Started out with the game Lobotomy Corporation, Project Moon was the brainchild of 7 students from Ajou University (in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea). They released their first game in 2016 on Steam's Early Access, with the "final" build not completed until 2018. Thanks to some dedicated English-speaking fans and a bigger development team, Project Moon decided to turn the setting of Lobotomy Corporation into a franchise that covered multiple games, webcomics, light novels, and even a themed cafe, in real life, in South Korea.
Setting
All of Project Moon's works, existing and planned, are set in a hyper-capitalist dystopia known only as The City. Despite the name, The City is reportedly closer to the size of a small country, split up into 25 Districts. Each District is overseen by a Wing, or a mega-corporation that oversees the Nest of the District they are headquartered in, and each Wing starts with the letter in the English alphabet that corresponds to their District number. For example: District 11 is overseen by K Corp, and District 12 was overseen by L (Lobotomy) Corp until recently. For some reason, District 26 (and Z Corp) do not appear on current maps of The City. Whether this is because Project Moon has not yet thought to put them in a game or if they were absorbed into District 25 is currently unknown.
The City as a whole is ruled by The Head of District 1, A Corp. No one truly knows the identity of The Head, whether it's one person, a group, or even a non-human entity. Very few outsiders are allowed into District 1, which is heavily fortified against all kinds of intrusion. All inquiries into the true identity of The Head meet a quick and violent end at the hands of The Head's operatives. Despite this fearsome reputation, The Head rarely takes direct action against other Wings. As long as a City resident pays their taxes, does not try to create human-like AI, and does not create an "impurity" that threatens District 1, The Head usually leaves their fate up to each District's respective Wing and their own rules.
For lower-class City residents who cannot afford to pay rent to their Wing, or the taxes that The Head demands, they may find themselves banished to The Backstreets. A large slum area partially overseen by organizations like The Fingers, Associations, or Fixers who maintain order in their own territories, where life is even harsher to those without the money or skills to be able to protect themselves from various threats that range from economic scams to cannibalistic chefs and Sweepers who literally rend the flesh from a human's bones.
Outside of the City are the Outskirts and Ruins, places where the most criminal and dangerous elements of The City are banished to if not outright killed. However, there are rumors that powerful pre-war relics and even "magical" items exist here, prompting ambitious Wings and foolhardy treasure hunters alike to risk lives in order to find them.
Factions
Within The City there are several factions who are supported, or at least tolerated, by The Head.
Wings
The "Wings of the World," or Wings for short, are the mega-corporations who each practically rule a Nest (the main area of a District). Each Wing maintains a grip on power over its respective Nest through use of a patented technology known as a Singularity that can somehow break the laws of physics in unique ways. Though rare, there are times where a Wing can collapse, and throw its related Nest into chaos and disorder, until a new corporation arises to become the new Wing of the Nest with The Head's tacit approval.
Examples of Wings include:
- A Corp (Arbiter) - The Head's own corporation that rules over The City, managing Singularity and other patents. Uses special agents known as Arbiters to carry out The Head's orders.
- B Corp (Beholder) - Run by The Eye, regulates the Singularities across The City and has a wide range of surveillance equipment and agents that seek out offenders who refuse to pay The Head's taxes or otherwise threaten them.
- C Corp (Claw) - The military might of The Head and The City, uses Claws to directly punish offenders as marked by The Eye and The Head.
- K Corp - A corp that produces Regenerative Capsules that can supposedly restore anything to its previous natural state.
- L Corp (Lobotomy) - Their Singularity, Cogito Production, was used to produce a source of high energy called Enkephalin extracted from Abnormalities to power machines across the City. After the White Nights and Dark Days incident, this Wing collapsed, and has yet to be replaced in District 12.
- R Corp (Replication) - A PMC who touts some of the most experienced and powerful combatants in The City for the right price. Their Singularity is used to clone a thousand of the same soldiers in their "Hatcheries," and R Corp forces them to fight each other to the death, until only one is left standing and becomes a soldier for R Corp.
- W Corp (W.A.R.P.) - A corp who runs the "WARP trains" that can supposedly transport passengers anywhere across the city in just seconds. In reality, the Singularity restores the passengers to a certain backup point when their genetic info was "saved," and the passengers end up perceiving themselves as taking a thousand years of time to travel, turning into grotesque monsters that have to be "cleaned up" by W Corp agents. However, after the Singularity, they will have no knowledge of anything beyond the first 10 seconds of their trip.
Associations
Within The City there are several Associations that collect and manage most of the Fixers. Much like the Wings and Corporations in The City, Associations have their own hierarchy, with a President heading up the Association, a General Manager to oversee operations, a Branch Manager to oversee Association branches in each cardinal direction, and these branches are further divided up into 6 Sections, with 1 being the most powerful (and expensive) and 6 being the lowest, each with their own Director to oversee their operations. Even below that are separate Fixer Offices that may choose to affiliate with a Section office for better pay and jobs.
