You know what they say, right? If at first you don’t succeed, try several more times, and if you still continue to fail, go the blockchain and NFT route.
First there was Bless Online.. then after that abomination, was Bless Unleashed.. which after failing horrendously, came Bless Mobile.. but now, after three failures – we have.. Bless Global.
The very first AAA level fully cross-platform compatible MMORPG on PC and Mobile, from GameFi – the same people behind one of the worst rated games I’ve seen on the Google Play Store: Yulgang Online, a play to earn Mobile MMO.
But with so many failures under their belt, you might be wondering what makes Bless Global different to the games that were created and released before it? Like Yulgang Online: Blockchain technology and NFTs.

According to a Press Release from Tigon Mobile, a subsidiary of Longtu Korea, pre-registration for Bless Global began on August 12th, last week. Players are capable of visiting the pre-registration page if being scammed and taken advantage of 3 times already wasn’t enough.
As of today, August 16th – 4 days after having pre-registration open, there have been less than 15,000 total players that have pre-registered. 13,891. Yup.. I think, finally, players might be catching on. It only took 5 years, hundreds of millions of dollars wasted, and repeated re-releases.

Bless Global is GameFi’s first AAA attempt in the Web3 world. To bring their vision to life, Tigon Mobile and Game Space will be collaborating on a platform, PocketBuff, to support NFT transactions.
Bless Global is supposedly adapting the entire PC game of Bless Online – not Bless Unleashed, its story, its lore, with – in their words, not mine, “console-level graphics.” Console-level graphics on a mobile device. Right. Yeah. I can totally see that.
Bless Global is GameFi’s first AAA level MMORPG. “Besides the game’s rich and interesting characteristics, it also incorporates the latest trend of blockchain technology NFT and utility tokens gameplay, providing multiple earning opportunities, traditional gameplay and NFTs to generate a variety of fun ways to play!
Complete the official website sign-up to get a chance at PASS Card drops, and enjoy a high drop rate of NFT earnings in advance!”
Doesn’t that just sound inviting?

According to a spokesperson from Tigon Mobile, the new Bless MMO is going to be launching completely cross-platform. Which in Asia, means “it’s a mobile game that has a very deeply flawed, highly unoptimized PC port that we half-assed at the last moment to maximize earnings.”
This is to – in their words, ensure accessibility and continuous enjoyment for all users. With regards to play to earn, Tigon Mobile says they are dedicated to expanding the platform’s ecosystem.

It’s unconfirmed when specifically this game is launching, but it’s launching soon. The fact that they’re currently in pre-registration is evidence of that.
But seriously.. SERIOUSLY.. does anyone actually believe we need ANOTHER failed Bless MMO? Anyone at all?

I’m a bit of a glutton. I enjoy MMO subreddits, even though the vast majority of them are cesspools of drama like this: (dead or nah?)

As for the topic on hand.. Yes, it’s true. Bless – or more specifically, Neowiz have done what nobody ever thought possible.
Not only did they kill Bless Online, not only did they kill Bless Mobile, but they have somehow also killed Bless Unleashed. On every platform. Or, at the very least gotten close to it on PC. But if you don’t count 10% of the active playerbase remaining as dead.. then, well, I guess, honestly, give it another month or two.
Then it might fit your definition of a dead game.

Now I don’t hate Bless Unleashed. On the contrary, I thought Bless Unleashed was actually a pretty decent game. I did a video on it after 20 hours spent streaming it and I had some fun. Genuinely, with no snarkiness or sarcasm, I had some fun in Bless Unleashed.
Yet there are people that think I’ve been actively trying to kill it for as long as it’s been around. That’s just not true. I verbally express my thoughts aloud on a platform like Youtube, yes. I’ve talked about experiences I’ve had with both the developers and the game, but I always stress that players should try a game for themselves.
They – you – should never, ever trust the opinions of a single person. Just because I dislike something – or certain aspects of something, doesn’t mean you will. Doesn’t mean other people will. That is after all why they’re called personal preferences.

Although I’m gonna go ahead and give them some credit here: Bless Online took a nosedive from 35,000 concurrent players when it launched, to a mere 10,000 concurrent players within its first month online. I don’t think I’ve seen an MMO lose that many players over the course of a several week period.
Bless Unleashed in that very same timeframe dropped from 76,000 concurrent players to 46,000 concurrent players. That is significantly better player retention long-term.
The decline was noticeably larger with Bless Online, because – let’s be honest here, Bless Unleashed as I noted isn’t actually a bad game. It’s not a great game, but it’s far from being a bad game. Bless Online on the other hand? That was some hot garbage.
I played every incarnation of Bless Online. The original Korean version, the Russian version that was shut down by the Russian publisher due to them “wanting to deliver a quality product and experience,” and ultimately Bless Online being the exact opposite.
This resulted in Neowiz overhauling Bless Online for the Japanese launch, and… well, that didn’t go over too well. What we got, though, was riddled with gold duplication, crashes, poor optimization and absolute incompetence from the developers.

Nevertheless, as of today, there was a peak of 6,000 concurrent players logging into the PC version of Bless Unleashed. In a mere 4 months, Bless Unleashed has lost over 90% of its players, which if we look at its competition: Swords of Legends Online, PSO2 New Genesis, Elyon.. actually seems about accurate.
All of the above MMOs have declined to a point where most players would consider them “dead games,” averaging at peak, a couple thousand concurrent players.
Bless Unleashed’s decline isn’t specifically because it is a bad game, once again. If it was, every other MMO launched this year would be doing better, when the reality is Bless still has higher numbers than any release disregarding New World.
Rather, all of these MMOs have been in a rapid state of decline due to how poorly they were handled. How little content there was present within their respective games. And how player expectation was much greater than the product we received.

Regardless, this was a long time coming. Other than die hard fans of the game, I don’t think anyone realistically saw Bless Unleashed lasting longer than a few months.
Bless Unleashed did some things right: Participating in the large-scale open-world boss fights were something else. Seeing 40, 50 other players all engaging the boss, all experiencing mechanics for the first time, all repeatedly dying and scurrying to revive one another was actually kinda epic.
I’ll admit, I died repeatedly against some of them. I’m not ashamed to say that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing at literally any point in any fight. Just mass amounts of untelegraphed attacks, damage that was large enough to 1-shot me, and… well, death came. And it came swiftly.
The community seemed to understand that you needed every bit of DPS possible if you wanted to down the boss in a reasonable amount of time, though, as every time a player would die, you’d see multiple people run over in an attempt to bring them back into the fight.

