The Korean MMORPG Bless has now been postponed indefinitely. Some game elements may need to be fundamentally revised.
Bless Online is produced with Unreal Engine 3, featuring outstanding visual elements: The music is by Hans Zimmer, and the graphics are breathtaking. In the early stages of development, there’s hardly anything more important than trailers and great images. However, when players eventually get their hands on it, there needs to be more to offer.
For us, the first reports were enough to say “this is one of the most promising AAA MMORPGs” in a sparse market. However, there have been doubts in recent months.
Instead of Open Beta, first more focus group tests and a lot, lot of work
The game is now in its third Closed Beta in Korea, which, in a normal product cycle for an Asian MMORPG, is actually the last phase – often, there are months between the beta phases in Asia where nothing is heard about the game. However, after the third Closed Beta, it typically moves quickly towards release.
Not so with Bless. They have now pulled the emergency brake and said: We are postponing it indefinitely. Neowiz Studio wants to focus on 9 different important game elements and revise them. These include:
- the server technology
- the user interface
- character generation
- the quest system
- and combat
In a smaller framework, further focus tests are to take place. The reactions to the last beta were mixed. It seems especially unclear what exactly speaks for the classic design of 2 factions and much PvP, apart from the great graphics.
