NCSoft just announced – after years of silence, that Project TL was finally launching Globally this year. Queue players getting excited. Then moments later, they go ahead and confirm something that just destroys any semblance of confidence I might have had in them.

I’ve never shied away from talking crap about developers when I see them doing things that would be against the best interests of their respective communities.
And today, we have an absolutely abhorrent excuse for a new feature, that was implemented with the sole purpose of extracting as much money out of their community as possible.

Now I get it. Developers, publishers. They’re companies, and companies need money to continue to run. To function. I have nothing against wanting to make a profit off of your work. It’s what I do with Youtube videos. What all content creators do.
But that is no excuse for taking advantage of, and abusing your community. All for a quick buck in an effort to appease investors and increase your quarterly financials.

You’re probably scratching your head though, wondering what this is even about. NCSoft announced just a few days ago that they were introducing a brand new feature into Blade & Soul: The ability to change your class. This is a feature that is present in Final Fantasy XIV, in Twin Saga, in the upcoming Blue Protocol MMO.
This is a feature that is becoming more prominent in MMOs because players don’t want to be locked into playing a single class. We either grow bored, our class gets nerfed, better or more interesting classes get released. Or, in the case of Final Fantasy XIV, we want to be able to fill a role that our group needs.

NCSoft being the money-obsessed South Korean developer that they are thought to themselves.. “How can we implement a feature that players have been actively seeking for years now, make an exorbitant amount of money off of it, and simultaneously infuriate the entire playerbase?”
Like this, apparently.

“This will be a unique opportunity to make your characters switch combat styles and abilities. Class Change is a complete modification of your character because you can also change their race and looks!”
That doesn’t sound half bad. You can alter your class and your physical appearance.

For reference, a Fantasia in Final Fantasy XIV – which allows you to alter your race and appearance costs approximately 10 US Dollars.
To alter your race and appearance in World of Warcraft it costs approximately $25 US Dollars.
In Blade & Soul, though? It costs 8,000 NCoin. Taking a look at Amazon, 8,000 NCoin sells for approximately $100 US Dollars.
A hundred dollars. What a great deal. I only need to spend what I’d spend on an entire week’s worth of groceries – maybe two – to change my class. A hundred freakin’ dollars, man. A hundred.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, they go on to state that “Class Change will be available for a limited time.”
This should theoretically allow for you to purchase the service, and utilize it at a later date, right? Like a level boost.
Wrong.

“The Class Change Launch Bundle will be available for purchase from March 16 to March 23 (1 week). You can then use it after your purchase and until April 13.”
So technically by the time this goes live, the deal will be over. But they do note that “we will bring it back later.” Even though it is, though, they state that you will be able to use what you spent $100 on up until April 13th.
Yes, you heard that correctly.

“Class Change Bundles will be available for three weeks, from March 16 to April 6. You then have until April 13 to use them.”
There is an actual deadline. You spent $100 dollars to use an item that would allow for you to alter your class, alter your appearance, and they give you a deadline with which to use the items.

In bold letters towards the end of the announcement, they state “Note that both bundles cannot be used after April 13.”

Theoretically, if you were to have purchased the bundle for a hundred bucks, taken a short break, maybe thought to yourself “Well, I want to continue playing my class a little longer” and somehow go beyond the April 13th deadline, then your package is null and void.
You can no longer use it. They will have taken your $100, and you will have gotten nothing in exchange.

This is absurd. It’s actually a horrendous way of doing this. By setting a deadline, by imposing limitations on when and how this service can be used NCSoft are in essence forcing players to purchase the package, and make use of it before it expires.
It’s not a service they want to offer long-term because they know players will delay purchasing it. If they put a time limit, players will feel obligated to purchase and use it before it’s too late.
It acts as motivation. “You don’t want to miss out on this epic opportunity! Because who knows when we’re going to offer it again!”

They legitimately took the time to develop a feature that they physically implemented in-game. A feature players have been asking for for years now. And instead of charging players a much smaller, much more manageable fee, they try extorting over a hundred dollars out of us.
And that’s just in US Dollars. Conversion fees for other countries is going to be substantially worse. I know people over in the East, over in Europe that can’t afford the $5 price tag on Black Desert.
Don’t even get me started on Australia – where I lived most my life. That costs almost $150. Unreal, right?

They noted there are certain requirements that need to be met before successfully class changing, but realistically all of these should already be met for any person that has been playing long enough to warrant a class change.

In closing, they go on to state that they’re excited for your money – and can’t wait for you to waste it unnecessarily. Without people willing to support practices like these, Korean companies would have no way of staying afloat.
Oh, wait, whoops. Sorry, that’s what they meant, not what they wrote. I have a bad habit of seeing through the crap companies post and understanding their intentions.