And… okay, well, when I stated “did SOME things right,” that’s pretty much all I meant. Everything else about the game seemed incredibly generic. Basic. Uninspired.
The world was empty, with the exception of mass groups of monsters, the classes felt clunky, and the combat didn’t stand up to its competition. Even the leveling was kinda boring, although let’s be real, that isn’t specific to Bless. It’s the same for every other MMO I’ve discussed here today.
Nothing about Bless Unleashed stood out. And if you can’t grip players, they’re not going to want to stick around long-term.

A successful MMORPG grabs your attention, and holds your attention. If it doesn’t, you’re going to grow bored and move on. Player retention is everything. The same applies to non-MMOs, movies, TV series. Even Youtube videos. Do you want to continue watching a video when you’re bored 30 seconds into it?
No, of course not. You don’t want to continue a TV series if the first episode puts you to sleep. And likewise, you don’t want to play an MMO that is a chore to level in.

Bless Unleashed has hit a point in its life where it’s just about dead. Clinging on to life and the thousands of players that are still logging in to play it. To spend money in it.
And I guarantee you Neowiz is already considering where they want to take the Bless intellectual property from here.
They milked millions from players by launching Bless Online as a premium title, then milked millions more after converting to a free business model.
Made a fortune from Bless Mobile before abruptly shutting it down due to poor performance. Gave publishing rights to Bandai Namco for Bless Unleashed on console. Then proceeded to take Bless Unleashed and publish it on PC, milking millions more.
Where WILL they go from here? Either they’ll sell publishing rights to a new Chinese developed Bless Mobile game, they’ll make some type of “Bless Classic” incarnation of the game or they’ll consider a new Bless PC title like “Bless Unleashed.. Again.”

When I did my first video on Bless Unleashed’s population numbers roughly a month ago, I was genuinely surprised to see the game peaking as high as it was in terms of concurrent players. 30,000, 40,000, spiking all the way up to 76,377 several weeks ago.
For a new MMO, especially given who was in charge of developing it and publishing it and their history with Bless Online, I couldn’t fathom how they’d made as large a wave as they had.
I decided to stream over 20 hours of Bless over the next week as I was curious to see what about the game made it as popular as it was. And while I don’t think the game ultimately ended up being anything revolutionary, I could see that it ended up being somewhat of a basic, yet traditional MMO. And that isn’t something to knock.

Yet I pointed out that much like PSO2 New Genesis and Swords of Legends Online before it, Bless Unleashed would go on to lose at least half their active players over the course of the first month.
It’s only natural. It happens to most MMOs. People play through the content that is currently available, they proceed to get bored, and move on.
Yet there were players that would ardently debate that opinion, claiming Bless Unleashed would break the MMORPG genre–that it would provide the genre its “next big hit.”
And I know at this moment some of you are sitting there, jaw agape, wondering what these guys must be on, and you know what? They’re just fans of the game. There’s nothing wrong with wanting your game to succeed.

Now fast forward a month. Bless Unleashed is currently averaging approximately 30,000 concurrent players per day, with the active concurrent players dropping day after day, from 35,000 earlier this week to just over 30,000 today. Once again, this game was averaging 76,377 active concurrent players just last month.

As I’m too dumb to do an exact calculation, I went ahead and ran this through a percentage calculator. This was an exact drop of 60.3%. Yes, over 60%. Meaning that likely within the next week, the game will have lost 2 out of every 3 players.
But don’t misconstrue these numbers – these aren’t active monthly numbers, and they definitely aren’t proof that players have permanently quit the game.
What these numbers signify, rather, are merely players that no longer log in daily. There are plenty of players that have achieved max level, farmed gear, and ultimately left – there’s no denying that.
But at the same time, much like in WoW or Final Fantasy XIV, there are a multitude of players that are merely logging in weekly to run whatever weekly activities they have. Dungeons, raids.
So these numbers are going to be a little skewed. But they are nevertheless proof of where the playerbase is headed. We’re seeing a steady decline of several thousand concurrent players being logged in per week, and that is only going to continue to trend downwards.

Bless just rolled out their latest update on September 15th – earlier this week, specifically, which introduced not only the level 42 Twisted Void Spider Queen field boss, but the Nightspire – Caverns of Wrath dungeon for players over level 35.
Yup. I mean it’s an update. Sure, not the scale of update we’re used to out of things like Final Fantasy XIV or Black Desert – with the former introducing hours of new narrative, dungeons, extreme trials, savage raids or the latter introducing new classes, entire areas or features.
But if Swords of Legends Online is anything to go off of, introducing a dungeon here and there really isn’t going to do much to revitalize the population, let alone breathe new life into it.
I’m not complaining though. Again, an update is an update and it’s good to see Bless Unleashed pushing out content for players to consume.
But going off of the population numbers, when the update actually rolled out on September 15th, the playerbase didn’t spike at all. In fact, the 15th saw less players logged in concurrently than the day before it – the day before the update even rolled out. And the day after saw an even steeper decline.
Evidently the playerbase didn’t think much of the update, or at the very least, it didn’t pique player interest enough to warrant players log in to test the content out.

I did notice though over on their Steam page that the Founder’s Packs – you know, the packs that players could purchase before the game went live to support the game, to acquire unique goodies players wouldn’t be able to after the game launched.. are available to purchase right now.
The Ultimate Founder’s Pack for $80, Exalted Founder’s Pack for $40 and Deluxe Founder’s Pack for $20. However as of September 16th, Neowiz went and introduced 2 whole new packs to purchase, the Frontier Pack for $30 and the New Frontier Pack for $60.
I took a look at what they both included, things like premium currency, a mount, premium benefits, a title, in-game gold, an outfit. Pretty basic stuff – things you might expect out of a pack like this.

