MapleStory Universe (MSU) is growing fast. After launching its flagship PC game MapleStory N this May, the team at Nexpace is already planning new ways for fans to play and earn. The next phase will expand beyond desktop. Expect more than a dozen new apps for mobile and web, set to roll out by early 2026.
These new apps will tie directly into MapleStory N. They aim to make it easier for busy players to keep up with their character and progress without needing to sit in front of a PC. This new direction is being led by Nexpace, the web3 division of Nexon.
MapleStory N looks and plays like the original game that made MapleStory a household name. The big change is that now, your in-game gear and items are NFTs, tradable on the Avalanche-powered Henesys blockchain. You can earn, trade, and own what you collect.
But for now, the game is only on PC. Nexpace's head of strategy Keith Kim said that this limits the game's reach. "How do we extract the core fun of these core games and make it available on mobile, on the go, or on the web—so you don't have to sit in front of your PC or download 20 gigabyte clients to do it?" Kim said.
His answer is to build extra apps that let you do key parts of the game anywhere. The first of these apps is due out by late July or early August. It will let players enhance items from their browser, without launching the full game.
Later apps will offer quests, item management, and even rentals. One app will let users pay someone else to grind for them. "We're extracting the core fun of MapleStory," said Kim. "Creating your character, growing your character, leveling up, doing the boss, acquiring items… We're extracting these out to the mobile and web environment."
These side apps are meant for people who grew up with the game but now have jobs and families. Players can grind during the day and save their free time for boss fights and group events on weekends.
The team is going big. Nexpace says that more than 12 different experiences are in the works. These won't be small features. They'll be full tools and games that link into the MapleStory Universe.
Some of them are being made by third-party developers. Kim said they've received "hundreds of emails from builders just over the last 15 days." For now, any developer who wants to make an official MSU app needs a Nexpace-issued API key. But the team plans to go permissionless soon.
By late 2025, Nexpace aims to roll out a developer hub. It will let builders make apps on their own, without needing direct approval. "We hope to see the contributors number go up," said Kim. "They can receive a share of that weekly admission of NXPC."
Nexpace plans to give out 80% of the NXPC token supply as rewards to contributors. This includes developers, artists, and builders who add value to the game.
Prior to these updates, MapleStory Universe was cracking down hard on cheating. Since its launch, the game has faced waves of bots and exploiters. Some users even posted videos of cheaters solo-killing the game's hardest boss with gear they shouldn't have had.
Nexpace says it's banning thousands of accounts every day. These include bots that auto-farm currency and hackers using exploits to get ahead. The problem is serious because MapleStory N's in-game assets have real-world value. Players can sell them for crypto, so cheating means real profit.
"It was a huge, huge issue. Internally, all of our teams were on emergency alert," Kim said. "The number of attacks… is many folds bigger than [the] entire Nexon game ecosystem combined."
To fight back, Nexpace made three major changes. First, they added a 30-hour delay for cashing out items. That's how long it usually takes to detect and ban a cheater. Second, they isolated their Henesys L1 network from other blockchains. That way, if someone cheats, they can't quickly off-ramp their gains. Third, they built a "clawback" feature. If a large share of items gets stuck in banned accounts, Nexpace can reclaim those assets, though they've said they'll ask the community before doing so.
"These are audited, and these are controlled by different layers of a multi-sig [wallet]," Kim explained. "But… we can do some housekeeping and bring this value back to the gamers."
So far, that hasn't been needed. Kim said most banned users lost more than they made. "Their earnings are way less than they're spending," he explained. "They actually bought NXPC because they want to get into certain levels of items, so they can be efficient in being very quick within the 30 hours, and exploit the game."
MSU is a full web3 ecosystem built on Avalanche. At its core is MapleStory N, launched in May 2025. It runs on the custom-built Henesys Layer 1 chain. Players can buy, sell, and earn NFTs in-game using the NXPC token. Unlike many blockchain games, MapleStory N looks and plays like a normal MMO, but with blockchain running underneath.
The platform is growing fast. Within its first 12 hours, over 300,000 MSU Scroll NFTs were minted during the May public drop, part of a total that later passed 800,000, then 1.7 million scrolls by May 14. Nearly 1 million testnet wallets were created, with 972,000 unique registrations, and 76% of NXPC in-game tokens were spent during the playtest. This shows strong user demand and real utility for the crypto layer.
In June, Nexpace introduced its public API to empower fans and developers. This sparked the creation of Synergy Apps, dashboards, guild utilities, NFT tools, and marks the start of "metaplay", engaging core game functions through mobile or web without running MapleStory N. These features form part of the "Infinite IP Playground", where the MapleStory IP spans different formats, enables user creativity, and combines NFTs, gameplay, and storytelling into one ecosystem.
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