NCsoft NorCal Becomes Paragon Studios As City of Heroes Team Grows

NCsoft's Mountain View, CA-based City of Heroes developer gets an official rebranding today. The studio formerly known as NCsoft NorCal will now be called Paragon Studios, in a move the publisher says expresses its "commitment to further develop the City of Heroes franchise and other MMO games." "Day to day we're still working on our current tasks, so that hasn't changed, but this is a particularly exciting announcement for us because it solidifies what we've been doing with NCsoft since the acquisition of the City of Heroes IP in late 2007," GM and executive producer Brian Clayton tells Gamasutra. "We are moving forward full steam ahead and plan to maintain our leadership position in comic book-inspired MMOs," says Clayton. "For our team, this is a great way to formalize the commitment we already have." So how will the rebrand affect the way the team is working? NCsoft bought the City of Heroes IP in 2007 and transferred the original Cryptic Studios team from Los Gatos to Mountain View. The team has since grown from 20 to 50 staffers and expanded its content offering for the MMO, most recently with the "Mission Architect" user-generated mission tool. "But our temporary name didn't really play into our team's identity," Clayton says. "Now that we are able to formalize our identity around Paragon City -- the city in which the City of Heroes game is staged -- we can really show where we came from, where our hearts are, and where we are going." "Our latest City of Heroes: Architect Edition release is the first full-fledged game from our studio. The Mission Architect system is something we feel has raised the MMO bar, and set the standard for innovation, creativity, and community support that our studio has and continues to invest in."