Granted, these packs have both been negatively reviewed due to players not receiving the items after purchasing the packs, but I don’t see why Neowiz would devote time and resources into such subpar packs. I get they want more money but come on.. players are waiting for more content, not new packs to burn $60 on.
But they’re not required, and they’re solely up to the player to purchase so in the grand scheme of things there’s really nothing to complain about unless you purchase them yourself.

Looking at reviews for the game over on Steam, I see that it’s at 51% positive. I’m aware initially players bombarded the game with negative reviews. It made sense, there were thousands of people that refused to support Neowiz or the Bless IP, and that hatred was 100% warranted.
But those people are long-gone, and looking at reviews over the last 2 weeks alone, we see that there have still been more negative reviews left than positive. More players are finding fault with the game than those that are finding success with it.

Looking through reviews I have an understanding of why. The first 20 or 30 levels are more of an introductory look at the game. They hook you by providing you with a semblance of a traditional MMO experience.
But the further you progress into the game, the more glaringly obvious the issues become.
Sure, the game has some solid graphics, the combat can be fun and the world bosses are an incredibly fun experience to get to engage, but coupled with the poor UI, the supposed poor economic design, the very obvious predatory inventory system and the lack of communication and transparency with the developers and publisher… negative reviews are continuing to come in faster than positive.

Again, like I’ve stated many times in the past, I have my issues with Neowiz. They tried to contact me quite underhandedly to remove a Bless video I did talking negatively about their game.
They scammed hundreds of thousands of players out of millions of dollars. These two things alone were reason enough for me to never actively touch anything they ever develop or publish in the future.
But for people that didn’t know, or didn’t care about that this game wasn’t bad. In my opinion the game itself, at its core isn’t a bad game. It’s not good, but it’s simple, and traditional, and that’s what the market is looking for, evidently.

I can see Bless Unleashed is on the road to quite the significant decline over the next month or two, where both PSO2 New Genesis and Swords of Legends Online lost over 80% of their active players within the first 3 months, I assure you Bless Unleashed will as well.
It’s only a matter of time until this happens, and the trajectory looks to be aligning quite closely with what I perceive to be the expected result 2 months from now.
Only time will tell I guess, but I might check in again 2 months from now and update everyone with whether I accurately gauged it or not.

As the title would imply, I’ve invested over 20 hours into Bless Unleashed up until this point.
I did that because I wanted to give this game a chance. Many people know my thoughts on the company behind the game, but this is going to be my opinion, my experience of the Unleashed title specifically, disregarding the franchises’ history, disregarding the company behind it.
And before you complain that I’ve “changed my stance on the game,” or that I “haven’t given it enough time,” if after 20 hours, I’m unable to say I either enjoy or don’t enjoy aspects of the game, then you might need to reassess what having an opinion entails. Or close out of the video.
Because this is going to trigger ardent defenders of the game and avid haters of it as well.

Now before going any further, I’d like to note: These are my 100% honest, unsponsored opinions. I was not paid anything to play the game, nor am I financially incentivized to withhold my opinion in any capacity.
Not that there’s anything wrong with taking a Bless sponsor, but I felt as though it would be in the community’s best interest if I were to tackle this with absolutely no bias, no incentive and no ulterior motives.
And honestly… I’ll preface everything by stating, right now, that while Bless Unleashed is in no way a great game, it was far from as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Now, once again, I’ve put over 20 hours into Bless Unleashed since it launched. I opted to stream my first deeper dive into the game so our community could get a feel for it without having to necessarily waste time themselves.
Over those 20 hours, I experienced quite a bit of the game. I managed to make it to level 20. I got to try dungeons. I got to try world boss fights. I.. well, admittedly I didn’t get to participate in any types of PvP but the PvE aspect of Bless Unleashed is honestly a lot of fun.

After having recently played through Elyon as well as Bless Unleashed, I can say with certainty that this has a much better leveling experience.
The questing, specifically, the main story that pushes you forward to new areas, unlocks new features is handled very smoothly.
You move from area to area, pick up both main story quests and side-quests alike. The quests aren’t very difficult and are of your typical MMO variety. From what I could tell, leveling–and more specifically the quests themselves weren’t gated behind the need to arduously grind like you had to in Elyon.
There was variety in the quests you’d take, variety in the monster types, variety in the types of dungeons. Honestly, while the first hour or two of the game is an absolute snore to get through, much like most MMOs, the game picks up after around 5 or 6 hours and genuinely becomes much more interesting around the 10 hour mark.
You begin to encounter much more difficult monsters. You begin to be able to actively participate in world boss fights.

Speaking of world boss fights… well, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume these were world boss fights, because if they weren’t, then I don’t know what to expect from the actual fights themselves.
But from what I perceived to be world boss fights, I think I had more fun attempting to learn boss mechanics than I’ve had in recent memory.
These bosses would 1 to 2 shot me. Not just me. Everyone around me. Players would be downed every other second, and you know what would happen? We’d have people run over to them to begin ressing them.
Yeah, the community in Bless Unleashed, while absolutely filled with bots spamming real money trading websites, is actually much nicer, much more wholesome than I would’ve otherwise imagined it to be.
I.. okay, I’ll admit, I died probably more times than I have in an MMO outside of Guild Wars 2, and every time, someone would run up and begin aiding me. This was entirely unexpected. I typically leave people face-down because I don’t care, but some of these players did.
And that’s not only the makings of a great community, but also an integral part of clearing these encounters in a timely manner. Because let’s face it: While it’s all well and good to ignore one another and leave your allies down on the ground, if they were DPSing as well.. the boss fight would go exponentially faster.
And these boss fights were so much fun. Learning what to dodge, watching the boss for small little triggers – warnings that would alert me to whether I’d have to gain distance, or I was able to run in and DPS like the idiot DPS I am.

