Grand Chase () was a free-to-play, two-dimensional side-scrolling MMORPG, developed by the South Korean company KOG Studios. Alternative names for Grand Chase included Three Young Heroes (), Eternal Adventures (), both used in Taiwan prior to its closure, as well as  Rainbow Warriors () on the Mainland Chinese server.

The game initially launched for South Korea in 2003. After becoming a large success, the game expanded to most of Asia, the Americas and Europe. Grand Chase broke the record of most played online game in Brazil and earned the "most popular online game" award in Indonesia on 2011.

In 2015, the original game ceased development and terminated its service worldwide, with the Korean server being the last to close. Elsword, another game developed by KOG, was created as the spiritual successor to Grand Chase. In 2018, the main game received an official sequel in form of the mobile game Grand Chase: Dimensional Chaser. A spin-off borrowing some characters and taking place in a parallel universe, KurtzPel, is currently under Steam early access.

KOG has also announced a relaunch of the game for personal computers in 2021, retitled Grand Chase Classic, which started in closed beta testing. By 2022 the beta test phase was ended and it was open free to play for all on Steam.

Plot
The story was focused on the adventures of the Grand Chase, a group of heroes from the region of Bermesiah, who departed on a quest to chase down the evil queen Kaze'aze, a witch who used her magic powers to cause a civil war between Bermesiah's kingdoms of Serdin and Kanavan. The players control of one of the members of the Grand Chase, and fights through dungeons and Kaze'aze minions to get stronger and track the evil queen.

From the very start, there were three main characters available: the knight Elesis, the magician Arme, and the elven archer Lire. More characters were added to the available roster with subsequent updates, each adding a different play style from the rest, and were unlockable by either performing a difficult free mission or by purchasing the character with real money. The final version of Grand Chase included 20 playable characters.

Gameplay
Because of the game's use of combos and special abilities, Grand Chase was similar to other side-scrolling fighting games such as Double Dragon, while the appearance and design of the backdrops, as well as the characters and monsters, put the game in an anime-esque setting. While it was an action game, the designers took care to not make it a "button masher".

The game was free-to-play, where players earned a currency known as Game Points (or GP) from completing dungeon quests, individual missions, or defeating other users in player versus player combat. Players could use Game Points to buy better equipment and items, although there were some items that could only be purchased with real-world currency. Users would start the game with one character and could eventually unlock three additional characters. Players were able to own more than four characters, but were required to buy additional character slots to do so.

Each character was leveled and equipped separately; Equipment was character-specific, although a few accessories could be used by all characters. The player might freely switch among the characters they had unlocked before entering combat, each with their own specific equipment, abilities and experience level.

Player versus environment

Grand Chase was centered around player versus environment gameplay. Players would have a number of dungeons available to complete. These dungeons consisted of branching levels filled with enemies, usually with a stronger boss on the final one. When entering a dungeon, a player might form a 4-player group (or party) to complete it. When choosing a dungeon to play, the player was given the option to create a party of their own, or join one created by other players. Players could repeat dungeons as many times as they liked.

After each expedition into a dungeon, characters would gain experience points. While the amount of experience gained was partially dependent on the player's performance and character level, every player would gain some amount experience after completing a dungeon. When sufficient experience was obtained, the player's character would advance by one level. Higher levels improved statistics, granted access to better equipment, and unlocked more difficult dungeons. Characters stopped leveling up when they reached level 85.

Items required to complete quests would automatically be given to the players at a certain rate. All other items were distributed to different party members by a "dice" system. When an item was picked up by any party member, each member of the party would roll their own set of dice; the player with the highest number would then gain the item. The size of the player's inventory was limited, but could be increased by purchasing space with paid currency or through events. To encourage group play, players would get a slight experience boost when working together.

Relay Dungeons were a unique type of dungeon, only available during certain events. In a Relay Dungeon, the players fought through every boss of a certain dungeon group (or continent) in order. The bosses in the Relay Dungeon had increased statistics, making them more difficult to defeat. After a boss was defeated, a chest containing valuable items, possibly including paid items, was opened. Any boss that was available in that continent's dungeons could be chosen.

Player versus player
Players could also compete against each other in player versus player (or PVP) combat.  There were three types of PVP combat in Grand Chase: Team Battles, Survival and Honor Guard. Win/loss statistics for each of the player's characters were recorded for these matches.

Team battles consisted of two, four, or six players. Players would be divided in two teams, and their goal was to defeat the opposing team by knocking out all the other team's characters. Team battles encouraged players to plan their attack strategies and co-operate with one another to defeat the opposing team.
 Survival was a mode where anywhere between two and six players battled one another until only one player was left alive. The surviving player was given first place, and the other players were ranked based on their number of kills. The rounded-down, top ranked half of the Players in the room would get a win. This was done to encourage players to fight, instead of hide or run from the others until he or she was the only player left alive.
 Honor Guard was similar to a Team Battle. At the start of the match, one member of each team was randomly selected as a 'Warlord', shown by a red/blue marker. The aim of the game was to successfully defeat the opposing team's Warlord twice. Warlords were given double regular stats to help defend themselves from the opposing team. Furthermore, a Warlord had only two lives, whereas other players could re-spawn after defeat endlessly. When a Warlord was defeated once, the other team's Warlord suffered from a drastically lowered level of defense for 10 seconds. Warlords could not regenerate health.