I understand that players wanted an option to alter their class. It’s become a quality of life feature in this day and age, and eliminates the larger need for alternate characters.
But taking advantage of your players is not the right way to go about implementing it as a feature. And imposing such an atrocious limitation on when you can use it? What if players didn’t see the deadline, do we just lose the $100 we invested into purchasing it?
This is a horrendous way of going about this and I hope that they better think through these things in the future. I wouldn’t feel as bad if it were a permanent feature, but this is likely going to leave many players wondering why they can no longer use a feature they purchase.

NCSoft, you need to do better. This isn’t acceptable. Also, $100? Are we actually for real? Who is going to even be able to afford $100 for a class change? Holy crap, man.

This.. is Blade & Soul in the first quarter of 2021. Followed by Blade & Soul in the fourth quarter of 2021. I don’t think I need to spell out exactly how bad that is for the game. Here’s another graphic to further drive the importance of this reveal.

In light of this.. and the imminent and impending closure of Blade & Soul on PC, a new Blade & Soul MMO is already on its way and poised to make up the financial loss of the franchise on PC. Yup, let that sink in for a moment.
Blade & Soul – an MMO with what is arguably one of the best combat systems currently present within the genre. An MMO that has a larger world, better customization options and generally a more stunning graphical style than almost any of its competition.
This game is getting a sequel. A remake. A complete overhaul in the form of a brand new game. You’d think this would be cause for celebration. But it isn’t.

Today, I want to talk about a game that should not exist: Blade & Soul S – a brand new Blade & Soul MMO.
Blade & Soul S was announced all the way back in 2018. Yes, this MMO has been in active development for over 4 years now. And all we have to show for it is a single trailer – the very trailer you’re watching in the background.
This game was announced simultaneously with Aion 2, Blade & Soul 2, Blade & Soul M, Lineage 2M, and Project TL. All of which have either already launched, or have planned launches this year.
After seeing the horrendous decline in terms of active players and revenue, it’s evident why NCSoft are trying to push out a new Blade & Soul title. But what exactly is it, and is it going to effectively replace what we all know and love on PC?
Honestly? No. The only way this successfully replaces Blade & Soul on PC is if NCSoft opt to shut Blade & Soul down. Which at least as of the first quarter of 2022, is not looking to happen.

Blade & Soul S is the – and I know this is going to shock some of you.. THIRD mobile game based on the Blade & Soul intellectual property. Yes, there are already several mobile Blade & Soul titles currently available, including Blade & Soul 2 which I have a review of for those of you interested.
And where Blade & Soul 2 actually looks good – visually there’s no denying the sequel to Blade & Soul looks anything other than stunning – Blade & Soul S has taken a completely different approach.
Blade & Soul S is.. chibi. Distorted. Cute-ified. They turned what was once a video game aimed at teens or adults into what seems to be a childrens game. The kinda game my little nephew would play. And it looks absolutely horrible.
If I didn’t know who the characters were in the trailer, I’d think this was a game specifically targeted at children. Yes, it looks and feels that bad.
However, much like its predecessor on PC, Blade & Soul S is going to feature a completely dynamic open-world that is going to supposedly change in real-time.
Something that isn’t done in MMOs – due to the nature of large-scale multiplayer functionality. Will NPCs walk around? Move from their pre-designated areas? Will monsters spawn in different locations? Will villages be established, and vanish just as fast?
Unfortunately nobody knows, but having a “dynamic world” means a world that never becomes repetitious – never grows stagnant. That is always changing. And I just don’t see how that’s at all possible for an MMO.

This game is going to take place 3 years before the events of Blade & Soul, which means… we already know the outcome of the story. Unless they plan on taking the story in another direction.
If not, we’ll quickly arrive at the same point in the story we’re at in the PC iteration of the game, and will be essentially playing out a game we’ve already played, but with chibi graphics and worse combat.
And given this is going to be a prequel, it’s highly likely they plan on retconning events, which will end up ultimately angering players. Where Blade & Soul was an MMO – and presented players with a single character that they could create, level and customize, Blade & Soul S is going the Gacha route.
While still an MMO, you’re going to be able to recruit – and subsequently purchase via the cash shop different characters found within the franchise. Meaning you’ll buy someone like Jinsoyun and send her into battle alongside you.
I get it – they’re desperate for money, but if this isn’t the dumbest thing I’ve heard all year… and what’s worse? They plan on adding new characters into the game. I get it’s a prequel, but these characters are going to have an impact on the story – and will likely be present throughout the game, altering the course of the game even further.
What’s weird, is that the game, once more, is entirely open-world. Which means these characters you’ll be capable of deploying.. will be fighting alongside you out in the world. With other players using their own selection of characters as well.

