Peer into the system that our nation’s largest metropolises runs on. Big, wealthy neighborhoods with clean streets and security cameras sit next to struggling areas full of crime and crippling poverty. Take that perception, twist it to the extreme: mega-conglomerates divvy up and own parts of that city (dubbed districts,) police and safety isn’t an expectation in any place but the areas capital to the patron corporations, and if you can’t afford to live in that area, you’re left to fend for yourself in the slums where violence and death is commonplace.
That’s life in the City, the dystopian ultra corporatist setting of Project Moon’s games, consisting of Lobotomy Corporation, Library of Ruina, and Limbus Company. It’s a “civilization” full of billions of people, designed for survival of the fittest. Its existence makes us ask uncomfortable questions about how our own societies are structured, and the connections we can make to where we are moving forward to.
The City is one of the most fleshed-out dystopia in all of modern gaming history. The City is alive, and understanding it means understanding why people act the way they do in this universe, why the events of Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina alter the course of the history that plays out in Limbus Company, and why your survival would feel unassured day by day.
The events and tragedies that occur in the City are almost never random. The supreme government knows what happens, they often let it happen and the exposition is set as a stark criticism of real systems: corporate monopolies, wealth inequality, “work hard or get left behind” mentalities, and ultra surveillance states. It pushes concepts we already know in our world to the extreme.
So why does reading and understanding this kind of niche South Korean game lore matter? Because it’s not just a game. Project Moon built us a world that highlights our own fears about inequalities and injustices. The City forces us to look at questions we already live with, and beautifully so.
To give you some context, Project Moon is a South Korean video game studio, founded by CEO Kim Ji-Hoon. Since 2016, they’ve released 3 full release games, 2 webcomics, and a webnovel. All of these revolve around the City I dive into today and in chronological order follow Lobotomy Corporation, a management-based game where you secure, contain, and protect monsters created through the human mind, dubbed Abnormalities, that can be used to extract precious energy named Enkephalin. Library Of Ruina picks up not long after the events of Lobotomy Corporation’s dismantlement and the “White Nights and Dark Days” incident. The deuteragonist AI assistant Angela from Lobotomy Corporation collects books of knowledge through defeating residents of the City that dare to accept said Library’s challenge, a duel of sorts, in order to become a real human unlike the wishes of her creator. Finally, Limbus Company moves forward in time a little, where we are introduced to a band of people from all ways of life that have signed a contract to bind themselves to the amnesiac executive manager of the Limbus Company Bus (LCB) department, a former big-wig of the City taken against their will to be the strategist for the LCB in order to retrieve “Golden Boughs” from the desolate remains of the old Lobotomy Corporation branches.
Before we dive into the details of such an interesting exposition, here’s a quick guide to some terms unique to the City, important for understanding the complex place.
Fixer’s Guide to City Terminology
The City and the Nests: The City is a massive expanse, divided into 26 separate districts. Each district has a central area called a “Nest”, whose citizens are under the protection of the corporation that oversees them. However, the protection of these corporations only extends to the borders of the Nest. The residents of the areas surrounding, dubbed the “Backstreets”, are left to fend for themselves. Each district has unique culture, architecture, and people. Alongside these are also taboos unique to each Wing, rules decided that when violated are of great concern.
The Wings of the World: The “Wings” are a collective term for 26 biggest conglomerates in the City. These corporations contribute to the quality of life in the city using almost supernatural technological feats dubbed “Singularities”. But as fickle as things are in the City, things oft change when a Wing falls. Historically, the fall of a Wing accompanies events of magnificent magnitudes.
The Head of the City: Briefly, the Head is the supreme governing figure in the City, separating themselves into 3 main Wings, A Corp., B. Corp, and C. Corp. They run everything from Singularity patents, standard times, City rules and taboos, currency, tax-collection, to dealing with the most significant ordeals of the City, categorized in their danger classes that will be mentioned later.
Abnormalities: Lobotomy Corporation (L. Corp) was said to have possessed a Singularity named “Cogito”, that allowed them to tap into the manifestation of the human mind. The manifestation of these minds extremely often reflected the insecurities, desires, behaviors, and fear of City people, thus creating entities that can only be described as akin to the most peculiar and uncanny monsters. When managing Abnormalities, if their needs were met in confinement, they would be able to produce energy named Enkephalin, an extremely powerful energy source L. Corp often sold and traded with other wings.