Alongside the regular match types, players could choose special modifiers to make fights more interesting: Tag and Item Mode.

 Tag matches allowed players to play with two characters of their choice. By pressing a button, they could switch characters during the course of the fight. However, if one of the characters was killed, the player could no longer switch to that character. When one of the player's characters was knocked out, the player was automatically switched to their other character.
 Item Mode matches had "power ups" dropped onto the battlefield at regular intervals throughout the match, that could be used by the player that picked them up. These power ups granted the player special abilities, such as invisibility or invincibility, for a short duration of time. Each player could store up to three power ups at any time. If a player was killed while holding power ups, they would be dropped on their feet and would become available to be picked up by other players.

Closure
From 2013 to 2015, all of the Grand Chase servers ceased operations; the North American server was shut down on April 15, 2015, after eight years of operations, as KOG encouraged its players to migrate to Elsword. The Philippine publisher Level Up! Games, with support of the Brazilian and Philippine community, offered to buy the rights of the game, but KOG Studios refused. The Asian servers were shut down on December 31, 2015.

Legacy 
On July 30, 2015, only a few months after the closure of Grand Chase in North America, the South Korean company Eyedentity Games published Grand Chase M, a short-lived mobile port of the game developed by Da Vinci Games, for Android and iOS systems. According to the publisher, Grand Chase M hit 2 million downloads 1 week after its release globally. However, this version has since been shut down.

Grand Chase: Dimensional Chaser

In 2016, KOG Studios announced a mobile game made by itself. KOG Studios and Kakao Games released the game  Grand Chase for kakao  in January 2018. In July 2018, the game was released internationally and renamed  Grand Chase: Dimensional Chaser  in Japan and the Philippines. A Taiwanese server is later opened to form the Asian server alongside Japan and the Philippines, which is also open to other countries in Southeast Asia.

On November 23, 2019, a KOG was no longer part of the game's continuity decisions.

International servers use English, Japanese and Portuguese language voice-overs.

The game serves as the sequel for the PC game, while introducing new characters and setting. The game has different mechanics compared to the original game; The player has to use a team of up to four characters with different classes to run dungeons and defeat monsters and bosses strategically.

References

External links
 

2003 video games
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games
Inactive massively multiplayer online games
Fantasy video games
Netmarble games
Video games developed in South Korea 
Windows games
Windows-only games
Gamebryo games
Level Up! Games games
Asiasoft games
KOG Studios games
Gamania games
그랜드체이스()는 KOG에서 개발하고 넷마블에서 서비스하였던, 스팀에서 서비스하는 온라인 횡스크롤 액션 게임이다. 2003년 8월 1일에 온라인 실시간 액션 대전 게임이라는 타이틀을 내걸고 등장하였다. 2015년 12월 31일 한국 서비스가 종료되었으나 2021년 7월 28일에 스팀에서 글로벌로 디시 오픈했다.

약칭은 ‘그체’이며, 일본에서는 ‘그라체’()라고도 부른다.

최대 6명이 동시에 대전을 즐길 수 있으며, 대전은 크게 팀전 모드와 개인전 모드인 서바이벌 모드로 즐길 수 있다.
레벨 업에 따라 장비를 교체하고 고레벨의 채널을 선택가능하다.
전직의 개념이 있으며, 전직은 <기본 - 1차 - 2차 - 3차>로 진행된다. 초기에는 배경 스토리와 거의 무관하게 캐릭터들끼리 대전을 즐기는 시스템이었지만, 후에 업데이트된 몬스터 원정대 모드와 몬스터 대전 모드가 인기를 끌게 되자 퀘스트 모드가 업데이트되었다. 퀘스트 모드는 시즌 2 업데이트 이후 던전모드로 명칭이 바뀌었다.
시즌 2 대규모 업데이트로 대전맵과 몬스터 원정대의 몬스터들과 기타 신 몬스터들이 보스몬스터로 존재하는 세르딘 외곽, 캐리비치, 오크 사원, 맹세의 계곡, 잊혀진 도시, 망각의 늪, 망자의 묘지, 불의 사원, 헬 브릿지 등이 새로 추가되었고, 시스템이 변경되어 퀘스트 모드 방의 최대 인원은 6명에서 4명으로 줄어들었으며, 퀘스트 모드를 하다가 모드를 자유롭게 바꿔 대전 모드를 즐길 수 있었던 시즌 1 때와 달리 대전 모드에서는 대전, 데스매치, 태그매치, 몬스터원정대 모드만을 즐길 수 있고 던전 모드에서는 던전만을 즐길 수 있다.

