unknown Worlds and Subnautica? Krafton royally screwed over the studio, fired the founders, and screwed the development team out of $250,000,000. There’s a whole lawsuit going on over it! This is a monumentally horrific idea!

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Love this game! Very excited for this and it’s future!

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Disappointing news, would love to hear the proper reasons why, like what do they actually bring to the table.

You’ve been operating really well yourselves (and with whatever part ownership tencent had) and Krafton has just been in very obvious hot water and likely getting sued.

Shame… Hopefully there aren’t changes to the team or direction but I’m confident there will be…

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I had to Google Krafton as I didn’t know who they are and I never played PUBG. I did play Tera and I’m aware of how bad that was and the money grabbing it did. Nothing online shows they have anything to do with the ARPG scene. Not looking forward to this at all.

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Resources and industry guidance, mostly! Krafton isn’t looking to change us - we went out seeking a partner and they were the most aligned in the mission and enabling us. Developing these games are way more expensive than most people think with 100 heads, server expenses, tooling, etc. This is very positive for the team and franchise’s future.

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…I don’t like where this is going.

Only time will tell, I guess.

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Well, i mean for you as the Studio and Company its probably a good thing, but for us players, this is part of the worst outcome to be.

I guess the Check was too big to pass up even among the whole Subnautica controversy and lawsuit ongoing where they tried a forceful takeover to get out of paying 250Mil USD.

Sad to see EHG turn from a passion project into a greedy company that is satisfied taking a big payout while working with one of the worst Partners they could’ve chosen.

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Krafton? Wauw, that’s a bold move considering everything that’s going on right now, and their past history in general. I have personally zero trust in Krafton - good luck

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They said the same thing to Unknown Worlds, and then they fired their founders.

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Congratulations Judd and team!

For doomers and gloomers - see the quote below. You either have that or you have a game that competes with The Slormancer at best.

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We’ve played enough…now it’s just money money money and not a drop of optimization improvement etc etc? Or am I wrong?
Poe’s bitter experience has made me know…

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We’re aware of the situation with Unknown Worlds. I don’t want to comment on it directly but after understanding it more deeply it isn’t something that concerns us entering into the partnership at all. There’s plenty of misinformation or partially informed parties talking to that situation. I appreciate your concern for us though - cheers.

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Guess reputation it nothing in comparison to the big moneys.

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All I ask is that you be careful. I honestly do love you guys and Last Epoch. You’ve done an amazing job with it and I don’t want to see your team or your game ruined.

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Met, if this is an ask for performance and optimization improvements for the game I assure you we have some big stuff coming in that regard.

We made a big’ol tangley mess out of asset loading when we were a smaller team that we’re unraveling right now which will give us a lot of optimization gains. We have a great third party helping with the effort now, but again those contracts are expensive and a move like this enables us to do those things without risking financial insecurity for the studio.

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