The Korean MMO Blade and Soul, one of the biggest titles in China, is expected to come to North America and Europe at the end of 2015, according to a fan site of the game.
The head of a major fan site on the web, Bladeandsouldojo, reports in a forum post that she spoke with a Product Manager of Blade&Soul for the West at Gamescom in Cologne. The information is currently unofficial and not set in stone. According to the fan site, the claims should be taken with caution. Allegedly, an official statement from NCSoft is planned for September.
The key facts from the conversation with the Product Manager in summary:
- Blade and Soul is not expected to come to Europe and North America until the end of 2015.
- The Chinese client serves as the basis for the porting.
- It is likely that they will start with PvE and PvP servers.
- The model is supposed to be “Free-to-Play, but not entirely Free-to-Play.” What the Product Manager means by this is also puzzling the fan site operator. She suspects that it could be Buy2Play. Maybe it is simply a Free2Play, as is common in the industry, with numerous incentives to spend money in-game. At the moment, it is probably advisable to assume that the payment model is not yet finalized.
Reasons for the delay are mentioned to be slow European internet
Regarding the reasons for the delay, the NCSoft employee states that they want to prevent technical difficulties. In Korea, the internet is significantly faster than in Europe, and they know how important a good ping is for MMO players. As an example, the Product Manager mentioned Tera, which suffers from FPS and latency issues in the West.
At Gamescom, Blade and Soul was not officially presented yet because they simply were not ready. A beta is planned for early 2015.
Blade&Soul Release: Better late than never? Better never than late?
Mein MMO thinks: The source is unofficial, but seems credible to us. It cannot be said for sure. We had already speculated before Gamescom that perhaps Blade&Soul will be announced for the West. The MMO seems too attractive to us, and the West is an interesting market for NCSoft to let this opportunity pass.
However, this opportunity may have already passed if one assumes the end of 2015 as the release date. The sentiment from Asia MMO fans that is most often heard sounds something like this: “Blade&Soul would have been a huge deal if it had come out 2 years ago. Now the time window has been missed, other games look just as good or better. The hype has faded.” Also, the fact that the Chinese client is to serve as the basis for the porting is already criticized. Many fans would probably have preferred the Korean version.
UPDATE: NCSoft has contacted us by phone and revealed more about the release.