But… that was pretty much where my enjoyment of the game ended.
One major part of every MMO is its combat. If your combat is unenjoyable, then that makes the game a chore to play. Bless Unleashed’s combat wasn’t terrible, don’t get me wrong. I think, honestly, it has better combat than New World had during its last Beta test.
But I feel like the combat is just so much slower, so much clunkier than its competition. Elyon, PSO2 New Genesis, Swords of Legends Online. 3 MMOs that launched within the last 3 months that all have better combat than Bless does.
Maybe it was the class I chose. Maybe it was my inability to adequately play a melee class in this game. But to me, personally, I found that everything just felt so slow. Like I’d be waiting between every slash, every click of my mouse or keyboard for the animation to finish and the next to begin.
When I’m used to action combat systems akin to Black Desert, TERA, Vindictus and Blade & Soul – all of which have absolutely incredible combat, and I’m presented with something that feels so sluggish in comparison, I end up bored.
Bless doesn’t have terrible combat, once again. Its combat isn’t honestly bad. It’s just worse than pretty much all of its competition, and given that the majority of the game involves engaging in combat, that is something I’d just never be capable of getting used to.

Then comes the graphics. On the one hand, Bless Unleashed looks quite a bit better than Bless Online. So that’s a significant improvement. However, on the other hand, I’ve seen mobile games that actually look similar to what we’re given in Bless.
Which lead me to repeatedly express my opinion that this game.. looks kind of mobile-esque. Not only the aesthetics of the game, but if you take a look at the UI, both the main UI and even when opening your inventory, opening your skills page.. and don’t even get me started on the chat.
I know this is ported on over from the console game. I do. If this were built specifically for PC I’m sure this could’ve looked so much better. But it wasn’t, and looking at the chat reminds me of my time in V4. And V4 was a mobile game.
The UI is absolutely horrific. It doesn’t matter if you love or hate the game. This UI should never have made it into the final version of the PC iteration of Bless Unleashed, and it’s honestly embarrassing that it did.
And given this is a South Korean MMO, I would’ve expected there to be a lot more customization options for your character. While my character turned out alright, everyone just looks so.. basic. So generic. Not something I’ve come to expect from Korean MMOs.

From what I’ve gathered, there’s some story to the game. A narrative that I probably should’ve followed more closely. This isn’t a negative. Honestly, the story seemed pretty straightforward and fairly traditional.
The voice acting in all of these new games though, holy… I used to think Blade & Soul had bad voice acting. Then I heard the voice acting in all of the MMOs that came out this year and it made me want to congratulate NCSoft on their professional dub of the game.

And honestly… that’s pretty much it.
There are people needlessly hating on the game, projecting their hate for Bless Online or Neowiz–or both, actually, onto Bless Unleashed. And rightfully so. They have their reasons to dislike the game, just like some of you have your reasons to like it.

The game has a large world filled with quests, players, and things to do.

The leveling process is traditional, which makes it feel comfortable and easy to enjoy.

Some of the boss fights you encounter out in the world are an absolute blast. Some of the most fun I’ve had in recent memory.

The community seems alot better than in both Swords of Legends and Elyon. They genuinely try to help you out and seem fairly active.

The combat was very slow and clunky. It felt poorly optimized and fluidity was very off.

The game looks very dated, and it just launched.

The UI looks like a mobile game, which makes me shy away from opening or even chatting whenever possible.

The voice acting is absolutely atrocious.

A lot of people claim that the game is pay-to-win. This bodes poorly for the games potential future.

It has a worse publisher for PC than for console.

And that’s it. After 20 hours, those are my general thoughts on the game. I had some fun in it, I’m not gonna lie. More fun than I thought I would have been capable of having.
I’m also not against admitting when I’m wrong. I was wrong in the past when I said Bless Unleashed was a terrible game. My sentiment regarding the developer Neowiz and Round8 remain ever the same, but this isn’t about them.
Bless Unleashed turned out to be a better game than I gave it credit for. And I’m glad to see players having fun in it, however long that lasts.
Do I think it’s a great game? No. But at the same time I don’t think Elyon is either. Or Swords of Legends Online. Or PSO2 New Genesis. They’re all passable, maybe even good games, but none of them are great games.
Bless Unleashed is free though. And this is just my opinion. My thoughts, experiences and overall opinion hold no more weight than yours, or anyone else’s.
Don’t listen to the masses – if this game looks interesting to you, go download it. Go play it. If it doesn’t, then don’t. Just pass on it and move along.
Formulate your own opinion, make your own choice. Don’t let the sentiments of others form your opinion for you – that’s how we end up with people smack talking games without having ever tried them out.

I’ve been streaming Bless Unleashed recently, attempting to get a deeper, more accurate unbias impression of the game, and while my thoughts on Neowiz are pretty common knowledge at this point, and remain much the same as ever, I did think it was worth noting that Bless Unleashed is doing very well.
I’m recording this video as of August 16th, 2021, and as of yesterday, the game set new concurrency records – not only for the entire Bless IP, but also for the free MMO genre in general.

Now I think there are multiple reasons behind the soaring population numbers.
On the one hand, Bless has been a reviled franchise ever since Neowiz scammed players out of millions of dollars by performing a cheap bait and switch with Bless Online.
This has amounted to unparalleled amounts of negativity towards every Bless title, and while warranted, has left a lot of players curious as to whether Unleashed, the newest title in the IP is as bad as players have been claiming it would be.
Then we have players that have absolutely no idea what Bless is – players that don’t keep up to date with MMO drama, that just see an MMO in the “top 10 most played games on Steam” in the last week and want to satiate their curiosity as to why that is.
These players have absolutely no bias, and are generally just curious what this is.
We also have fans of Bless – either from their first title Bless Online, maybe from their Bless Mobile title that got shut down earlier this year, or console players that were excited to finally be able to play this on their PCs.
These players are bias, they enjoy the game, they love the IP, they went into this with the knowledge of what it was, and want to ardently support it.

Regardless of why players are trying the game out, one thing is certain: There is no reason to personally attack another person because they’re enjoying themselves in a game you don’t like.
I’ll have a full, dedicated video on my Bless shenanigans in the next week or two, but I am under no illusion that there are plenty of people actively enjoying Bless Unleashed right now. And I’m genuinely glad they are.
Everyone deserves to have fun in something they dedicate time to, and nobody has any right to claim otherwise. 76,000 concurrent players, with the game having actually increased in overall active players per week should speak volumes about what the general consensus of the game is.

