Time Takers: Everything we know about the new survival shooter

Two hours deep and dozens of reveals into the Gamescom 2025 Opening Night Live show, South Korean developer and publisher NCSoft unveiled its MMO-shooter set in a post-apocalyptic Seoul, called Cinder City. However, they didn’t stop there and dropped another trailer for their brand new game and original IP, Time Takers, a competitive, team-based survival shooter where the ultimate prize is time itself.

MMORPG fans had already been expecting Cinder City as early as 2023, when the gameplay demo was still known as Project LLL. Except for gamers who attended G-Star’s G-CON in 2023 at Busan, Time Takers was a complete surprise. Here’s everything we know about Mistil Games’ competitive shooter.

Time Takers was officially announced at Gamescom 2025 during the Opening Night Live showcase on August 19, 2025. Hosts Geoff Keighley and Skojz first announced NCSoft’s long-awaited MMO-shooter, Cinder City (previously known as Project LLL), before the surprise trailer reveal of Time Takers.

This was unexpected from South Korean developer and publisher NCSoft, which is more known for its MMORPGs like Lineage, Guild Wars, Wild Star, Blade & Soul, Aion, and more. Last year, the company secured the global publishing rights to Time Takers from the Korean Developer, Mistil Games.

The two founders were former developers for Pearl Abyss, known for its popular MMORPG Black Desert Online. Yongsoo Seo brings his experience as the art director, while Yongmin Cho was the lead producer for Black Desert Mobile. Additionally, the press release also mentions that Time Takers is set to release in 2025.

While the press release last year promised that the game was set to release in 2025, an updated announcement says that Time Takers will launch globally in 2026 on PC and consoles. The safest expectation is simply 2026 until we hear otherwise. As always, delays are possible, but for now, NCSOFT seems confident enough in the 2026 window.

In the meantime, interested players won’t have to wait until launch to get a taste. Alongside the reveal, NCSOFT announced a Time Takers playtest on Steam and opened sign-ups. 

According to the official info, a closed playtest will be “coming soon” on Steam, and players can register now to potentially participate. The exact date for the playtest wasn’t given publicly, but the fact that it’s recruiting testers suggests it could happen within weeks or months of the Gamescom announcement. This playtest will likely be the first chance for the public to try Time Takers and provide feedback.

On the official website for Time Takers, they revealed the first three characters, along with their background and skills (more on that later). What’s important is that there are spaces for upcoming characters, with three blank boxes teasing an early September reveal, and another box for later that month. 

These future character reveals suggest that the playtest could start in September or earlier. Additionally, it also suggests that there will be 13 playable characters on launch.

The world premiere trailer for Time Takers gave us our first glimpse of the game in action, and there was a lot to unpack. Unlike many cinematic-only reveals, the Time Takers trailer actually included gameplay footage, highlighting the game’s fast-paced combat and diverse settings. 

One of the most striking aspects is how Time Takers pulls together different time periods within its matches. Quick, whiplash edits fling you between firefights in wildly different eras. One moment it looks like medieval Japan; the next, a battered European castle from roughly the same period, then a present-day city block, and a slick, high-tech future arena. 

The trailer showcases characters from all over history. We catch glimpses of a medieval knight in armour, what appears to be a samurai from feudal Japan armed with an assault rifle, a red alien with tentacles for hair, and a chimpanzee in a spacesuit throwing banana-shaped grenades that cluster into even more explosives on impact.

Speaking of characters, the official website reveals the first three Travelers. Bertie, the planet exploring chimpanzee born in the 23rd century from genetic experiments, is a mobile character who can fly and bombard the ground, throw banana-shaped grenades that cluster into smaller explosives, and use a grappling hook to an enemy or terrain.

AL-15 or “Alis” is an artificial lifeform unit that was originally built for combat, but has accidentally developed human emotions. Her first ability throws a disco ball that tracks nearby enemies, making them more vulnerable to damage upon contact. Her secondary ability lets her shoot an auto-targeting weapon that deals electrocution damage, while her third ability is also a hook, but can electrocute and stun an enemy on direct contact.

