The MMORPG Blade & Soul 2 will never come to the West, as the developers have now announced not only the service but also the entire end of the MMORPG.
What kind of game is this? Blade & Soul 2 is, as the name promises, the successor of NCSoft’s MMORPG Blade & Soul, which gained fame in Germany in 2025 with Blade & Soul NEO. The original Blade & Soul has always been popular for its brilliant combat system in martial arts style, which is also among the best in the genre.
The second part of Blade & Soul started in Korea in 2021 and was also exported to other Asian countries in the following years. The MMORPG relies on a dynamic combat system without classes, where the character’s weapons determine the abilities.
The action combat system with martial arts as skills was, like in its predecessor, one of the most important features of the title. Compared to its predecessor, Blade & Soul 2 is essentially a theme park, but it feels significantly more open and thus also tries to attract sandbox players.
Thus, the MMORPG offered quest lines, leveling, dungeons, and dailies simultaneously but also many opportunities to express oneself freely in the open world.
Here you can see an old trailer:
End before the release in the West
When will the MMORPG be shut down? The developers at NCSoft already announced in December 2025 that they would not release any further content for the MMORPG. The self-operated version is also set to be discontinued on June 30, 2026.
At the same time, the developers announced that they would talk to the local publishers to clarify how the versions in other countries can continue to exist. However, as the gaming magazine 17173 now explains, the other versions of Blade & Soul 2 will also be shut down.
Thus, the Chinese version of the game will be shut down on April 22, and the other versions are also expected to follow.
Why was the MMORPG not successful? Although Blade & Soul as a brand is not unknown here in the West, part 2 could not establish itself among players in Asia. Despite strong pre-registration numbers, NCSoft’s stock prices fell by 20% because the game did not meet players’ expectations (source: frontofficesports.com).
There were complaints about excessive Pay2Win even though players were previously promised not to focus so heavily on Pay2Win. The game also had gacha elements that did not sit well with gamers (source: mmofallout.com).
Another criticism was the game’s identity. There were apparently too many elements from Lineage that actually had no place in Blade & Soul, as seen in the graphics and also in the autoplay feature.
With Blade & Soul 2, the developers did not succeed in achieving the success they had hoped for. Already with the release of Blade & Soul NEO in the West, the release of part 2 was pushed far back, and now it is completely off the table. However, Blade & Soul NEO also ended up on the ranking of shame at MeinMMO expert Karsten Scholz lately: 13 new MMORPGs were released in 2025 – the ranking of shame reveals which game disappointed the most (update for December)