Now that isn’t to say that Bless Unleashed will have 70,000 active concurrent players next month, or, heck, even next week. We saw a small decline during the first week of its release, and as per every release, as more people push through content they’ll get bored and move on.
But as of this moment, there’s no denying that Bless Unleashed has been quite the success for Neowiz – on PC anyway.

With the release of Bless Unleashed right around the corner, and some of you with your finger ready on the “purchase Founder’s pack” button, I wanted to talk about one of the largest MMO scams in the history of the genre: The entire Bless IP.

We’re no stranger to games not living up to our expectations. We’re fans of MMOs after all. It comes with the territory.
But even so, rarely are these games legitimate scams, taking advantage of a community of players thirsty for something new and exciting.
And while there are MMOs out there, such as DreamWorld that went on to scam over $60,000 from players, and Chronicles of Elyria which scammed millions – there is no larger offender than the Bless IP.
I figured, what with Bless Mobile – the most recent Bless MMO shutting down in South Korea after only a year of service, this was the perfect time to do a video talking about this. Especially given how Bless Unleashed is nearing release on PC, and Bless Mobile launched globally just a few months ago.

So let’s give the game a little backstory. Bless Online was announced all the way back in 2011. The game was developed utilizing Unreal Engine 3, and suffered from quite a few performance issues as many Unreal Engine 3 MMOs do. Approximately $60,000,000 was invested into bringing this game to life.
In 2014, the first state of Closed Beta testing began in South Korea. The reception was quite poor, which ultimately delayed the game several years, releasing into Open Beta within South Korea in August 2017. 3 whole years after their first Closed Beta test.
This release was completely free-to-play, requiring no purchase of the base game, no recurring monthly fee.
After the critically negative response to the game within South Korea, Neowiz, the developers of Bless Online decided they were going to attempt a release outside of the games country of origin: Specifically, Japan and Russia.
Russia received the Open Beta version of the game in December 2016, and after less than a year online, the game had already been shut down due to the Russian publisher claiming they were unable to provide their players a “quality title and experience.”
Inferring that Bless Online was most definitely not a “quality title,” nor did players have an “experience” they were satisfied with. I want to note here that the Russian version of Bless Online, much like the South Korean version, was completely free-to-play.

Bless Online went into Closed Beta testing within Japan in April 2017, after Neowiz announced they were in the process of overhauling the entire MMO as part of their “Rebuild Project.” This would go on to address quite a number of issues found throughout the game, including performance concerns, upgraded graphics, combat and more.
Japan would be the first region to obtain access to the Rebuild Project, with North America and Europe to follow when the MMO released overseas. Again, I want to note that the Japanese version of Bless Online was entirely free-to-play.
In April 2016, Aeria Games had signed an agreement with Neowiz to bring Bless Online to the West.
Naturally, as Aeria Games was an absolutely atrocious publisher, future players were absolutely shocked and disgusted — and rightfully so. Aeria Games, which is now a part of Gamigo, destroyed every single MMO they got their grubby little fingers on.
But we’re diverging from the topic at hand, so let’s get back on track. Aeria Games revealed they had the rights to publish the MMO in 2016.
People were upset. But what shocked players even more than Aeria Games publishing Bless Online, was their announcement that they were no longer going to honor their contractual obligations to Neowiz, with both companies agreeing to pull out of the agreement.

And this is where everything went downhill.

Neowiz revealed in a public statement that they were going to self-publish Bless Online in the West, shortly before Japan announced they were ceasing operations concerning Bless.
Neowiz confirmed that North America and Europe were still on track to receive the Rebuild Project upon release, while simultaneously announcing that with the closure of their games within Japan and Russia over the last year, this would be the only version of Bless Online outside of South Korea.
Later in 2017, Neowiz announced that we would be receiving Bless Online “sometime in 2018,” and that players would be capable of pre-ordering Founder’s Packs via Steam as part of their “Early Access” program.
It was at this moment that players were left with a big “WTF” face, as Neowiz revealed the prices of the Founder’s Packs in question, while simultaneously confirming that the MMO would be releasing in the West with a buy-to-play business model. The most expensive pack being a whopping $200USD. Yes, 200.
The playerbase reacted with critical negativity – and it makes sense as to why that would be. Shortly after, Neowiz confirmed that they would be reducing the price of the largest Pack down to $150, which for whatever reason sated people’s anger.
I guess this was due to the fact that they thought Neowiz was “listening to player feedback” by reducing the price of the collectors edition to something slightly more reasonable. Admittedly, I know quite a few of our viewers who went on to purchase that pack, and in retrospect, consider it to be one of the biggest regrets of their life.
The other packs were fairly standard, with the the base edition costing $40 and the deluxe edition costing $70 respectively.
Now I want to take a moment here to note that once again, Neowiz confirmed that Bless Online was releasing in North America and Europe with a buy-to-play model.
Let that sink in for a moment. Bless Online released as a free-to-play title in South Korea, in Russia and in Japan. It failed in every country it released in. Neowiz knew that this was going to fail overseas, and in an an attempt to garner as large a return as they could on their investment into their Bless IP, they transitioned to a paid model.
Their one single goal was to earn as much money as they possibly could – at the expense of not only their players, but also their reputation, as 3 years later, Neowiz is still a company that players cringe up upon merely hearing the name of.

Now these Founder’s Packs weren’t the reason Neowiz and Bless Online were considered scams. Quite the contrary, actually.
Founder’s Packs are prevalent in every MMO release these days. ArcheAge did it, RIFT did it, Astellia did it, Ashes of Creation is doing it, New World is doing it, Swords of Legends is doing it.
It’s a common way of obtaining an initial return on investment, and honestly I don’t have any issue with it personally. The scam is from what came next. Bless Online released as a paid title. You had to purchase the game to play it.

