Chrono Odyssey may not get second beta in 2025, let alone full release

Although the studio behind Chrono Odyssey never publicly promised a specific release window, the rough plan was to get it out by the end of 2025. An internal goalpost for a Q4 2025 release can be found across multiple Kakao Games quarterly earnings reports, including the latest one. As it turns out, it's highly unlikely they'll be able to stick to that plan.

Specifically, the latest news on a speculative release window comes from the NPIXEL CEO himself.

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Chrono Odyssey will be given the time it needs to "meet quality standards," studio leader says

The first beta was far from complete (Image via Kakao Games)

Chrono Odyssey just had it's first-ever public (albeit closed) beta test weekend in June 2025. Despite some diamond-in-the-rough promising elements, public perception of the game has been checkered with New World copycat accusations and cynicism springing from a dubious state of optimization.

To address some of the feedback and concerns, Chrono Studio founder and NPIXEL CEO Bonggun Bae has previously shed light on the playtest build. It was a far older build than their current development version, claiming that the next beta will be "significantly more satisfying."

When is this second closed beta coming, though? The CEO is uncertain, and to be even more specific, CBT2 is not guaranteed this year. As he said in a Twitter post earlier this week:

"As for CBT2, we currently don’t have a confirmed date, and we can’t guarantee whether it will happen within this year. The schedule depends on development progress, and we want to make sure the next build meets our quality standards. We’ll share more information as soon as things are ready."

Playing the first beta, I only got the bare minimum vertical slice of Chrono Odyssey's systems (which, truth be told, did seem like a knock-off New World with a few quirks).

Yet, its state of polish certainly made it hard to form a fair impression of what an ideal-case scenario would look like. Leaving aside the poor performance and obvious graphical jank, the choppy animation itself took a lot away from a "souls-like" take on action MMO.

The only fully functional element, it seemed, was the character creation with its boundless slider freedom (something the developers incidentally want to curb in future builds).

If this is the FGT build from 2024 as the studio founder claims, it's still not a build that's ready to get out of the oven in one year's time. Looking at that, it's only natural that CBT2 might not make it before 2026, let alone a full release of Chrono Odyssey.