Korean-born combat MMO "Blade & Soul" has arrived in the West after gaining traction in the Asia Pacific region.
"Blade & Soul" -- part fighting game, part MMO -- is an open-world that is packed with adventure. Developer NCSoft plans to deliver more content to the game, including more story.
"While we're excited for everyone to jump in-game and explore the Earthen Realm, this release marks just the beginning of a deep and ongoing world story," NCSoft says. "We have a regular cadence of content releases already in development."
Story
Antagonist Jinsoyun, in her quest for Twilight's Edge, has made one crucial mistake. She has devastated a peaceful little school for martial arts, killing a master trainer and just about all of the pupils. Her mistake was not killing all of the students, because the player character survives and is off for revenge.
So far, the western version of the game only has three acts. However, NCSoft plans to catch the game up to the Korean version, which already has seven acts.
Gameplay
The gameplay is anchored by a legitimate combat system that's built to reward combos and steps up the skill component with manual targeting.
Mastering this real-time combat system entails learning a player character's attacks and their ranges. It also includes learning the attack animations of low-level enemies, which don't telegraph their advances as do the bosses and underbosses.
Tying the showdowns together are the game's story and an open-world riddled with side quests.
As an MMO, all of that experience and loot found while fighting through the story and its quest branches yields points and money the player can use to upgrade a character's skill and equipment.
While fighting is core, world traversal is also a big part of Blade & Soul, according to NCSoft.
"Like the crane that soars on the wind, explore a beautiful, cinematic world like never before as you use the power of windwalk to glide across forests, dash across rivers, and jump over mountains," says NCSoft. "See the world inspired by the distinct visual style of acclaimed artist Hyung Tae Kim as you travel the land."
As far as classes, there are seven of them for each of the game's four races. There are the tiny blade dancers, the stealthy assassins, hand-to-hand experts Kung Fu Masters, fire and ice tamers Force Masters, cat-like Summoners, the Destroyers and Blade Masters.
Content
NCSoft wants to give players in the U.S. and Europe as much time as possible to get caught up and familiar with "Blade & Soul," as it is planning a world tournament around the game.
So in the first half of this year, the developer plans to release a challenge tower and three dungeons.
The new challenge area, Tower of Mushin, is a single-player zone. The eight-story tower features a challenge on each area and bosses waiting in the path of those who want to retrieve their rewards from the top floor.
The dungeons include four to six-player challenge, Bloodshade Harbor, and 24-player raid Nightshade dungeon. In both of those dungeons, players will take on Battle Backgram Pirate Admiral Haemujin. In the four to six-player Naryu Labyrinth, players will navigate a maze as they work towards showdowns with the gods of thunder and wind.
Following the new dungeons and tower, NCSoft will release the Silverfrost Mountain update for the game. It'll serve up the first two parts of Act 4 and will increase the level cap from 45 to 50.
