The MMORPG Bless Online will shut down its servers on Steam. The global version of Bless for Europe and North America also failed to convince players. It will end in autumn 2019. The hype in May 2018 was huge.
When will Bless shut down? The Steam service for Bless will close on September 9, 2019, at 00:00.
This is what Bless says: They thank the players and supporters. Unfortunately, after “careful consideration and effort,” they are now sad to have to end the service.
What happens next: As is common with closing MMORPGs, some goodies come, and hurdles will be lifted:
- Starting June 10, nothing related to Bless can be purchased on Steam
- In the game itself, prices in the cash shop will decrease
- The drop rates and EXP gain in Bless will be increased, restrictions will be lifted, everything will be easier
Many want their money back for Bless
This is how players react: The opinions in the comments on Steam (via steamcommunity) are mostly negative. There are two major reactions:
- some say “We want our money back.” Some call the developers scammers. They feel like they paid for something that is now taken away from them.
- the others are gleeful, saying they had said it all along
Both groups have a lot of criticism and mockery for the developers. They are a “joke” and will never buy another game from them.
Bless was supposed to end the MMORPG drought in 2018
Why was there so much hype around Bless Online? Bless is an AAA MMORPG from Asia that was supposed to have cost about $61 million in development and looked fantastic.
For many MMORPG fans here in the West, it was a “dream game” that they could only admire from afar but could not play.
It was announced in South Korea in 2011, and the trailers and world looked very good. But even in South Korea, the relatively conservative and traditional game could not gain a foothold and flopped against competitors like Black Desert.
Ultimately, the developers pulled it back to “fundamentally” rework it.
Before the Western release of Bless, the developers gave players hope of releasing the game in a revised version tailored for the West. It was said to come out now in Early Access, as it was practically a new game.
However, there was no way to test the game beforehand in a beta. Only selected “ambassadors” were able to play and present Bless early. These were largely selected streamers.
Since no MMORPG had been released for a long time in 2018 and many had Bless in mind as a PvE title, the hype for the Early Access launch in May 2018 was big – at least in the niche of MMORPG fans.
In the larger gaming context, Bless played hardly any role.
Why did the game disappoint so much? Bless launched here in the West with many technical problems and difficulties. Additionally, there was a lack of content that had already been released in other versions. Bless seemed to plan to release the content gradually.
Many felt that little effort had been made on the game since it flopped in Asia. The Western version had not been significantly altered – the localization seemed flawed.
Moreover, the game seemed outdated in the eyes of many in 2018 and appeared rather old-fashioned and had little new to offer.
The developers argued that it was an Early Access version and would be quickly and sustainably improved before the release.
The Early Access flopped. A later release as a Free2Play title could not bring about a turnaround. In the last months, the game was hardly played and further developed.
Even though the MMORPG had fans who enjoyed the complex taming system or the world, Bless leaves a bitter taste for many MMORPG fans here in the West.
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