대한민국에서는 2015년 12월 31일 정오에 서비스를 종료했다.

그러나 2016년 2월에 열린 그랜드체이스 온리전에서 운영자였던 'GM크로'가 그랜드체이스의 후속작을 모바일로 개발하려고 준비 중에 있었고, 이후 2017년 9월 26일 카카오 게임을 통해 CBT의 사전 예약을 실시하여 약 2년 만에 모바일로 재탄생하였다.

그리고 2022년 10월 26일부터는 접미사로 클래식(Classic)을 붙여 넷마블이 아닌 넥슨에서 서비스한다. KOG의 넥슨 서비스 게임인 엘소드, 커츠펠을 참조하라.

줄거리 
베르메시아 대륙에 가장 넓은 영토를 차지하고 있는 왕국. 세르딘과 카나반. 두 세력은 적절히 힘의 균형을 맞춰 가며 평화적인 관계를 유지하고 있었으나 어느날 카나반 왕국에 어둠의 여왕 카제아제가 찾아든다. 카제아제는 카나반 여왕의 가장 충실한 신하를 죽이고 그의 모습으로 변신해 왕실에 접근한 뒤, 조금씩 여왕을 어둠의 세계로 인도한다. 전쟁이 시작된지도 어느덧 5년이 흘렀다. 카제아제의 이간질로 시작된 세르딘과 카나반의 전쟁은 대륙 전체를 황폐화 시켰고, 수많은 영웅들의 목숨을 빼앗었으며, 결국은 세르딘의 여왕을 죽음으로 내몰았다. 카제아제의 음모를 눈치챈 카나반 여왕 또는 분노를 터뜨리며 카제아제의 목숨을 빼앗으려 하지만, 카제아제는 이미 사라져버린 후였다. 이에 카나반 여왕은 그를 추적하는 탐색자들을 보내지만 수년이 지나도 그들의 행방은 묘연해져 여왕은 카제아제의 추적을 포기하게 된다. 한편, 세르딘에서는 최근 여러 가지 괴이한 사건들이 발생하여 조사해 본 결과 카제아제와 연관 되어 있고, 카나반과 세르딘의 전쟁 원인 또한 카제아제였음을 알게 된 세르딘 여왕은 또 다른 전쟁을 막기 위해서 카제아제를 막으려 한다. 결국, 세르딘 여왕은 카제아제를 물리치기 위한 정예 부대를 편성하게 되는데 이를 그랜드체이스라고 한다.

시즌 1 / 2 / 3 / 카오스 / 히어로 / 이터널 
2003년 8월 그랜드체이스는 시즌 1으로 출발했으나, 2008년 1월 시즌 2로 전폭 개편하였다. 이후, 2009년 12월 시즌 3로 던전 시스템의 콤보 시스템, 경험치 시스템, GP 획득 시스템, 아이템 드랍 시스템을 개편했으며, 신캐릭터 마도공학자 마리를 추가되었다.
2010년 12월 카오스로 각종 일러스트와 스토리 모드, 장비, 만렙 확장, 경험치 두배 획득 등으로 시스템을 개편하였으며, 신캐릭터 제로, 디오, 레이가 추가되었다. 2011년 12월 스토리 재개편과 함께 신 무료 지급 캐릭터 루퍼스가 업데이트되었다.

캐릭터

던전 
 세르딘
 시련의 숲
 시련의 탑
 세르딘 외곽
 캐리비치
 오크 사원
 고르고스의 던전
 카나반
 실버랜드
 엘리아
 제니아
 아툼
 아케메디아

미디어 믹스

공식 코믹북

모바일

뮤지컬 
 최초로 게임의 뮤지컬화된 작품이며, 2009년 4월 19일에서 4월 20일까지 나루아트센터 대공연장에서 공연되었다. 뮤지컬의 제목은 '그랜드체이스 카나반의 전설'이며, 게임개발사인 KOG와 대구 디지털 산업 진흥원이 공동으로 주최하였다.

각주

외부 링크 

  대한민국 그랜드체이스 공식 웹사이트
  대한민국 그랜드체이스 공식 블로그
  홍콩 그랜드체이스 공식 웹사이트
  브라질 그랜드체이스 공식 웹사이트 
  타이완 그랜드체이스 공식 웹사이트
  미국 그랜드체이스 웹사이트
  필리핀 그랜드체이스 웹사이트
  타이 그랜드체이스 공식 웹사이트
  인도네시아 그랜드체이스 공식 웹사이트
 
 

그랜드체이스
넷마블의 게임
2003년 비디오 게임
윈도우 게임
액션 롤플레잉 게임
다중 사용자 온라인 롤플레잉 게임
KOG의 게임