E.G.O: Extermination of Geometrical Organs, also known as E.G.O, is equipment (both armor and weapons) that manifest directly from the human mind. E.G.O can be manifested on its own, or ripped from an Abnormality and borrowed. E.G.O equipment is extremely powerful, but it taps into a deep, dark place in your soul that, if you do not persevere through and keep your wits upon you, can corrode your mind and turn you into an indiscriminate monster. This phenomenon is related to Distortion, when you are overcome by your overwhelming exalted emotions and turn into a powerful, violent being.
White Nights and Dark Days: Without going too far into esoteric Lobotomy Corporation lore, the White Nights and Dark Days events were two separate events that occurred each after the events of Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina. The purpose of these events differ, the first was a complex plan by the founders of Lobotomy Corporation to bring the “light” into the souls of the people of the City and cure them of the “mind-disease” that they had. The mind-disease they spoke of was the desolate and brooding mentality almost all residents of the City have towards their life. Described as an unrelenting, unwavering sense of hopelessness and an eternal struggle to maintain life or survive another day, bringing the light back to these people would happen over the span of multiple days where a huge beam would radiate from the L Corp headquarters. Thus, allowing the citizens of the City to manifest their E.G.O and distort into the greater expanses of their mind. The second White Nights and Dark Days spewed out the victims of the Library from the ending of the Library of Ruina, and the creation of monsters named “Peccatula.”
Fixers: Fixers are handymen, not entirely combat experts but are generalists for hire. Fixers require an office willing to hire them and a Fixer license from the governing body of Fixer affairs, the Hana (One) association. To rise through the ranks of Fixers and earn higher grades, they must prove themselves through their records and achievements. Although Fixers can be the key to solving an issue in the City, very often are they also the exact problem.
Associations & Offices: Associations are the larger organizations that supervise and manage the Fixers under them, the Hana Association being the center of all related affairs. Cases in the city are taken and distributed to the Associations that are best fit to their specialties, and then delegated to related office subsidiaries. Offices are smaller scale fixer organizations, often abiding by an Association or taking upon themselves a more independent role.
Syndicates: Syndicates are like the exact opposite of Associations, whereas instead of being a large organization of Fixers, they are a large organization of gangs and gang members. Syndicates are often larger scale organizations, with associated subsidiary gangs under their care. The largest Syndicates in the City hold a fairly high danger class designated by the Head, and are named after the fingers on the human hand.
Where the Dots Start to Connect
Does any of this feel similar to anything you’ve seen in real life? At first glance, everything seems so unrealistic, but the more you start connecting these ideas with real-life concepts, things don’t seem so far off from what we experience in real life. Urban segregation is a real thing, the people in this world, much like ours, keep their close communities gated off and protected from the poverty of the Backstreets, mirroring favelas, slums, ghettos, and refugee camps. The City has no central belief, the residents constantly long for a “purpose” and live only to survive another day. People cling onto codes, ethics, corporate ideologies and deluded senses of honor to provide them any meagre sanity to continue their trek of life. Instead of worshipping gods, much like a lot of parts in our world, people worship commodities, productivity, status and brand loyalty. Although Wings have access to technological miracles like their Singularities to improve the lives of their citizens, they only use it for their own gain and dehumanize their own employees in the process, similar to real life corporations and their obsessions with innovation at the price of human value. The City symbolizes a late-stage capitalist area that our world is hurling towards, and understanding it helps you understand the world around you now.
Let’s take a look at the entirety of the City, now that we’re acquainted with the general terms and knowledge one would need to know.
Uncovering & Understanding “The City” & its Connections to our World
Geography & Travel
Besides the Districts, the Nests, and the Backstreets, the City has 4 regions around and under it. These areas are collectively known as the Outskirts, a desolate place often used by the Head as a dumping ground for the worst monsters and taboos the Head designated as impure for the city. To the left is the Black Forest, home of avian-like entities and the origin of multiple powerful Abnormalities later mentioned in the games. To the south is the Great Lakes, a sea separated into small chunks of lakes, all with their own laws of the sea that are as fickle as the Wing that owns it. Bearing the “Calamities of the Sea”, the Great Lakes are an extremely dangerous part of the world. The Ruins are under the City, accessible to all as long as one travels far enough below. The Ruins are a huge abyss carrying the Rivers, life-altering streams capable of granting blessings and curses to those who interact with the waters. Every place other than the ones I mentioned are barren, desolate lands that lead to almost infinite nothingness, with creatures worse than anything previously mentioned as long as you move far enough.
As for transportation, the City seems to have extensive highway systems and other than travel through Nests, the only way to get fully around the City without the use of WARP Trains are to rough it out in the Backstreets. WARP Trains are public transportation devices sold and regulated by W. Corp, using its Singularity to transport people on a train within an amazing span of 10 seconds. But even though their Singularity seems like a marvel, it’s not all that it seems. Due to the density of the City, the Head banned flight as a form of transportation.
