The First Berserker: Khazan

The First Berserker: Khazan is a 2025 action RPG developed by Neople and published by Nexon, released March 27, 2025 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. It’s a Soulslike prequel set 800 years before the events of Dungeon Fighter Online, Neople’s long-running side-scrolling beat-’em-up that’s been running since 2005, telling the previously unexplored origin story of one of that game’s most infamous characters. It holds a Metacritic score around 81 — “Generally Favorable” — and an OpenCritic average of 80, putting it comfortably among the better-reviewed Soulslikes released since the genre’s mid-2020s boom.

It’s also a rare case of a critically well-received game that its own publisher admitted, on an earnings call, hadn’t hit its sales targets — a genuinely useful data point for anyone assuming review scores and commercial performance always move together.

Technical Specifications

A Prequel to a 20-Year-Old Universe

Neople’s Dungeon Fighter Online has run continuously since 2005 and remains one of the highest-grossing games in the world, particularly in Korea and China, despite limited name recognition in the West. Khazan, first announced at The Game Awards 2023, is Nexon’s attempt to introduce that universe to a broader global audience through a more internationally familiar genre — a fully single-player, premium-priced Soulslike rather than the free-to-play side-scrolling brawler the franchise built its reputation on. The English dub leans on recognizable genre talent: Ben Starr, who voiced Clive in Final Fantasy XVI, plays Khazan, while Anthony Howell, who voiced Margit and Morgott in Elden Ring, voices the Blade Phantom — casting that drew immediate notice from Soulslike fans checking the credits.

Great General Khazan

Khazan was once celebrated across the Pell Los Empire as the hero who defeated the fearsome Berserk Dragon. That reputation collapses when jealous rivals frame him for treason: he’s tortured, has the tendons in both arms severed, and is exiled to the mountains for execution, while his closest friend and fellow war hero, the mage Ozma, is executed outright. An avalanche during the prisoner march leaves Khazan for dead instead — until the Blade Phantom, a Netherworld spirit bound to a mission for its ruler Charon, possesses his broken body and offers him the strength to survive in exchange for help restoring balance to the Netherworld. Neither fully controls the other; the two strike an uneasy pact, and Khazan sets out to uncover the truth behind his betrayal and take revenge on everyone responsible.

A Story That Reveals Itself Slowly

Reception to the story split fairly evenly between “serviceable motivator” and “underdeveloped considering the premise.” Several reviewers appreciated that Khazan’s revenge plot doesn’t need much elaboration to work as a driving force, while others felt the game told players repeatedly how beloved and inspiring Khazan had been as a general without ever really showing it, and that the relationship between Khazan and the Blade Phantom — clearly meant to be the emotional core — never fully develops. The back half of the campaign features a series of reveals around Ozma’s true role in the empire’s unraveling, with three distinct endings depending on choices made late in the story, adding more direct connective tissue to Dungeon Fighter Online‘s wider mythology than the marketing initially let on.

Combat Built on Parries and Phantom Form

Mechanically, Khazan wears its FromSoftware and Team Ninja influences openly, built around a precise parry-and-counter system, a Spirit resource that fuels active Skills, and a late-game Phantom Form transformation that reworks Khazan’s moveset entirely once his Blade Phantom gauge fills through sustained aggression. Reviewers were close to unanimous that boss encounters are the game’s strongest element — demanding, varied, and consistently well-choreographed — even among critics who found regular enemy variety and level design comparatively unremarkable. The stamina system and mission-based structure drew more mixed reactions, with a handful of reviewers finding it more restrictive than the genre’s best examples.

Reception

Scores clustered mostly in the high 70s to high 80s across major outlets — Wccftech went as high as 90, calling it one of the best action RPGs in recent years despite obvious genre debts, while GameSpot and VG247 both landed around 80, praising the combat while flagging a forgettable story and constrained level design as the trade-off. A smaller minority of reviews, including a 6/10 from a ResetEra community critic, felt the game’s muted color palette and sluggish stamina-driven combat kept it from distinguishing itself within an increasingly crowded genre. The overall picture was a game whose combat systems reviewers trusted almost without reservation, with disagreement concentrated almost entirely on how much the story and presentation held that combat back.

A Critical Win That Missed Its Sales Target

In a May 2025 earnings call, Nexon disclosed that Khazan‘s first-quarter revenue came in below the company’s internal forecast, despite what it described as strong ratings from both players and critics at launch. Rather than treating this as a failure, Nexon framed the game as the deliberate first step in a multi-year plan to introduce the broader Dungeon Fighter IP to a global audience — a strategy that continues with a separate, unrelated project, Dungeon and Fighter: ARAD, in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S without a confirmed release date as of this writing.

Where to Play It Today

The First Berserker: Khazan is available on PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, with no regional or platform-specific complications affecting availability.