Arthur, the 16th-century drunken knight shown at the beginning of the trailer, is a frontliner who can charge forward to knock enemies back or activate the ability again to leap and slam enemies, stunning them. His second ability grants his team additional shields and movement speed, and his third ability deploys a shield that blocks enemy attacks, shocking enemies who come into contact.

Beyond the flashy characters and settings, the trailer also hints at the gameplay mechanics in Time Takers. One recurring element is the emphasis on time, showing it depleting like traditional health points during combat. The trailer says that “Time is the currency. Survival is the cost.” 

According to the game’s official description, players accumulate Time Energy through combat or by finding it in the field, and then spend it to unlock or upgrade skills, or even to revive teammates. 

The Steam page reveals that, unlike traditional hero shooters, Time Takers lets you break out of fixed roles by allowing players to bring their choice of weapons and apps to transform how they play. This confirms two things: Time Takers is a hero shooter (with a twist), and players can customise their loadout, and presumably use Time Energy to upgrade everything mid-combat.

Time Energy is tied to your lifeline, so it’s important to efficiently collect it as soon as the game starts. Additionally, the game will feature dynamic events with a variety of systems that can change the course of the match. They describe the gameplay loop as follows:

Another subtle aspect from the trailer is what wasn’t shown: there was no single-player story cutscene or narrative trailer segment. Everything was focused on multiplayer action. This suggests that Time Takers, at least at launch, is geared purely toward PvP matches rather than a story campaign.  The “fix their past” narrative hook mentioned by the presenter is likely just a light framing device for the multiplayer context. 

Lastly, the game is tagged as Free to Play on Steam, so expect the usual monetisation of live-service games and hope it isn’t pay-to-win.

As a hero shooter battle royale, Time Takers draws clear parallels to many existing games, but the most obvious comparison is to Apex Legends. Like Apex, Time Takers features teams of three heroes fighting to be the last squad standing, with fast movement and ability-driven combat. Perspective is the key difference, as Time Takers is third-person.

Time Takers openly leans into the hero-shooter label: roster of characters with unique kits (think Overwatch, VALORANT, Paladins). The studio’s pitch, though, is looser than usual: instead of locking you into strict roles, your loadout lets you bend the typical class lines. Pick what fits, then upgrade as you go along.

Additionally, it’s still up in the air about how exactly its core gimmick, collecting and spending time, would alter its gameplay. Even though you play with time as a currency, you don’t play with time, so comparing it to time-loop games like Quantum League or Lemnis Gate is off the table.

It has to be said that players are tired of hero shooters and battle royales. Games like XDefiant, Splitgate, Concord, and Supervive already had players exhausted from the genre, causing the playerbase to quickly dwindle during their short lifespan. The first impression of Time Takers has already been met with negativity, with harsh comments on its trailer already predicting when the servers will close.

In an interview with Jeonghee Jin, CEO of NC America and COO of NCSoft West, she is fully aware that competitive shooters are a “saturated market”, but she believes that’s why it’s worth a try because “people are always looking for new games.”

Jin insists that Time Takers and Cinder City aren’t a copy of the games today, as the company is applying its experience in MMORPGs to the shooter genre, aiming to target its existing playerbase with something different. “There is something about Korean content, whether it’s about creativity or unique story or the aesthetic, that really hook in a global audience. I think we also have those components as a Korean game developer.”

Regardless, the upcoming gameplay playtest will be Time Taker’s first impression on the global audience, which can make or break its release. The NCSoft and Mistil Games’ competitive survival shooter with a time collecting gimmick might have been unfairly judged by burnt-out gamers, but it isn’t doing much to prove them wrong in the first place.

It was a bold move for the successful publishers to step into this saturated space, even though early signs point to a disaster of the likes of many games like it that attempted to break through. After all, successful games like Marvel Rivals and NARAKA: BLADEPOINT prove that gamers aren’t completely tired of hero shooters and battle royales; they’re just tired of bad ones.