Shortly after launching as a buy-to-play title, Bless Online’s concurrent activity levels dropped to critical levels. Players were livid at how bad the game was.
How little improvements were made over each incarnation of the game. How Neowiz failed to live up to any of their promises, such as introducing the new classes into the game. With player numbers dropping by tens of thousands per day, the game died within its first month.
Many players attempted to get refunds, but after playing for a few hours via Steam, they refuse to process refund requests, so many players ended up screwed out of their time and money. To make matters worse, Neowiz revealed later in 2018 that they were going to convert their game to a free-to-play model.
Yes, you heard that correctly. After launching as a free MMO in 3 different regions, then making tens of millions of dollars from Western players, they decided “you know what? If we convert back to a free model we can make millions more!”
And so they did. In October 2018, Neowiz took Bless Online 100% free-to-play. And to add insult to injury, they introduced brand new Founder’s Packs into the game. Allowing for players to once again spend millions of dollars on the failure of an MMO.
And considering player concurrency numbers shot up to over 30,000 at any time during the course of the first week, I feel as though it’s safe to assume players spent quite a bit on it. Both via Founder’s Packs and the in-game cash shop.

Those actions alone put Bless Online and Neowiz down as one of the largest MMORPG scams of all time. However that isn’t where this story ends. Far from it, actually.
After not even 2 years online, Bless, now being referred to as Bless Offline, shut down entirely.
The game was no longer playable, and players who initially bought into the game as a paid title, who were scammed out of their money when Neowiz transitioned the title to a free model, and even players that spent money on the free incarnation of the game had lost everything they’d worked on.
But you know what? When buying an MMO, you do so with the knowledge that one day it might shut down. When WoW eventually shuts down, I will have invested thousands of dollars on it but that I made that conscious choice to.
What Neowiz did, converting their game to a free model after making tens of millions as a paid title though was an absolutely disgusting abuse of trust. However shortly after they shut down, they issued an apology and said they were working on something even better in the future, and they hope players support their next endeavor.
Which turned out to be both Bless Unleashed, and Bless Mobile.

Bless Unleashed was developed by Round 8 Studio, a subsidiary of Neowiz, and published on consoles by Bandai Namco. Players initially criticized the game as being “just another cash-grab” as it released with expensive Founder’s Packs, and was a somewhat altered version of the game that had already scammed us twice in the past.
However since it was handled by Bandai Namco, players had hopes that it wouldn’t fall victim to the same issues it did under Neowiz, and honestly, it really didn’t. At the end of the day, Bless Unleashed on console was a pretty crappy MMO. But it was not a scam.
Yes, Neowiz had taken their assets from Bless Online, overhauled them and made Bless Unleashed. We all know this. And they made a fortune off of the Unleashed title – so much so that – and I know this is going to blow some people’s minds, but that they decided to self-publish Bless Unleashed on PC.
You remember earlier when Aeria Games was supposed to publish Bless Online, and Neowiz broke off, opting to self-publish and ultimately scam us PC gamers? Here’s history repeating itself. Neowiz have decided that they want to self-publish Bless Unleashed on PC instead of Bandai Namco.
Bamco have even went on to distance themselves from the project by stating that they are in “no way connected to Neowiz’s incarnation of Bless Unleashed on PC” and have no control over anything they decide to do on that platform. Which is a very bad sign to hear, especially considering this is coming out some time after July.
Having played Bless Unleashed twice during 2 separate Closed Beta tests, I can tell you that the PC iteration of this game was absolute garbage. Maybe it worked on consoles, but it does not on PC.
And Neowiz are releasing Founder’s Packs for the game – AGAIN – for players that want to reinvest money into funding this game for the umpteenth time.

And while Bless Unleashed was being developed, Bless Mobile began development, releasing early 2020. And like all Bless titles, Bless Mobile shut down after a mere 15 months of being online.
The game was so bad, much like Bless Online and Bless Unleashed, that even mobile players rejected it.
The team behind the game stated “difficulties providing a satisfactory service to players,” and quickly shut the game down. That wasn’t the end of the game, though. Oh, no! Bless Mobile released in the West earlier this year, and… well, was about as well received as you’d expect a Bless title to be.

Every single incarnation of the Bless IP has been for the sole purpose of generating as much money as they can from their players.
The companies behind these games have no interest in the longevity of the titles beyond how much they can make within the first few months of it releasing. They make millions, tens of millions of dollars in their country of origin, shut it down and release it over here to the West.
They make tens of millions of dollars from gullible Western players, then shut the game down over here.
Then they proceed to make an entirely new Bless game reusing assets, reusing ideas. Providing no substance. No reason to invest time or money into the game – yet people continue to fall victim to it time and time again.
I don’t know why, but I feel like the entire Bless IP is probably the biggest MMO scam on the internet. DreamWorld, Chronicles of Elyria, Oath. Yeah, they’re all terrible games that have scammed players out of their hard earned money, but none have come close to this.
And this has been ongoing for years, now, with no signs of slowing down any time soon unfortunately.

This is disgusting. This is abhorrent. This is also terrifying, seeing just how badly we all want something to play. That we’ll openly and obviously let ourselves be sold on something like this.
This has to stop, and we have to stop supporting practices like this. It’s wrong, and so are the companies that prey on our wants and needs.

Here it comes, Bless Online.. reimagined for mobile devices in the form of Bless Mobile. Yes, it’s actually coming, and it’s coming soon.

It was revealed recently that Bless Mobile had opened pre-registrations for the upcoming Mobile MMORPG, and players are.. once again falling victim to yet another attempt to milk as much money out of players as humanly possible.

A brand new trailer for the title was released in commemoration of their pre-registration announcement, and I opted to take a look. It showcased some of the characters we’ll come across, the aesthetic look and feel of the game, the combat, world exploration. And you know what? Yes, it really does look as bad as we thought. It is unabashedly, unbiasedly, the worst incarnation of Bless Online yet and that’s saying something considering the absolute mess that Bless was.

But here we are, continuing to fund future Bless titles, with Bless Unleashed (and its upcoming PC port,) and now Bless Mobile. Please, everyone. Learn from the mistakes we’ve experienced up until this point, and avoid Bless Mobile.

Yup. We finally played it, and you know what? It was bad. Like.. bad. Not the worst game I’ve ever played, but bad. It was honestly better than I had expected it to be, but when the bar was as low as I had it set.. realistically, it couldn’t have been any worse than I had anticipated.

