On Steam, the new MMORPG Bless Unleashed launched with a huge surge. Up to 71,000 players played the new online role-playing game simultaneously, but the Steam reviews are poor. What is the reason for this?
What is Bless Unleashed? Many players may have already had negative experiences with the name Bless, but more on that later. The newly released Bless Unleashed is fresh on Steam and had a solid start.
Unlike what the name suggests, the new Bless Unleashed does not come from the same development team as the previous Bless Online. What they want to improve, the new development team explains in the interview.
Bless Unleashed is a Free2Play MMORPG that came from Korea to the West and fundamentally without overhauling its shop. It also comes with some Pay2Win aspects. Bless Unleashed has been available since March 2020 for Xbox, followed by the PlayStation release in Fall 2020, and now PC players can join in.
The game aims to score with the following aspects:
- Open world and quests
- 5 different classes in an action-packed combat system
- Main story up to level 25
- World bosses, dungeons, and crafting
- Open-world PvP as a mandatory aspect
This differentiates Bless Unleashed from Bless Online:
- The story is told from a new perspective
- The combat system is noticeably different
- The focus of the story is not on politics but on divinity
- The developers refer to Unleashed as a “parallel world”
Here is the trailer for the game:
How did the PC launch go? On PC, the new Bless attracted masses of players. Up to 71,577 players were simultaneously in the MMORPG. Thus, Bless Unleashed even has about 4,000 more players than the classic Final Fantasy XIV at its “all-time peak”.
We can only rely on Steam’s numbers for Bless and Final Fantasy XIV. Final Fantasy has its own launcher besides the console versions. Bless Unleashed also has additional console versions to Steam.
The player numbers for Bless Unleashed on Steam 
Bless Unleashed compared directly to Final Fantasy 14 on Steam
But despite the successful launch, the game has a major problem on Steam, namely a large number of negative reviews that are not necessarily due to the game itself.
Bad Reviews, but Bless Unleashed is not solely to blame
Why so many negative evaluations? At this point (as of August 9, 2021), Bless Unleashed has a “Mixed” rating on Steam and is slowly recovering, having started at “mostly negative”. Nevertheless, currently only 50% of the reviews are positive.
Some of the negative reviews refer to Bless Unleashed itself. Pay2Win, the forced open-world PvP, or the combat system are points of criticism among Steam users. However, the larger portion of negative reviews is attributed to a game that no longer exists.
The predecessor in spirit, Bless Online, caused quite a stir in the MMORPG community about three years ago, and many players have not forgotten that. Exactly these disgruntled buyers of Bless Online now want to ensure that the rights holder Neowiz does not forget it either.
What was Bless Online? There was much commotion around the rise and fall of the MMORPG Bless Online. We from MeinMMO summarize briefly for you:
- Bless Online was released in May 2018 as an early access title on Steam. There were no beta or other opportunities to try the MMORPG beforehand. It was also not a Free2Play title like its successor. Buyers had to purchase Bless Online blindly in 2018.
- Many players who bought Bless at that time did not want to play it at all. 40% of buyers did not even reach level 5.
- It was known that Bless Online had issues in other regions. It was promised that the game would be thoroughly overhauled for the West.
- Despite the waiting time and an estimated 60 million dollar budget disappointed the game graphically at release.
- Later, they apologized for the misunderstanding. The early access version was not supposed to be a finished game.
- Without any prior announcement, Bless then became Free2Play at the final release, which annoyed fans who had already paid.
- However, after release, Bless Online could not achieve much. Content was only released sporadically and consisted of parts that were cut from the actual game.
- In September 2019, Bless Online was discontinued. At its last, it had only an average of 26 players on Steam.
What do the Steam reviews say? The comments and ratings for Bless Unleashed are correspondingly marked by an exciting past.
- The player Yato writes (via Steam): “I haven’t forgotten the old Bless Online. I’m just here to see how much they want to scam people here again.”
- Player NNKakaMe is also disappointed (via Steam): “Bad gameplay, just like the last Bless, and just like the last Bless, it will sink, and Neowiz [the publisher and developer] will walk away with stolen money. You’ll have nothing left except wasted time and effort. The problems of the game are too deep to fix. Even the Korean version of the game has been shut down since 2018. [..] You will even be scammed if you don’t pay for the game.”
- Player Raz0r summarizes (via Steam): “We know what Bless Online was, and much more needs to be said about it.”
Have you played Bless Unleashed yet? Did you enjoy it, or are you bothered by the gameplay mechanics of the Free2Play MMORPG? Or will you not give Unleashed a try at all because you are still cautious from Bless Online? Let us know in a comment.
Bless Online could not even run for two years, but there are 6 other MMORPGs that died even faster.
