On paper, everything sounded so good with what Bandai Namco had planned for the new MMORPG project. Now it’s clear: Blue Protocol will never be released in other countries outside of Japan.
What happened? After the bad news from Japan in June 2024, many already feared it; now it’s bitter certainty: The people responsible at Bandai Namco will pull the plug on the Japanese version of Blue Protocol in January 2025. The targeted and repeatedly postponed launch in the West by Amazon Games will never happen.
In the official announcement from Amazon Games on the game’s official website, it says (via playblueprotocol.com): “We know this is disappointing news, and we share your disappointment. We love the world and the characters of BLUE PROTOCOL, and we were looking forward to welcoming players from all over the world to Regnas.”
A playable anime as an MMORPG – here’s one of the trailers for Blue Protocol:
Great disappointment in the community
Why is this step being taken? The reasoning from Bandai Namco (via blue-protocol.com) reveals very little concrete: They claim to have tried everything to create the best possible player experience for Blue Protocol, but must now admit that they can’t offer a service that would satisfy the target audience of the game.
However, it is clear that Blue Protocol had a disappointing launch in Japan. In May 2024, publisher Smilegate announced that they would suspend the planned launch in Korea for 2024. There had been silence on the German website since November 2023. In June 2024, the report followed that Bandai Namco Online was reportedly facing insolvency.
How does the community react? Many players express disappointment since Blue Protocol had a lot of potential due to its great anime look and focus on story content as well as PvE challenges.
- gHost928c writes on Reddit: “WOW… four years of waiting, thanks for the kick in my face… I am speechless.”
- DukejoshE7 had even played BP (via Reddit): “I’ve been waiting since 2019. I played the JP betas, was there for the launch on the JP server, got up at 4 a.m. for every single developer stream, and did content creator stuff for it. I’m so annoyed that I don’t even want to play games anymore. This game was so fun, even with the bugs it had.”
- SerenityAvalon describes the tragedy of MMORPG fans (via Reddit): “No one knows it better than the MMORPG community that games are shut down before they are playable… Buggy or not, it’s still really tragic.”
This is how MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz evaluates the situation: I was really looking forward to Blue Protocol because I found the combination of cooperative MMO challenges and a story presentation in anime style super exciting.
However, from several colleagues who had already been able to play the game, I knew that the combat had been a major drawback. They did not feel good enough, lacked exciting mechanics and boss designs. Additionally, there was the criticism from Japan: too much grind, bugs, too much focus on the hardcore community, too few rewarding side activities.
The resulting plans from the developers for the future of Blue Protocol sounded good. Obviously, they were unable to significantly improve the player experience through their measures. The financial problems must have contributed to this. Here again is Bandai’s plan: Developers of Blue Protocol explain what has gone wrong with the MMORPG so far