So here we are, today, taking a look at Bless Unleashed’s PC Closed Beta test. I wanted to go into this today with an open mind, no judgement until I’d played through it – and that’s what I did.
Loading into the game for the first time, you can see that the game is built for consoles. It tells you to click buttons on your XBox controller.. even though we’re playing the PC Closed Beta. Yup, at that point we knew we were off to a great start.

Bless Unleashed, at its core is a very basic MMORPG.
I poured over 60 hours into the South Korean, Japanese and Russian versions of Bless Online and although my opinions on the incarnation of the game I played were mixed, I still found enjoyment out of various aspects of the game.
Unleashed, though? Yes, the game can at times be a lot more aesthetically appealing than its predecessor, and the action combat was kind of a step in the right direction, but that’s about it.
Character models were noticeably higher quality, but the character creator was incredibly limited. Character models for NPCs were reused everywhere with almost no diversity. Everyone had the same face. The same hairstyles. There was no diversity at all – and don’t even get me started on the syncing of NPCs lines with their lips.
The first several seconds after talking to an NPC they remain completely frozen – with no movement in their face at all. Which is one of the issues I have with the game – the characters were so unemotive. Even in the cutscenes – they were just so.. void of expression, and that was very jarring to watch.

Combat wasn’t bad. You had several abilities that you could combo together – and the ability to either freely aim your abilities or toggle an auto-lock removing the need for you to aim at all, eliminating the whole “action combat” aspect of the game, surprisingly.
Abilities looked fantastic, though. As a Mage I can happily say that my abilities looked like they packed quite the punch – they were impactful, beautiful to look at and.. not very powerful at all, interestingly enough.
Apparently I picked the wrong class.
Speaking of combat, my god was this the most unbalanced start to an MMO I’ve ever seen. Monsters would animation-lock you with stuns – and 2 to 3 shot you in the time it took you to stand back up – at the beginning of the game.
Mrs Stix and I died so many times it was ridiculous. But after that initial difficulty spike, we never had an issue with monsters being too difficult to kill. Zone bosses? Yeah, those guys would 1-shot you, but normal monsters? No issue at all.

From weird animations – to unbalanced gameplay – to a cluttered, unintuitive menu screen.. Bless Unleashed is an absolute mess. This game was definitely built for console, and this PC port is a cheap, disgusting attempt at milking more money out of the playerbase.
There was so much wrong with this game that I cannot begin to even sum it up in any way other than saying.. I’m sorry, while there are noticeable improvements to the game over Bless Online, this game is absolute garbage.
I wanted to like Bless Unleashed, I did. I gave it the benefit of the doubt and went into this with an open mind, but this is just.. no. So much no.
Thankfully this will be free-to-play, as I wouldn’t spend a cent to play this. I would urge you guys to not buy the founder’s packs as to not support this going into the future, especially since the PC port is done by Neowiz – the very same people behind the failed scam Bless Online – but I know plenty of you will end up buying one anyway.
Just be careful, and be smart.

This has been an interesting couple weeks. We’ve had some new MMOs announced, we’ve had some entire publisher studios shut down, and gotten some announcements we’ve been actively waiting on for.. years now.
So you guys should be excited! We’ve got quite a bit to talk about in this week’s Weekly Byte of MMORPG News video.

miHoYo, the developers behind the upcoming Genshin Impact game have announced that they’re going to be launching on September 28th – globally, on the PC, PS4 and mobile devices.
Yes, the PS4 release was expected to be delayed due to the beta test period being extended well beyond the PC and mobile test periods, but apparently they pushed through and will now have a simultaneous release across all platforms.
I’ve talked about Genshin Impact quite extensively over the course of the last year, and I’m happy to say that it’s finally almost time for everyone to get in-game and play.
Together, with other players if you want to – Mrs Stix and I – or at least Mrs Stix is definitely going to be playing as I think the multiplayer experience is utter garbage, but disregarding the multiplayer aspect the game is truly an incredible game.. well that and the Gacha system is terrible.
PS4 pre-registration is also available right now for players that want to register for the PS4 launch – or at least it was when I wrote this up.

I was directed to an article on MMOCulture this morning where I learned that Nexon are in the process of developing a brand new PC MMORPG that they’re calling a “AAA-class masterpiece game that can satisfy users in all aspects such as content and visuals.”
I know, guys, Nexon has disappointed us with every single release in the history of their studio, but maybe they can change. Maybe they- okay, I can’t continue that sentence with a straight face.
While the project has a currently unnamed title, they did go on to announce what they’re creating: A medieval fantasy MMORPG based on a completely new IP with a seamless, open world that features no loading screens, has guild content, will be cross-platform between PC and mobile devices like Genshin Impact or Tower of Fantasy and – if I read correctly.. might be an isometric MMO like Diablo or Path of Exile?
They’re also developing another project, “Project HP” but little is known about that thus far other than it’ll be another medieval game with magic.

For those of you waiting on any news pertaining to Project TL.. here you go, finally! NCSoft confirmed that the game is going to be undergoing a test phase from the 31st of August through the 4th of September, with an upcoming Closed Beta scheduled for later this year.
I had reported on this earlier this year, where I mentioned that both Project TL and Project BBQ were both going into some form of testing this year, but this confirms things – at least for Project TL.
NCSoft also just registered the “TL” and “TL: Origin” trademarks as well, which leads us to believe it’s close to releasing – with them promising it’ll launch by 2021!
They went on to elaborate that they have every intention of launching globally, with “Project TL being developed for the global audience with technologies and visuals they are familiar with,” further going on to state that this is supposed to be the “start of a new universe.”

En Masse Entertainment, the publisher behind both TERA and Closers announced last week that they were actually shutting down.
Meaning all of their staff members – people that have worked on their games for almost a decade now, or over a decade, actually, since I believe they started 11 years ago, are now jobless – a terrible situation for any person.
While it’s always sad to see a publisher shut down, or MMOs go offline, it’s worth noting that Naddic Games, the developers behind Closers have several updates for the game planned, including continuing to publish the game in the regions it’s currently available in.
We’ve heard nothing pertaining to TERA’s fate currently though, but it’s a safe bet to assume Gameforge will likely publish it since they recently attained South East Asian publishing rights for the game on top of their European publishing rights.