There are 12 known Associations operating across The City, each with their own specialization, uniform style, and methods of operation.
- Hana Association - The head of all Association activity. They are responsible for grading every official Fixer, Office, and City hazard. It is difficult to do business as a Fixer without the Hana's approval.
- Zwei Association - Mainly hired to protect people and property, as long as they are paid well. Most Zwei Fixers wear dark blue coats with yellow trim and wield Zweihanders.
- Tres Association - Oversees the City's Workshops and registers their weaponry before it can be sold, making sure they do not break the rules set by The Head.
- Shi Association - Specializes in assassination and stealth operations, often equipped with little more than a katana.
- Cinq Association - Fixers who act as stand-ins for duels and single-person fights. Because they get less work than other Associations, the Cinq are often called to mediate disputes and conferences between different Associations. Most are dressed like French Musketeers, wielding a rapier or epee.
- Liu Association - in contrast with Shi and Cinq, the Liu are paid by clients who wish to attack multiple people at once, often in the open, and are mostly trained in martial arts with equipment that can produce fire effects to balance their odds against enemies with larger numbers.
- Seven Association - Deals mainly with intelligence and information gathering, though Seven Fixers can be paid extra to finish the job themselves. Most Seven Fixers wear a dark green jacket and wield an English broadsword.
- Eight Association - TBD [At this time, it is unknown what the Eight Association is, beyond its name.]
- Devyat Association - Fixers who specialize in delivery and transportation, whether the cargo is a person or an object.
- Dieci Association - An Association that operates similar to a Church, running an orphanage where they pick up lost or abandoned children and raise them in their Libraries. They focus on the collection of research and knowledge of all kinds, and their Fixers can somehow transform that knowledge into physical power using their golden stole, though doing so makes them forget the knowledge sacrificed to gain power. Most Dieci Fixers wear dark robes with a golden stole draped over their shoulders.
- Öufi Association - An Association that oversees fair trades and deals, verifying and enforcing contracts, to the letter across The City. Anyone who breaches a contract or directly harms a Fixer under purview of the Öufi will be executed, and the Association will send as many Fixers as necessary to punish the offenders. Öufi Fixers dress similar to the Swiss Guard, wearing purple and black striped outfits with gold trim and wielding halberds.
The 12th Association's name and related Fixers have not yet been revealed in any Project Moon title. The naming scheme suggests that it would be called Dodeka (Greek for Twelve), but this has not been confirmed.
In a scrapped ending from Library of Ruina, there was a 13th Association proposed containing E.G.O. users, but it was not included in the final game and is currently considered non-canon.
Fingers
The Five Fingers, a.k.a. The Hand, are powerful mafia-like Syndicates who run The Backstreets that are usually abandoned or cut off from The Wings and Nests of The City. Like the Associations and Wings, the Fingers have their own territories, styles of dress, and rules that govern their actions both within their family and with others outside of it.
The Thumb
The most strict, mafia-like Syndicate, and arguably the most powerful. They preach respect for elders and superiors in the family, and punishment for anyone who does not honor them. The Thumb is led by a Godfather (the Capo dei capi) whose orders are to be obeyed without question, and whose authority may be delegated through an Underboss (or Sottocapo) who manages a certain number of subsidiary families, who gives tasks to a Captain (Capo), who leads a group of foot-soldiers (Soldato) to carry them out.
Known Subsidiaries of The Thumb include: Stray Dogs, Kurokumo Clan, Night Awls, Rumanos Cartel, Ramier Family
The Index
One of the stranger Fingers, they are "chosen" by the Prescripts, seemingly arbitrary orders delivered on pieces of paper that claim to represent "The Will of the City." Anyone who ignores or fails to complete a task as transcribed in their Prescript may be killed or otherwise punished by another Index member, often ordered by a different Prescript. The Index footsoldiers are known as Proselytes, who have accepted an offer from a Prescript to join the Index, and once doing so, are bound to follow their orders no matter how insane they may be. Proselytes who show promise and survive long enough may be promoted to a Proxy (Index enforcer), a Messenger (those charged with delivering Prescripts to their recipients), or in rare instances, a Weaver (maintains the machine that produces the Prescripts and stamps them before sending them to a Messenger).