I dunno, man. This all sounds kinda ridiculous to me.
We don’t need a new Blade & Soul MMO – least of all on mobile devices. Rather, we need NCSoft to realize that they need to fix the already existing game. That’s much more important.
Blade & Soul S looks horrible. The cheap looking graphics, the potentially retconned story, the likely auto-play, dumbed down game overall is not the logical next stage of the game we need. It’s a step in the complete wrong direction, and will hurt the franchise more than it’ll help it.
How many people do you hear positively, and actively speaking about any of the other Blade & Soul mobile games? Go ahead, I’ll wait. Exactly.
This is not the future Blade & Soul deserves, but crappy Korean developers like NCSoft are going to take every IP they hold and flush it down the toilet. Because it’s what they do. All they care about is money, and they don’t realize that players will spend money on a game they enjoy – that is handled well. Like Final Fantasy XIV.

I’m gonna be 100% real with you guys here for a moment… I thought, going into Blade & Soul 2, that it was going to suck. Be absolutely trash. And you know what? Okay, so that may have been partially true.
But – and I never thought I’d say this. I legitimately, wholeheartedly never thought I would ever make this claim. But my god, Blade & Soul 2 is gorgeous.
The environments. The character models. The animations. Everything about how this game LOOKS is something else all together.

Now welcome back to another episode of “Is it worth playing” – where we sift through every MMORPG available right now in an attempt to find the best MMORPG in 2021. Today, we’re taking a look at what was arguably supposed to be an absolute pile of stinking garbage: Blade & Soul 2.
Why is it considered as such? Because NCSoft took what was unique about Blade & Soul: Its combat, its unique designs, and.. well everything else, and decided to throw it all out the window.
But just because they’re doing something entirely new with the game doesn’t inherently make it a bad game.

Let me start this off by stating that I’m doing this episode from the perspective of a PC player. Not from the perspective of a Mobile player. I played this on the PC, therefore I am classifying it as a PC MMORPG and subsequently comparing it to other PC MMOs.
I am not going to be holding it to the standards of a game like Honkai Impact or Black Desert Mobile.
With that being said, as a PC game.. this honestly wasn’t bad. At least, not nearly as bad as I had anticipated it being. Quite the contrary.

Blade & Soul 2 is a South Korean MMO that released just a couple months ago. It has no confirmed English version to play, and thus getting the game downloaded and installed via the Purple Platform, NCSoft’s new software that allows players to play all their upcoming games across both PC and Mobile devices, proved to be quite the ordeal.
I think I wasted 4 hours total trying to get this game to work – a game mind you that was 400MB in total. With this in mind, I feel like I should do a guide video on how to get it working on this channel sometime in the next few weeks, if this is well enough received.
After getting the game into a functional state, the game worked almost flawlessly. Sure, it was entirely in Korean, but I feel as though I’ve played enough MMOs to know exactly what does what and where each function is located.
So, with a rudimentary level of understanding of the game, I dove right in.

I instantly realized that there were only 3 races to choose between, and no classes to choose upon selecting my race.
After which I proceeded to create my character, and, admittedly, the options were enough where I feel as though I can make a unique character that I’m satisfied with. Except for the body. There wasn’t much in terms of customization for the body, which was highly disappointing.
I also noticed that the outfits present within the game were.. very different to its predecessor. Blade & Soul is known for its.. over the top levels of perversion. Blade & Soul 2 on the other hand, was much more.. conservative. Very little was shown. Ever. In any of these outfits.
Which really wasn’t an issue for me, but I know will most definitely be for a lot of fans of the.. grotesque monstrosities people made in the original.

Now at its core, Blade & Soul 2 is an MMORPG developed for mobile devices in mind. I’ll admit, this definitely felt exponentially higher quality than the titles I’m used to. Probably because the UI, the textures, everything about the game felt much more oriented towards PC players when played on PC.
But while it felt much more like a PC MMO than any other cross-platform MMO I’ve played thus far, unfortunately the features – auto-combat, auto-routing, auto-play in general were ever present.
And let me stop you there. I know I don’t NEED to utilize those auto-features. I do. But if they’re available, then people will use them. It’s just easier to.
While streaming this to.. about 500 people last week, I asked what people’s thoughts were on auto-play in their games.
Specifically pertaining to auto-play in their PC games, and then auto-play in their Mobile games. The general consensus was that auto-features do NOT belong in PC games, but depending on the type of game, it’s useful in mobile titles.
Again, this is from the perspective of a PC player, so with this in mind… the auto-play features within Blade & Soul 2 – once more, on PC, were highly unnecessary.
Yet in combat – the AI could utilize my abilities much more efficiently than I could. Granted, the AI couldn’t dodge or parry, but I guess that’ll make it much more of a necessity at later levels to be present, especially when engaging boss monsters or doing dungeons and raids.