Amazon Game Studios, you know, the very same people behind Crucible and New World, have announced that they entered into a publishing agreement with Smilegate RPG, the developers of Lost Ark.
This sparked a wave of interest, as they went on to confirm that “Amazon Games is committed to bringing our customers the most engaging game experiences, both through our own internal development teams and from the very best external development studios around the world.”
This is confirmation that they are open to working with other developers around the world to bring foreign MMOs to the global market. MMOs that would have otherwise been completely ignored, self-published, or published by companies like Gameforge or MY.GAMES – something none of us want.
They went on to note that Smilegate has a “strong track record of creating big games that players love, built to offer years of enjoyment.”
Currently, Smilgate has developed and publishes 3 PC games within South Korea: Soul Worker, Tales Runner and Lost Ark. Since Soul Worker is published by Gameforge, and Tales Runner is in no way a AAA budget PC title, it’s all but confirmed we’ll be getting Lost Ark.
Next year, actually, since they confirmed the game will be launching “some time during 2021,” with specific details being revealed at “a later date.”

ArenaNet made 2 large announcements concerning Guild Wars 2 earlier this week: The first is that the game is going to receive a much needed boost in population when it launches on to Steam in November 2020 – yup, players will finally be able to connect the game to their steam accounts.
This is something that players have wanted for a long time. But one issue with that reveal is that you’re going to be required to make a brand new account as unlike Star Wars The Old Republic and PSO2, ArenaNet will not be supporting account migration options.
What this means is that if you have an account on ArenaNet, you’re stuck there. You can’t connect your account to Steam, instead, you’re required to make a brand new account via the Steam client – something I know has caused a lot of upset in the community as it just seems ridiculous.
Second, they announced that their next expansion, which is taking us back to Cantha, is actually titled “End of Dragons,” although not much was really shown or detailed during the reveal, including an expected release date.

So New World is having a Preview event held until September 4th, allowing players to log in if they’re pre-ordered the game at some point in the past and test the game completely.
I actually just did a video on this yesterday, where I went over my experience within the game and while I was definitely disappointed – I feel like Amazon have plenty of time to fix issues both Mrs Stix and I had with the game.
This definitely has a target audience that will enjoy the game, as it’s not in any way a bad game, but that audience is definitely not the MMORPG niche as it felt like a survival crafter more than anything else.
If you’re interested, I urge you to head on over and watch my New World video to decide for yourself.

Last week Intrepid Studios, the team behind the upcoming Ashes of Creation MMORPG announced that they were breaking off their partnership with MY.GAMES, who was in charge of publishing the game within Europe.
Intrepid instead have opted to open their own publishing studio within Europe to handle publishing within the region, which while I’m glad to see – as MY.GAMES are terrible, look at Revelation Online and Skyforge, I don’t know how well this will turn out considering this is a smaller indie dev studio we’re talking about here.
Ashes of Creation is still a very, very long way off releasing, as is the way of the indie MMO scene.

This is coming earlier than I’d anticipated. People were assuming “end of December” for the Shadowlands release, but apparently Blizzard just announced yesterday – or, a couple days ago as of this going live, that Shadowlands would be going live on October 27th, 2020.
This means that the pre-patch is going to be hitting the live servers very soon, like it always does ahead of a new expansion.
It’s been a while since we’ve gotten new content, so it’s nice to see that it’s only a short wait between now and then, and both Mrs Stix and I are incredibly excited, so much so that not only will we be starting brand new characters once the pre-patch hits, but we’ll also be leveling those characters on stream. And you guys are more than welcome to join us in-stream and in our new guild as well! We play on Stormrage, FYI.

By now you’re all well aware that Bless Unleashed is also releasing on PS4 under Bandai Namco – which if it’s anything like the Xbox release handled by Bamco won’t really be bad, but also that Neowiz is self-publishing the PC version of the game on Steam.
And that version probably will be, as Bamco actually distanced themselves from the PC release claiming they have “nothing to do with it.” But I digress.
The PC iteration of Bless Unleashed is going into Closed Beta testing next month, and there’s a pre-registration form for players that are interested in testing the game out on PC.
The PC Beta will run for 12 hours on September 26th, and there won’t be any restrictions preventing players from across the glove from participating. Yup – this and likely the full release of the game will feature a full global release.

I did a video covering this a couple days ago, but apparently Jandisoft, the developer behind the upcoming Grim-dark MMORPG Mad World have stated that after being mostly silent throughout the year, they still have an expected release date of 2020.
The game was initially expected to release back in 2018 but suffered quite a few setbacks that ultimately resulted in the game being delayed as long as it has been. There have been a few small updates made over the course of the year, but otherwise I find it interesting that they still expect to release in the next couple months.

Who would’ve thought that Grand Fantasia would continue to receive updates? Because I got some good news for players still active within the game – Gamigo has rolled out a large update that allows players to tackle a brand new dungeon with new bosses, new items and more.
I wasn’t aware that the game was still – well, can we say “actively updated?” Because let’s be honest, yes this is an update, but it’s in no way being “actively updated,” right?

Back at the end of June I did a video addressing Bless Unleashed and their announcement that they were releasing on to PC after their successful launch on XBox platforms.
However, Bandai Namco wasn’t in charge of the PC release, with Neowiz opting to self-publish themselves via Steam, which is eerily reminiscent of what happened with Bless Online.
Now, however, as of last week it was confirmed that Bless Unleashed is not only coming to PC, but it’s also coming to PS4 as well. Yup – you guys have this to look forward to soon as well.

Bandai Namco are going to be in charge of publishing the game on PS4 and Xbox both, with Neowiz opting to self-publish the MMO on PC and mobile exclusively.
It’s currently unconfirmed when the game will fully roll out onto either platform, but Beta testing for the PS4 version started on August 20th, and will last through August 24th.
If you have yet to register for the PS4 Beta test, then you can navigate on over to the pre-registration page using the button below.

This will take you right on over to register for the Beta test right now. All you’re required to do is enter your email, click “sign up now,” and you should be all set.
I’m not certain how the PS4 iteration of Bless Unleashed will ultimately do, nor do I know how expensive or worth the Founder’s Packs are going to be, but I guarantee you you should not spend a single cent on the Neowiz PC port.