The Middle
A Syndicate with tight-knit familial ties, referring to each other as Brothers and Sisters, and covering themselves in glowing tattoos that are difficult to remove. The tattoos greatly enhance their physical strength and stamina, in addition to proving their loyalty to the Middle family. While members of The Middle are willing to forgive or settle inter-family conflicts, anyone outside The Middle will have their names transcribed in a "Book Of Vengeance" that Middle members usually keep around their waist with a chain, in which they write down the nature of the belligerent's offense and respective punishment they deserve. The offenses range from the serious (physical harm to a Brother or Sister) to petty (accidentally stepping on a Brother's shoes), and in all cases, the punishments are usually extreme (death to the offender and their direct associates, or forcing the offender to watch their family burned alive inside their home). Though it is currently unknown who runs The Middle, the hierarchy is relatively simple, with the lower members referred to as "Little Sisters/Brothers", who might then be promoted to "Big," and even "Greater" status depending on their achievements.
A known subsidiary of the Middle include the Twinhook Pirates, who mainly operate in District 21, as shown in Limbus Company.
The Ring
Little is currently known about this Finger, but they have made an appearance in Leviathan. It is stated that they value self-expression and various forms of art, but usually depict human suffering in their artwork by perpetuating it. It's also mentioned that The Ring can create a "corridor" between any two points throughout The City, and that sometimes these corridors may fail to properly link.
In Canto VI of Limbus Company, The Ring was reportedly invited into Wuthering Heights at Edgar Linton's request, with the Dead Rabbits gang serving as muscle.
The Pinky
Outside of a brief mention in Library of Ruina, nothing is currently known about this Syndicate, though there is speculation that Ryoshu's past may be tied to this Finger.
Games
A management sim where the player is tasked with managing a facility of employees to extract a powerful energy source, Enkephalin, from powerful entities called Abnormalities. An AI named Angela and her Sephirot serve the player, known simply as X, to manufacture Enkephalin and deal with any issues that arise from the Abnormalities used in its production.
After the events of Lobotomy Corporation led to a major incident known as the White Nights and Dark Days, Angela took the Seed of Light for herself and used it to raise a giant library on the rubble of L Corp, and dragged some of the other Sephirot with her to serve as Librarians. Some time later, as various Distortions and Abnormalities pop up around The City, an independent Fixer named Roland stumbles into the Library. Angela rips his limbs off at first, but then decides to heal him and have him serve as a Librarian. Angela then begins sending out invitations to various people in The City, luring them to the Library seeking fortune and fame, steadily increasing the threat level of the Library and its staff in hopes that she will be able to use the pages created from the dead belligerents to eventually create the perfect book.
Some time after the events of Library of Ruina, a person known only as Dante with a literal clock for a head and amnesia about their past has been hired as the new manager of the titular Limbus Company, commanding a bus full of "Sinners" who come from widely different backgrounds together as they seek out the Golden Boughs. These Boughs are said to be sources of incredible power, found within the ruins of the now-destroyed Lobotomy Corporation and its branch offices across The City. However, getting these Boughs proves to be a challenge, as not only do they resonate with a Sinner, but other groups are trying to acquire their power for themselves.
Online Books/Comics
The Distortion Detective
A web-novel set around the time of Library of Ruina, focusing on a Fixer named Moses and her tall assistant Ezra, who take on jobs to solve Distortion phenomena that have been turning people into monsters throughout The City after the fall of L Corp. In July 2021 Project Moon officially stopped publishing new chapters of the story, and announced plans to make The Distortion Detective into a full game at an indefinite point in the future. An official English translation can be found online at Postype (link).
Wonderlab
A webcomic by the Korean artist MIMI that takes place parallel to Lobotomy Corporation, set in one of the titular Corp's branch offices. The story focuses on Catt, Taii, and Rose, who work in the Disciplinary Department of the L Corp branch office. The webcomic ran from March 2020 to April 2021. In August 2023, Wonderlab was officially removed from Project Moon's internet presence, at MIMI's request, allegedly due to the controversy at the time of Project Moon firing a female artist due to irrational fan complaints, but there are archived versions that exist in paperback form as well as other places on the internet.
Leviathan
A story that bridges the gap between the True Ending of Library of Ruina and the start of Limbus Company. Leviathan focuses on Vergilius, the Red Gaze, as he deals with the loss of his orphanage and takes on a job that involves an art auction held by members of The Ring. Leviathan was originally published as a webcomic from December 2021 to June 2022, but the artist (Monggeu, a.k.a. "koug99") was reportedly dealing with health issues and was forcibly retired from the project. Project Moon would later rework Leviathan into an online Light Novel, with illustrations from other Project Moon artists. The story of Leviathan was officially concluded on October 2022, but official English translations of the last five chapters were put on indefinite hiatus as the Project Moon translators were tasked with working on Limbus Company itself. An unofficial English translation of those chapters was published by "Snakeskin" on twitter.
The official English translation can be found online at Postype (link), but requires registration to view due to its 18+ rating.
Other
HamHam PangPang - A real-life version of a sandwich shop mentioned in Project Moon's other works, HamHam PangPang opened as a theme cafe in August 2020 in South Korea, offering food and official merchandise for sale to those who are able to make a reservation and make it inside.
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