Blade & Soul 2 offered me more features than I thought it would going into this.
There was a Gacha system present in the game that provides players the opportunity to equip heroes or monsters – enhancing their statistics quite significantly.

Graphically, I feel as though this is perhaps one of, if not the best looking Mobile MMORPG to date. I genuinely do not think there’s a better looking Mobile MMO out there. This is something my viewers continued to point out repeatedly over the course of my stream.
Even more so when we saw a fully CGI cutscene. The attention to detail that NCSoft put into this game is unparalleled. Kudos to them for creating something that looks and feels as high quality as this does.
Furthermore, there were so many unique monsters scattered around the environments. This is something that Blade & Soul suffered from: Regardless of where you went, you’d see the same reused models everywhere.
In Blade & Soul 2, not only were the monsters incredibly high quality, but they were so varied that I felt like I saw more monsters in my 4 hours playing than in all of Blade & Soul.

While I did note earlier that they changed quite a bit of what made Blade & Soul unique, there were some instances where I felt a connection between games. The water walking, gliding through the air. Even sprinting animations.
While so much of the game had changed, there was enough that remained the same that it still.. kinda felt like Blade & Soul? Just a little bit? I don’t really know how to explain it.

The narrative was also very present, and while I couldn’t understand anything going on, I could tell there was effort put into telling a unique story as well. This is one of the areas Blade & Soul really excelled, and it’s refreshing to see a strong focus on it here as well.

✔️ Blade & Soul 2 is an absolutely gorgeous MMORPG, even when compared to other PC-exclusive MMOs.

✔️ The world felt large and filled with unique, varied enemies to engage.

✔️ There were plenty of things to do while out questing.

✔️ The narrative felt engaging and the cutscenes present were stunning.

✔️ Animations were fluid, and the game, somehow, ended up not feeling like a mobile MMO.

❎ Yet while it didn’t necessarily FEEL like a mobile MMO, the number of features that were 100% mobile repeatedly reminded me that it was.

❎ The combat was mostly auto – with the exception of dodging, the AI utilized my abilities more efficiently than I could.

❎ Auto-routing isn’t a terrible feature, but the game auto-played for me so often that I’d occasionally forget I could move my character on my own.

❎ The Gacha system is severely pay to win, with the heroes you could equip providing substantial improvements over your character than their more common alternatives.

❎ The game is unfortunately only available in Korean right now, with no confirmed release date for Western players.

❎ And finally.. NCSoft is known to be a pretty crappy developer AND publisher.

Ultimately, Blade & Soul 2 ended up being a better, higher quality title than I had originally given it credit for.
Is it a bad Mobile MMO? Not at all. I’d say this is one of the better Mobile MMORPGs currently available. Is it a bad PC MMO? Once again, that’s a negative. It’s not a great PC MMORPG, but it’s far from being as bad as some of the garbage I’ve played in the past.
Would I play this in my spare time? Probably not. Too many auto-features for me and I hate Gacha in my games. Would I recommend it as a successor to Blade & Soul? Ehhh.. no. As a standalone title? Sure, but as a direct sequel? No.

Alright, I know what you guys are thinking.

And you’d be right. This is an MMORPG that caters to a very specific demographic of player: .. pretty much all of you. And me, too, of course, otherwise I wouldn’t have spent the last couple weeks streaming it.

Now welcome back to another episode of “Is it worth playing” – where we sift through every MMORPG available right now in an attempt to find the best MMORPG in 2021. Today, we’re taking a look at what is arguably one of the best free to play MMORPGs available: Blade & Soul.
I mean, sure it’s considered by many to be heavily pay to win, but let’s be real here…. what free MMOs aren’t pay to win to at least some extent, am I right?

I love Blade & Soul. This is the first MMORPG that Mrs Stix and I played together full-time as a couple back in 2017 before I made the journey from Australia to America to be with her.
I remember, very clearly, Mrs Stix asking me to log in to play with her during her busy week when we only had a few hours to do anything together. I also distinctly recall wanting to get on cam with her too… to chat, of course. C’mon, guys. Don’t make this weird.
We spent several weeks playing through the entire story together, farmed every outfit we possibly could, ended up wasting a ton of money purchasing outfits from the cash shop. Died repeatedly in PvP because Australian ping had a multi-second delay between input and recognition of that input from the server.
This is one of, maybe 10 MMOs that I have hundreds of hours experience in. One of maybe 5 MMOs I frequently ended up coming back to at least once a year to see the state the game is in.