Beliefs & Religion
The people of the City can be polar opposites in every sense of the word, they can come from a variety of cultures, social status, and environments. But one thing can be seen in almost every citizen of the City that isn’t filthy rich, they all lack purpose and belief. Belief in the city can be seen from both the perspectives of the individual people and the Wings. Malkuth, the Patron Librarian for the History floor in the Library of Ruina and former Sephirot of the Control Team in Lobotomy Corporation explains their first life and their experience in the city; “The people in the Nest where Elijah lived… They all seemed to have lost focus in life, spacing out and staring into empty places. Everyone only saw black and white things.” People in the Backstreets fight for their lives every day to pay their taxes, pay tributes to local gangs, find a way to make a living, and even then find something to eat. Similarly, people in the Nests work overtime and backbreaking hours for their Wing to the point where their daily routine is etched deep into their brains, and the only thing they can do to and from work is stare listlessly. The burning desire and failure of the people to bring some kind of purpose into their lives have led many to horrible spaces. The will of the people, and the energy of those who do and don’t end up reaching their desires are so powerful that deep in the Ruins, the Rivers of the City created a pendulum, a pendulum that swings with ink on its tip and, with the vibrations of the city, create notes called “prescripts” that are made true and handled by the Index Syndicate. After the Index found out that they can create these prescripts using a system of mills and papers, they distribute them to the people of the City to give them a “purpose.” In reality, these prescripts are often extremely cruel and foul, the same people who long for their life to be meaningful are forced to carry out these prescripts by the Index lest they face punishment by the Index’s Proxies. This truly shows how the City is alive, and also reflects how many in real life also long and wish for a purpose in life. But that kind of apathetic, negative energy that festers can create something as brutal as the prescripts are to the people, and show us also how a lack of purpose can affect our emotions and mental health.
Next, the collective beliefs of the Wings can very often vary. Generally, the rules of the Wings are not seen as beliefs, but there are often cases where Wings have a very specific set of confusing and trivial rules that are colloquially referred to as “taboos.” One of the most notable taboos is that of N. Corp’s nature. N. Corp is especially brutal about taboos, they have an entire department dedicated to solely punishing those that break the rules, especially in the Backstreets. Although they are so strict about their 14 taboos, there are no actual recordings of what the taboos entirely consist of. The only confirmed rule we know is that there is no visual recording of anything that goes on within N. Corp’s district, whose Taboo Hunters prioritize the retrieval of the recordings. Additionally, U. Corp has taboos that are completely unbeknownst to most of even its own district residents, rules that are as fickle and subject to change as the tide of the lakes. The Head also has City-wide taboos, dealt with by the Claw. Some of these taboos include guns and bullets, designated as too easy to trivialize human death with the amount of destruction they can bring, artificial intelligence, too unhuman and impure for the city, and obviously, tax evasion. This shows, additionally, how fast corporations can change their stances on things in real life, corporate administrations going from hating something to advocating for it, firing someone for something to praising them later.
These bleak wills of the people of the City were noticed by one of the L. Corp’s main founders, a researcher named Carmen. In the spaces of various district backstreets, she claimed there was a mind disease plaguing the people that caused them to be so apathetic towards their lives, and that unlocking the physical manifestation of their minds to have the strength to follow their dreams was the only solution. Through the use of the Singularity she possessed, Cogito, her spirit after her death lives through and when a resident of the city goes through overwhelming, catastrophic emotions that would normally send someone into severe trauma and shock, Carmen herself speaks to them and attempts to convince them to distort. Those who succumb to their negative emotions lose their minds and become Distortions (the monster-like entities mentioned previously), those who are able to overcome these emotions and defy Carmen’s wishes manifest E.G.O. But even though one can manifest their own E.G.O and use it for their benefit, the usage of these powers will still carry Carmen and her desire, if one is bested by that voice they corrode their E.G.Os and become distortions.
Notable Achievements & Scientific Advancement
The City has achieved many things over the large span of time it’s been alive, two of the greatest being the development of Singularities and extensive mechanical prosthetics/artificial intelligence. The City is notorious for its extreme mechanical technology, from body and skeleton enhancements to artificial intelligence that are almost indistinguishable from humans. Due to the nature of the Head and their desire for the City to be pure and made for humans, they banished artificial intelligence as a part of their own set of taboos. Along with the strides in research for physical augmentation, some procedures can be used to resonate with Singularities, the technological miracles that Wings develop. An example of a Singularity is W. Corp’s Singularity, a save point mechanic that saves the exact positions, molecules, and chemical structures of everyone riding the train. Using this knowledge, they send all those riding WARP Trains into a dimension where time is dilated by eons and riders are rendered immortal, leaving them trapped for what feels like an eternity before being sent back into the main dimension and the (usually) gory mess cleaned up and reverted by said save point. Prosthetic bodies can usually overcome most of the gore and are rearranged and put back together quicker and better than others.
