Considering it launched in Korea back in June 2012, Blade & Soul has certainly taken its time to come West. Now with a closed beta planned for autumn and full launch finally locked in before the end of the year, the long wait is finally coming to an end. According to NCSoft, the reason behind such a delay is because the MMO’s story, which fully incorporates the Chinese genre of “Wuxia”, needed time to be localised. Having actually had a chance to play bits of the game myself, however, I’m not convinced the wait didn’t do more harm than good.
I’m getting ahead of myself. Blade & Soul is a free-to-play MMO originating in Korea, with a story and setting reminiscent of films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero or House of Flying Daggers. It aims to differentiate itself from most other MMOs through both this setting, and zones designed with verticality in mind, which you traverse like a true kung fu master by running up walls, running along branches and gliding through the skies using the power of your chi. While the aesthetic makes a nice superficial change, it’s the foundational differences offered by the design mentality that make the biggest impact. While so many MMOs can feel like the same game with different skills, the freedom given to explore zones however you want feels fresh… at least at first. After a couple of hours however, it unfortunately just felt that instead of exploring zones horizontally I also had another axis to slog across when making my way back to quest-givers, rather than the fresh gameplay experience I was promised.
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