You might think I’m crazy, given this game released in Korea all the way back in 2012 and both North America and Europe in 2016.
I mean who has the energy to dedicate that much time to an MMO that dated, that old, that… oh wait. Even nearly a decade after releasing, Blade & Soul both looks and plays better than most MMOs released in 2021? Huh. If you told me Blade & Soul would outperform current-gen MMOs a decade after release, I’d have laughed at you.
But the proof is in the pudding. Blade & Soul just underwent a massive overhaul when NCSoft rolled out their Unreal Engine 4 update. This brought with it a slew of new or altered features and mechanics.
Most notably were the performance issues that improved performance for some players… kinda. This one was actually debated quite a bit and has been rather hit and miss with players.
The drastic reduction in loading times, which has made transitioning between areas so much easier. No more 20 to 30 second loading screens. Now they’re 4 to 6 seconds on average, which is a quality of life change you never thought you needed.
And finally, the graphical changes, which while they aren’t drastic, are definitely easy to discern when compared to what they once were.

Speaking of the graphics, Blade & Soul is an absolutely gorgeous MMORPG.
Yes, the game utilizes a segregated world, which means that zones are disconnected from one another by a small loading screen, but imposing a minor load between zones allows for them to reduce lag quite substantially. Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work in theory.
There are a plethora of different regions, each with their own unique aesthetic look and feel. Abilities all have high quality special effects.

And let me use that as a segway into the combat, which many players believe is the pinnacle of the action MMO genre. Or at the very least, was at one point.
Every class has their own unique style of play. And I genuinely mean this. In typical MMOs you have “the tanky sword and shield guy,” “the greatsword or axe wielding berserker guy,” “the dude that keeps you alive,” “the annoying elemental dude that stands in the AoEs,” “the pew-pew archer,” and sometimes the “stabby-stabby dagger dude.”
And, while, yes, Blade & Soul is much the same in terms of utility and what each class provides, I feel like there’s more.. personality? That the classes themselves provide more… of a uniqueness to them than what I’m traditionally used to.
Like the Gon Destroyer is a class that can literally pick you up by the head and spin you around like Trunks did to Imperfect Cell back in Dragon Ball Z. Or the Soul Fighter which is an amalgamation of telekinesis and martial arts. Just.. unusual class archetypes that you don’t typically come across.
And that – at least in my opinion, helps set the classes apart from what I’m used to.
My only issue is that classes are race-locked. As an example, Summoner’s are restricted to Lyn only, meaning if you want to play as one, you’re required to create a walking potato. Which I’m not really fond of, and I’m sure people will viciously scold me for stating. I’ve already prepared myself for that outcome.

So we spoke about the world, we spoke about class identity, but something we haven’t is this game’s narrative. Most MMOs have a narrative. A story present that gives you a purpose. Without it, you’d just be.. some random person existing in a world.
Then you have games like Final Fantasy XIV or Star Wars The Old Republic. Games that have so much story that at times you wonder if you’re playing through a graphic novel. Thankfully, I’m a fan of narrative in my games, so this has never been an issue for me.
I’m that guy that goes onto Wiki pages and reads through individual character history so I know who’s who, who likes who, and who hates who.
Blade & Soul has a very strong narrative, with the story being connected to every zone you move through. Actually, rather than being “connected to,” the story is the main reason you move to each zone.
Talking to various different NPCs located throughout the world, hunting bad guys, trying to ignore the mail that Hajoon sent you for the umpteenth time.
And while I laugh at how horrendous the voice acting can be at times, I can say with certainty that while the story is very.. Shounen, with super-powered characters flying through the air, launching energy at each other, exchanging blows, it still somehow retained my interest.
But then I’m a fan of Anime like DBZ, Yugioh, My Hero Academia, One Punch Man. So that speaks volumes about the types of story I’d vibe with. Although I also love Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Code Geass, Death Note. Even Fruits Basket, Carole and Tuesday… yeah, I’m a weird, mixed bag.

So I’ve talked about what I enjoy. Then there’s what I didn’t. And that is the PvP, the Hongmoon level grind, and the constant removal of content.
On the one hand, there are various types of PvP modes available, including the option for open-world PvP. While I’ve only participated in open-world PvP when it’s coordinated, I have done plenty of Arena matches. And they consist primarily of OP classes CC-locking you until you die. Which is, in my opinion, never fun.
I know that isn’t always the case, but it happened to me more often than not both in 1v1 and 3v3, so I didn’t last in PvP long. I preferred PvP in games like ArcheAge, WoW and Aion. Where, while sure, there’s CC, it isn’t nearly as bad. Unless you vs RMD or RMP in WoW. Rogue+Mage any healer was the bane of my existence.