The City’s Mysterious Government & City-wide Politics
The politics of the City are extremely convoluted. To put it in the most concise way I can, it’s a corporatist oligarchy where all members of the oligarchy are vying for more power right under the 3 most powerful corporations, those owned by the Head. Through the use of patents, corporations have wars with each other to find out the nature of their singularities, thus rendering the sale of said singularity useless and possibly completely destroying the corporation that profits off of it. When corporations fall this way, the land that is lost can be filled as fast as it was taken. New corporations often spring up and bring their own singularities to the table, a never ending cycle of oppression and competition. To dive deeper into the workings of the Head, although they are probably the most secretive group in the entire City, we can understand some things from what is given to us. They own the A, B, and C corps, all with different missions and purposes. It is unknown if the Head possesses a Singularity of their own, but what we do know is that their agents often make use of certain singularities known from other corporations. The A Corp is the center of all organizations for the Head itself. They manage all of the other Wings through this corporation, handling patents for singularities and technology, as well as the standard-time zone for the entirety of the City (usually utilized most by T. Corp, a time-based corporation.) They utilize agents named “Arbiters” to carry out their tasks. B. Corp is run directly by the Eye, a subsidiary of the Head. They directly supervise the use of Singularities and use their almost omniscient surveillance around the city to scope out tax offenders. The agents of the Eye are named “Beholders”. C. Corp is run directly by the Claw, the military branch of the Head. They seek out to punish tax offenders and patent infringers reported by the Eye.
The Head designates danger classes to things that threaten the City, things like Abnormalities, Syndicates, criminals, and locations. As situations develop these classes may be subject to change, and are striked off every class when it’s sufficiently dealt with. Classes range from Urban Myth, Legend, Plague, and Nightmare. The most pressing dangers that the Head won’t intervene with are classified as Stars of the City, and include some of the most dangerous events and people in the City. A notable example are the Finger Syndicates, all five are listed as Star of the City threats, yet the Head does not try to actively pursue them themselves. Finally, the highest class one could ever receive is Impuritas Civitatis, or impurity of the City. These threats are located and dealt with directly by agents of the Head, usually Beholders, Arbiters, and Claws working simultaneously.
Shaky Economy & City-wide Trade
The economics of the City can either be high-stakes, high-risk complex strings of market and stock, or they can be just as simple as trading and bartering. Due to the massive nature of the City and the almost endless cultures and procedures of each WIng, economy is always dictated by the specialty of the Wing. This rings true especially in T. Corp, where time is sold and bought through the use of their Singularity that allows people to cram more hours in their day, some having even 100 hours in a day through speeding themselves up, or the lowliest peasants having 4 hours in a day, usually spending their entire lives grinding in perpetual slowness. To be able to keep coherency in the City, the Head established a standardized currency, the Ahn. Ahn is similar to South Korean Won and are of equal value. Besides this, the second greatest form of economy in the City is through workshops. Workshops are the driving industry City-wide for the equipment of all Fixers, Syndicates, and general people of the City. Workshops can specialize in trades like creating entire boats for people to fare the Great Lakes, magnificent lances for Fixers, guns and bullets (although illegal and taboo, still creatable) for Syndicates, most notably the Thumb, and even buildings and defense systems.
Final Thoughts, Connections, & Conclusion
Truly, the City is a beautiful construct, a living, breathing being with cyclical events and sorrow happening in tandem with innovation and hope. As fast as one ordeal is dealt with, another one in larger magnitudes pops up. The people of the City may never be happy, the relentless abuse and oppression may never crumble as long as the Head governs over them. Being able to experience firsthand these concepts and ideas through playing the Project Moon games shows you a brutal reality that we can connect to the real world. In the process of knowing a character truly within one of the games or novels, they can just as easily die as they have lived. Feeling and understanding the emotions of the people who bear the burden of living in the City, no matter what way of life they came from, often opens your eyes to even your own emotions, your own ambitions, desires, and hopelessness, your own sorrow.
I hope that my article going into the inner workings of the City helped expose you to one of (in my opinion,) greatest expositions in gaming and literature ever. In learning everything you have read, you are sufficiently prepared to draw your own connections through the games and find enjoyment in Project Moon’s work, something I am very excited to share more about as well.
