There’s nothing quite like a good videogame map, whether you just like to sit back and take in the view or claw your way through cracks in the wall on the hunt for collectables. And in the case of NCsoft’s upcoming MMO FPS, Cinder City has both, well, if you find time to admire the view between bloody gunfights and ravenous zombies.
My first thought after jumping out of an aircraft and landing on the edge of Seoul City, the bigger map out of the two on offer, was simply: “Oh, this is going to be complicated.” Looking up at it all, the horizon was full of derelict skyscrapers and decaying infrastructure, all toppled over each other. Cinder City does take place mid zombie apocalypse, so I guess there’s only so much landscaping people can do while having to fight off hordes of ravenous monsters and what’s left of the surviving population.
Luckily, progressing through the landscape wasn’t as hard as it seemed as I played part of the single-player campaign, which also functions as a tutorial. But I’m told by NCSoft that once you finish the campaign, the map will open up.
“At launch, there will be two open world maps, the size being about seven to five square kilometres,” BigFire Games CEO and NCSoft chief development advisor James Bae tells me. “One is the city of Seoul, and there is another city called Pangyo in Korea where our office is located. It’s a completely identical layout. So the demo you just played captured the exact specific part of Seoul City.” No wonder the Seoul map looked so detailed.
“If you ever get to travel to Seoul city, you can find your way because all the landmarks and buildings look the same,” Bae says. “The road layouts are the same as well.”
Having a mini vacation from home, touring around a desolate Seoul does sound amazing, but I’m more interested in the Pangyo map, for one reason in particular: “We will also recreate our office, you can already see the building in the map, and then populate it with zombie workers with name tags.”
I did ask whether these zombies would be different from the other violent, bloody hordes so players could just wander amongst them and let a day play out in NCsoft’s office. But that was quickly shot down as Bae asserted that these office zombies are “not friendly.”
Cinder City’s maps don’t just function for sightseeing; they’ve also been picked thanks to the tactical advantages that each city, such as Pangyo, will present to players. “So the city of Seoul has different types of buildings, and a lot of roads between, so you can move around freely here and engage in all different kinds of battles,” Bae continues.
During my short time with Cinder City, I engaged in stalemate shootouts against unfriendly groups of human survivors in destroyed town squares where I used fallen terrain and abandoned vehicles as cover. Here I hung back a bit, blocking sight lines and creating space between myself and the enemy.
But as soon as I entered a building, it would change. It was too cramped to have the luxury of long-range fights, so instead I opted for close-up brawls where I buried shotgun shells into the heads of zombies.
There’s even a way to quickly jump between the two via helicopter. “You can fly around in between the buildings as well,” Bae says. “And also, you can explore inside the buildings—there are a variety of elements in the city of Seoul.”
Pangyo, on the other hand, is “laid out much more simply. It’s sectored, clearly. So it gives a different vibe and a different experience.” I didn’t get to check this map out, but seeing how chaotic Seoul is, having something a little more grounded that’ll facilitate straightforward skirmishes seems like a nice balance. “They both have some distinct benefits” that players will be able to experience for themselves once Cinder City launches in 2026.
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