Brown Dust 2 Splits Off a Korean Build: Refunds Run to 160,800 Free Diamonds, and Take the Costume Back
Korean accounts of Brown Dust 2 have been on their own client build since the maintenance of July 30, 2026. Three items were modified for that build and no other: the 공포의 꿈 팔레트 costume, the 은퇴한 전설 올리비에 costume, and the 은퇴한 전설 올리비에 secret event. Korea is the second territory after Germany to run a separate build of the game.
The change is retroactive. Costumes already bought are altered in place on the Korean client, which is why NEOWIZ attached a refund route to the announcement rather than a simple apology package. That refund is priced per enhancement level at 13,400 free diamonds, which puts a fully enhanced +5 costume at 80,400 and both costumes together at 160,800. Filing it hands the costume back.
PD Lee Jun-hee announced all of it on July 28, 2026, in a stream the official Korean channel titles 긴급 라이브 방송, Emergency Live Broadcast. AUTOMATON dates the broadcast to July 29; every Korean-language source, and the VOD itself, puts it on July 28.
What changed, and only where
| Item | Change | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| 공포의 꿈 팔레트 costume | part of the cutscene staging and images | Korean client |
| 은퇴한 전설 올리비에 costume | part of the cutscene staging and images | Korean client |
| 은퇴한 전설 올리비에 secret event | part of the staging and images | Korean client |
Global, Japanese and every other build ship the original versions, unedited. NEOWIZ is both developer and publisher here, so there is no second studio to point at: the company modified content for the market it is headquartered in and left the export build alone.
The English names are not settled, and the coverage does not agree. Inven Global's English edition calls the first costume Nightmare Palette, AUTOMATON calls it Palette's Shattered Dream, community wikis call it Shattered Dream Palette. The character on the second is romanised Olivier by the wikis and Olivié by Inven Global. The Korean names above are the ones NEOWIZ published.
The July 28 stream, archived on the official Korean channel as 긴급 라이브 방송 다시보기. The three modified items were listed there before the July 30 maintenance.
What NEOWIZ said, and what nobody said
Lee gave the reason in the operator's own words: the depictions were revised 「한국 법률 및 심의 가이드라인에 부합되는 수준으로」, to a level consistent with Korean law and rating guidelines. He called it a measure that was strictly necessary to keep the service running in Korea, and said that without it the game could no longer be operated there.
Three criteria were read out as the triggers, verbatim:
- 신체 특정 부위에 대한 직접적인 묘사가 존재하는 경우, direct depiction of specific body parts.
- 이와 관련된 체액 표현이 존재하는 경우, related bodily-fluid depiction.
- 이용자가 조작 등을 통해 직접적이고 구체적으로 선정적 행위를 유도하는 표현이 과도한 경우, excessive depiction where the player directly induces suggestive acts through input.
The first criterion says specific body parts. AUTOMATON's English version renders it as genitalia, which is that outlet's reading rather than the wording NEOWIZ used.
The only outside parties Lee named were the two stores. Warnings against the game have piled up on both Google and Apple, 「구글과 애플의 경우에도 현재 경고가 많이 누적된 상태」, and he described both platforms as applying standards more conservative than Korea's rating guidelines. Android is the larger half of this game's revenue, at roughly 3 million USD of a 5 million USD June 2026 month, so Google Play policy is not a side channel for NEOWIZ.
No ratings board was named. Not in the broadcast, not in the official notice, not in Inven KR or Kyunghyang Games. GRAC, the Game Rating and Administration Committee, appears in none of the coverage, and NEOWIZ presented the decision as its own compliance call against guidelines it left unattributed. TechTimes still headlined its aggregation "Korean Regulator Forces Brown Dust 2 to Run Censored Home-Market Build". That is an inference drawn from an operator statement, and nothing on the record supports either the regulator or the verb.
