There's got to be something special about a game when it manages to unite the people of a whole country - and then get them attacking each other in real life to settle online scores.

That's what NCsoft's Lineage did when it launched in South Korea. Happily coinciding with a government initiative to give everyone broadband access (are you listening Tony Blair?) the PC MMORPG seduced gamers and non-gamers all over the country.

Lineage II is a different beast altogether - for the better. It's built on Epic's Unreal engine and therefore looks sweeter than sugar-dusted caramel and has been levelled up with strong player-versus-player combat and an aggressive territorial struggle that pits clans and guilds against each other for the control of pivotal castles.

Lineage II was released for PC in the UK last month, but that's not the end of the story. NCsoft has made a commitment to add content regularly via freely downloadable 'Chronicles'. These expansions add a whole new level of depth to the game. The recently released Chronicles 2: Age of Splendor added three huge new environments, a tonne of new quests and monsters, and even an in-game gambling system complete with monster racetrack.

We quizzed NCsoft's Lineage II team to get the inside track on the LII phenomenon, why it's been so successful across the world, and to get the scoop on where the series is headed in the future.