While most MMOs have you grind to max level, then begin having you queue for dungeons and raids, Blade & Soul has you.. well, do much the same, with the addition of grinding for your Hongmoon level.
This is an additional level atop your base level, that provides you continued, progressively more powerful statistical bonuses like Attack Power, Defense, and HP to name a few. Meaning even if you hit max level, you’ll be grinding XP to level your Hongmoon level almost endlessly, while also grinding for gear.
Swords of Legends, I believe, implemented something similar, and is a feature I believe should not exist within the game, especially given how difficult it is to play catch-up to players that have been grinding their Hongmoon level for as long as they have.

Finally… like TERA, Blade & Soul, for whatever reason, continues to introduce, but also remove content from the game. Abilities, dungeons. I don’t understand why. Additional content is good. Less content is the exact opposite of what we want.

✔️ Blade & Soul has one of the best combat systems in the MMORPG genre.

✔️ It has a gorgeous world, an extensive character creator, and with the Unreal Engine 4 overhaul, provides you a better performing game than ever before.

✔️ There’s a lot of class diversity, with each class having their own distinct purpose and role.

✔️ The leveling process isn’t slow and tedious.

✔️ The narrative is deep and provides a reason to navigate each zone, while providing you insight into the various characters you meet along the way.

❎ Yet at the same time, the narrative drags on at times and the voice acting is absolutely laughable.

❎ The PvP can be pay to win, and is far too unbalanced for me to enjoy personally.

❎ While the leveling process isn’t tedious, grinding your Hongmoon level is one of the most arduous processes I’ve ever been put through.

❎ The population is unfortunately very low these days. Probably numbering in the tens of thousands of active unique players per month, which honestly isn’t terrible, but it isn’t growing, only continuing to stagnate and decline. At least in North America.
❎ And finally, NCSoft is in charge of the game… and we all know what NCSoft cares about.

Ultimately, Blade & Soul is a very fun MMORPG. It’s beautiful, it plays incredibly well, and is by far one of the best titles in the genre, especially given it’s free.
Sure, it has its problems: Pay to win, unbalanced classes, a terrible developer and publisher that cares more about whales than it does about a healthy playerbase, but at the same time it does so many things well.
This is a game I come back to year after year, and I’ve had fun every single time I’ve chosen to.

BLADE & SOUL hasn’t had a healthy playerbase for a while now. Heck, the game hasn’t been in a healthy state for even longer than that. Nobody is denying the fact that this is a highly flawed game, yet it had the potential to be something so much greater than it currently is.
That is where the Unreal Engine 4 update comes into this. A lot of things were promised with this update, and… some of it has been delivered.
I’ve been streaming BLADE & SOUL over on our Twitch channel since the update came out, in an attempt to push through, observe the activity levels on the way to max level, and witness the updates in real-time. Which, quick FYI, you guys are welcome to join me on as I’m streaming BLADE & SOUL every weekend at 3PM Eastern Standard Time and would love the company.
And while doing so, have had hundreds of players come into the chat and ask me whether or not BLADE & SOUL is worth playing in 2021.
That isn’t what this is. I’ll have a different video on whether BLADE & SOUL is worth playing in the coming month. This is to give my thoughts–my experiences form.

And with that, let’s discuss the very first thing I noticed. Lyn customization options.

This might not be specific to this update. I haven’t played BLADE & SOUL in.. a little over 18 months. But I don’t recall these customization options being here before, and honestly? This made the Lyn race so much more appealing to me.
Speaking of customization options, while I didn’t notice new selections for the other races, I do think it’s worth noting the fact that the character models look significantly different to what they looked like before.
And I’m aware this is going to do 2 different things: A.) trigger players that loved the old character models, the old shine, textures. And 2.) have people staring at what about the models in specific is even different.
Since I’ve had people ask me if there were even alterations made to the character models. As a fan of BLADE & SOUL.. it is very evident to me, but I realize it isn’t for everyone.

After the noticeable character model differences, I realized how quickly I logged into the game for the first time in 18 months.
I’m used to the game taking 30, 40 seconds or more at times, depending on where you are, how many players are around and how much of the game is required to be loaded between where you are now and where you’ll be after you make it through your loading screen.
But upon entering the game, I was greeted by loading screens that took anywhere from 5 to 8 seconds. This was such a departure from what I was used to that I almost couldn’t fathom how much of a difference this made to the fluidity of progressing between zones.
Before this update you had time to get up, grab a snack and a soda, come back, and watch the remainder of the bar finish loading. Now, having to wait the few seconds between zones is negligible.