<!-- image: official capture of the Korean Play Store or App Store listing for 브라운더스트2, to support the accumulated-warnings paragraph. play-lh.googleusercontent.com asset not identified in research. -->The remedy, in free diamonds
| Payment | Amount | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| Every account, ownership irrelevant | 2,000 free diamonds per modified costume type, 4,000 total | by August 6, 2026 |
| Costume owners, per owned costume | 2,000 additional free diamonds, 4,000 if both are owned | after the August 13, 2026 maintenance, once ownership is verified |
| Refund, opt in | 13,400 free diamonds per enhancement level, plus every material spent on enhancement | applications close August 31, 2026 |
The refund line is the one the English coverage has been getting wrong. Inven Global prints 13,400 diamonds per costume. The official notice prices it per enhancement level: 「코스튬 1강화 당 13,400 무료 다이아이며, 2종 코스튬 모두 +5강화일 경우 전체 환불 신청 시 총 160,800 무료 다이아」. Both costumes at +5 therefore return 160,800 free diamonds, which works out to 80,400 per costume, or six billed units each.
One clause decides whether that is generous or merely fair: 「환불 시 해당 코스튬은 회수됩니다」. The costume is reclaimed when the refund is granted. Owners are not being handed 80,400 diamonds on top of a modified costume, they are being offered a price to give it up, with enhancement stones, Goddess Tears and gold returned alongside. Keeping the item means keeping the edited version and taking the 2,000 per costume instead.
Lee said diamonds could not cover the disappointment on their own. The team is also producing special paper illustrations of both costumes for distribution to all players.
The January promise, and both readings of it
In January 2026 NEOWIZ announced character redesigns and content removals, then withdrew the plan in full about three days later under player pressure. The developer note that closed the episode committed to maintaining the service 「콘텐츠 수정 없이」, without content modification, and to providing services tailored to regional characteristics. It was framed as final policy for the life of Brown Dust 2.
<!-- image: capture of the January 2026 developer note as published on the official channel. Not on disk, no verified official source located. -->Both halves of that promise are now in play, and they point opposite ways. NEOWIZ can say it delivered the regional-service half: Korea got its own build instead of a global redesign, and no costume changed for anyone else. A Korean player can say the first half broke, because the costume in their account changed. Lee took the second position on air, acknowledging that the team could not fully keep the promise and saying the team takes that seriously.
Three dates that will say where this lands
August 6 is the first test: the universal 4,000 free diamonds are due on every account by then, ownership irrelevant, and a slip there turns a compliance story into an operations story.
August 13 is the second. Owner compensation pays out after that day's maintenance and depends on ownership verification, which is the step where accounts that bought, refunded or gifted a costume tend to fall through the cracks.
August 31 is the one worth watching. That is when refund applications close, and the take-up rate is the only public measure of what Korean owners think a modified costume is worth, precisely because filing means losing it. NEOWIZ has published no forecast. Separately, Lee said future content will be authored against these standards from the start, on the reasoning that editing after an update is worse. That is a production policy, not a client policy, so it can reach the global build even though the July modifications did not. We will update this piece when the August payouts land.
FAQ
Q: Do my costumes change if I play outside Korea? A: No. Only the Korean client was modified. Global, Japanese and every other build keep the original cutscenes, images and interactions.
Q: When did the Korean changes go live? A: With the maintenance of July 30, 2026, two days after the July 28 broadcast.
Q: How much do I get if I own neither costume? A: 4,000 free diamonds, 2,000 per modified costume type, paid to every account by August 6, 2026.
Q: How much is the full refund actually worth? A: 13,400 free diamonds per enhancement level, so 80,400 for one costume at +5 and 160,800 for both at +5, plus every enhancement material returned. Figures below that are usually the per-level rate quoted as if it were the per-costume total.
Q: Do I keep the costume if I take the refund? A: No. The official notice states the costume is reclaimed when the refund is granted, so the choice is the diamonds or the edited item, not both. Applications close August 31, 2026.
Q: Did a Korean regulator order this? A: No regulator is named in the broadcast, the official notice or any Korean-language report. NEOWIZ cited Korean law and rating guidelines without attribution, and named only Google and Apple, over accumulated store warnings it said reflect standards more conservative than Korea's guidelines.
Q: Will future costumes be toned down everywhere? A: Lee said future content will be produced against these standards from the start to avoid retroactive edits. That is a stated intention about content production, so it could affect the global build, but nothing global has changed so far.