City of Heroes
In early 2002, Cryptic signed a publishing agreement for "City of Heroes" with NCSoft, which wanted to expand into the United States gaming market. Cryptic Studios' first MMORPG, "City of Heroes", was launched on April 28, 2004. On October 31, 2005, it launched "City of Villains", a separate game that was linked with "City of Heroes" through player versus player combat zones. , Cryptic Studios had released ten free expansions for "City of Heroes" and "City of Villains". On November 6, 2007, Cryptic announced that it had sold the "City of Heroes"/"City of Villains" intellectual property to NCSoft. All of the "City of Heroes"/"City of Villains" development team transitioned to work under NCSoft under the working title NCNorCal (NCNC), which later became the NCSoft-owned subsidiary, Paragon Studios, which ceased operation when NCSoft closed the game on August 31, 2012.