But not only are there loading improvements, but there are FPS and general performance issues as well.
I’m gonna be honest with you right now, I have a pretty powerful computer. Very rarely does my PC lag when playing a video game, and especially an MMO. Well.. okay that’s a lie. BLADE & SOUL, TERA and ASTELLIA all had massive FPS drops all the damn time. To an atrocious degree.
While BLADE & SOUL was definitely the lesser of the 3 offenders, you can find people complaining about performance on every social platform there is.
I never encountered severe lag, and it was never too frequent, but I can say personally – having streamed almost 10 hours in the last couple days, I have encountered 2 separate instances where my FPS tanked. And they were momentary.
So in approximately 10 hours of streaming the game – which is more of a resource hog than if I weren’t streaming the game, I encountered several seconds of severe lag. Otherwise, I’ve had it pretty smooth.

Now experiences with performance seem to vary quite a bit. I’ve noticed a lot of players claiming that there has been very little, if any noticeable improvement in terms of performance, where people are claiming the game has never ran this good, even at the best of times.
People are also experiencing increased crashes, increased instances of bugs… so it isn’t entirely positive.
I’ve noticed several bugs myself since beginning after this update went live. Some that I’ve actually never encountered in the past, like the little Lyn girl, and this atrocious instance of rubber banding that refused to let me leave the area immediately surrounding the house I was just in.

And then came the new class: The Dual Blade. While the initial specialization is supposedly the more powerful one, I found the second to be much more appealing to me personally. I’ve actually kinda fallen in love with the new class – it’s one of my favorites in the game thus far.
Special effects were fast, flashy and fluid. Weapons looked pretty sick from what I saw on other players. And the playstyle – at least for the spec I was playing was nice and simple, which is just my style.
People say I’m a casual gamer, and I take pride in that. There isn’t anything wrong with not attempting to be competitive at your class. I don’t have time to with all the videos and streams I do every week, and I’m more than happy admitting that.

And that was it. They were what I’d encountered in the last few days after the update went live.
I’m aware I’ve missed various things, but this isn’t an “all inclusive” list of every new thing they added into the game, this is a small glimpse of what I got to experience this week.
Do these changes fix the glaringly horrendous pay to win present in the game? No. Balance the classes? Wait, developers actually do that?
If you hated the game before, you’ll still hate it. However these alterations to the game have made it so much more enjoyable of an experience for me, and I cannot stress enough how much better the game feels right now.

I’ll have a much deeper look into additional changes or additive features as I continue to push through over the next month. You’re more than welcome to accompany me on my journey over on Twitch every weekend if you’re interested in seeing more or want to be a part of this firsthand and be immortalized in video form by grouping with me.

Admittedly, as of writing this up I’m actually in the process of recording a new Blade & Soul video detailing how they’re currently doing in 2021, so it’s refreshing to know that Blade & Soul is continuing to obtain new content. Today, in specific, we’re discussing their newest March 2021 update: Slithering Shadows.

Slithering Shadows is a brand new update featuring a surplus of new content.. if you’re in the single-digit percentage of players capable of actually participating it. Added in March’s update is the new Twister Serpent Stronghold raid, new gear for players to grind, more cash shop items. You know, about what you’d expect out of a Blade & Soul update. Specifics can be found over on their website, but we got a pretty flashy new trailer to accompany this one so that was kinda cool.

Honestly, I wish we could play as the lady we see within the trailer, that looks like it’d be a fun class to try out. Maybe that’s something we’ll get access to in the future? Hello, NCSoft?

And no, unfortunately, no new information on the Unreal Engine 4 update yet. However we’re inching ever closer to being able to play it!

Yes, according to NCSoft yesterday, it turns out that while they had initially claimed the Frontier World Unreal Engine 4 update for Blade & Soul was shutting down (along with the server that accompanied it,) that wasn’t the end for the highly anticipated overhaul.

According to NCSoft, the Unreal Engine 4 update is now slated for release accompanying their June 2021 update. Not only will the overhaul be completely altering the graphical engine of the game, but they’re working on upgrading the entire “living world,” along with introducing new content in the form of 4-player dungeons and a brand new difficulty system.

Those are just 3 of 9 planned updates for the game over the course of the year, however it is definitely worth noting that while we don’t have an exact release date for the Western version of the Unreal Engine 4 overhaul, NCSoft did confirm that we will be receiving the update “later this summer.” So we have a rough estimate, but knowing NCSoft and their track record it might be safe to expect the worst case scenario: Never.

Regardless, it’s good to see that they haven’t given up on the project yet! I know this project is one of gargantuan proportions.

