Freed from the shackles of a North American publisher, DFO lives once more

Drama Fighter Online would not have been an incorrect name for the side-scrolling brawler back in 2013. Developer Neople had partnered with Nexon America to bring Dungeon Fighter Online to our region and to say it didn't work out would be an understatement. It was shut down on June 13, 2013 after nearly four years live. Neople couldn't live with that. They're bringing DFO back, baby, and sooner than you think.

A closed beta for the "Global Release" of Dungeon Fighter Online was planned to begin March 24, but after fans hyped themselves up and reached a Facebook "Like" goal Neople has opened the event up. Open Beta: Part I goes live in D-13 days. To help build some hype for the event, Neople (now publishing the game in the west by themselves) has released a teaser trailer.

For those unfamiliar, Dungeon Fighter Online is a free-to-play hack and slash brawler, much like Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara. I mention that one in particular, because it shares a class/character-based system with skill-ups. A more modern comparison would be Dragon's Crown. However, due to the always-online restrictions of an MMO DFO is much more compartmentalized and due to the free-to-play structure of MMOs, progress is much more inhibitive and time-consuming.

And yet, Dungeon Fighter Online is insanely popular across the world, even having an anime and a manga made during 2009. DFO has been live in Korea since 2005, by the way. It's good to finally have the game going live in North America as it was originally intended, sans Nexon.

There is currently no registration option to participate in Dungeon Fighter Online's upcoming open beta, though that should change soon enough. The beta officially goes live March 24, though North America may gain access a bit early due to time zone timetravel.