Does the revelation that NCSoft have cancelled the Unreal Engine 4 overhaul for Blade & Soul mark the end for the popular action MMORPG? Doubtful. But it’s an unfortunate state to be in for the game as players have been eagerly awaiting the overhaul since it was first announced last year.

According to an article on MMOCulture, Blade & Soul Complete, the full-game overhaul that would bring an enhanced experience to players has been cancelled. The developers behind the game, NCSoft admitted earlier this week that despite every effort they made to bring this vision they had for the game to fruition, they ran into hurdle after hurdle that left them unable to overcome their unsatisfactory results, which ultimately lead them to announce they would be ceasing development of the project, shutting down the Frontier World server, a server specifically dedicated to the update on May 6th, 2021. However that doesn’t mark the end for the game, as they went on to reveal that they were working on “a new beginning,” arriving this June, where the game is going to go “one step further.” Where specifically remains to be seen, but you’re all more than welcome to speculate!

I’ve covered Blade & Soul II a couple times now. I thought that the development of a direct sequel to the popular Blade & Soul PC MMORPG for mobile was a terrible idea, as this is a title that has been readily available to PC players for  years at this point, with players having spent years accumulating gear, items and bonding with their characters and world.

Interestingly enough, it turns out that after years spent developing the game for mobile exclusively.. NCSoft have confirmed their intentions of developing and publishing the upcoming MMORPG on not only mobile devices, but also PC as well (with potential opportunities for console and cloud gaming support if the game is received well enough and warrants the time and effort spent on it.)

This is.. bizarre, as Blade & Soul II is still going to be a mobile game but a mobile game that is poorly ported on over to every other platform there is. Do we honestly need a mobile Blade & Soul to replace the PC iteration of the game? Why not just optimize and overhaul the PC game (we’re still waiting on that Unreal Engine 4 overhaul, NCSoft!) and port that on over to consoles instead?
Oh, right, money.

Additionally, for players interested in playing the MMO when it releases, NCSoft have opened pre-registration for the game ahead of its release in South Korea this year, but no date has been given for an international release yet.

Blade & Soul 2 was announced way back at G-Star 2018. Since then, a couple small trailers and teasers were released to attempt to generate hype for the game.
It was sorely needed, as since it was announced, any anticipation players had for the game has all but sizzled out.
Also note that Blade & Soul 2 is very different to any other Blade & Soul games in development, as this title in specific is aimed at being a direct sequel to its PC predecessor.

Yet since its announcement back in 2018.. while yes, we’ve received a couple teasers, there has been no confirmation of a release date for the game.
We’ve been left this entire time hoping, year after year that this would be the year we got to actually play the game.
As of earlier this week, it turns out that NCSoft may have actually given us the affirmation we need: According to their newest teaser for the game, Blade & Soul 2 will be coming in 2021.
Interestingly enough, this was released as a global statement as opposed to a regional announcement, so that means this could very well be their confirmation of a 2021 global release of the upcoming MMORPG.

Blade & Soul 2 takes place some time after the events of the original game, where each of the heroes that fought valiantly alongside you – as the hero – have all become legends.
Yet at the same time, we’re going to be introduced to a brand new cast of characters – characters that will not only propel your journey ever forward, but also aid you in accomplishing whatever the end-game goal of ours is.
Probably to silently move through a plethora of different zones, liberating the populace of each one as we inch ever closer to a brand new super-powerful evil that no doubt threatens the end of all life as we know it.

There are supposedly a plethora of different features in the works for the game: Smarter AI – whatever that means. Areas will be the same but they’ll be altered accordingly.
I’m sure additional areas will be introduced as well. Supposedly, the NPCs will also not only “adapt to their surroundings,” including the enemies that wander the zones, but they’re also going to – in their words – be “a part of the ecosystem.”
To me, this all sounds like they’re hyping a bunch of different features that they think will be next-generation when in reality, the NPCs are just going to be in completely unknown areas and will be a nightmare to locate due to pathing issues. This is a mobile game after all.

All in all, I think this could be a cool MMO to play, but at the same time with how MMOs out of South Korea are looking lately, I wouldn’t put my eggs in one basket. Instead, I’d buy like.. 5, maybe 6 baskets and fill each one with more than one egg. Different colored eggs, even. Different sizes, too.
This is NCSoft after all – when have they ever developed a game that was actually worth our time? Well, I guess back with Lineage and Lineage 2 for PC. But they have long-since passed their expiration dates for this current generation of gamer.

So while we’ll be getting the game next year – at an undisclosed time next year, granted – I’d hold off on getting overly excited until we actually get a solid, complete look at the game.