From November 6 to 9, a beta test for Bless Unleashed took place on PC. MyMMO editor Alexander Leitsch took this opportunity to play the MMORPG.
What kind of game is this? Bless Unleashed is a new free-to-play MMORPG that claims to focus on action-packed combat and challenging bosses. You fight various enemies and follow a story told through quests.
In the endgame, you can expect many field bosses and dungeons as well as PvP.
Bless Unleashed was already released in the spring for Xbox One and on October 22 for PS4. Until now, only beta tests have been conducted on PC. The full release is planned for spring 2021.
Why is Bless Unleashed viewed so controversially? The controversy surrounding the game mainly lies in the fact that it is developed by Round 8 Studios. This is a subsidiary of Neowiz, which was responsible for Bless Online.
Bless Online was one of the big hopes for MMORPG fans in 2018. The game from Asia promised a lot and wanted to adapt to western fans. However, technical problems, lack of content, and unmet promises led to a quick shutdown. After just one year, Bless Online was dead.
With Bless Unleashed, a successor is now on the horizon, which the developers claim to have learned from the mistakes of Bless Online. But is that really the case? We have looked at the MMORPG.
Race-lock and PC porting spoil the action-packed start
This is how the start unfolds: In my opinion, the first steps in the game are very elegantly designed. I first experience a kind of dream, in which I play a max-level character and thus learn the game’s mechanics.
I slice through numerous enemies until a big boss fight awaits me at the end. The action-packed combat, which places a lot of value on combos, becomes evident early on.
The system also allows me to get to know a class. If I am not satisfied with this at max level, I can delete the character and create a new one.
What does Bless Unleashed offer for characters? At the start, I have the choice of 5 different classes:
- Crusader
- Berserker
- Priest
- Mage
- Ranger
On PC, I chose a Ranger; later on Xbox, I played the Berserker. You have 3 free character slots available right from the start.
Notably, during character creation, Bless Unleashed has a race-lock that is partly linked with a gender-lock:
- If you play as a Berserker, you must select a huge, male Varg.
- Rangers, on the other hand, are only available as male or female elves.
- For the other 3 classes, you at least have the choice of 2 different races – humans, elves, or Ippin, a small, cute animal race.
However, overall, the variety of races and classes during character creation is limited. Although the editor itself offers many options, Bless Unleashed does not stand out significantly because of it. I was even somewhat disappointed by the restrictions regarding races.
Fights and combos: The fights in Bless Unleashed do not play as well on PC as hoped. You can already see that in the tutorial. While button-mashing was enjoyable on Xbox, it feels wrong on PC that all combos consist of endlessly long sequences of right or left mouse clicks. Occasionally, the “R” key mixes in. However, the potential of a keyboard is not utilized at all.
I found it particularly annoying to break free from a stun. For this, I have to alternate pressing the left and right mouse buttons, which is not fun compared to using a controller.
Moreover, I found the fights and aiming somewhat clunky on both platforms. The controls are not precise enough. Also, despite the action combat system, it doesn’t matter much where I aim, so long as I hit the enemy approximately.
The sometimes long animations during attacks often allow enemies to evade my attacks due to their own attack animations.
Additionally, there is an endurance system for dodging rolls and sprinting. However, this bar is quickly depleted and should definitely be adjusted. For archers, it’s also important to ensure that there are enough arrows in the quiver. If they run out, you become temporarily incapacitated.
The actually action-packed fights often feel static and frustrating due to these issues. And that is a shame for a system focused on combos and dynamics.
Navigation with the mouse: Another problem of the PC beta for me was the navigation with the mouse. The cursor lags significantly behind the actual movement, making quick adjustments impossible.
Sometimes, the mouse pointer may visually appear to be over the next item in the inventory, but the game still thinks it is over the old one. The click, in turn, activates at the wrong place.
These are, however, problems that should be resolved during the beta. Unlike the graphics, which did not convince me on either platform.
Beautiful graphics in the trailers, sobering in-game
While Bless Unleashed made a visually stunning impression in trailers, I found the in-game graphics significantly weaker. Especially the water animations looked washed out and the background unnaturally two-dimensional.
I also gave a big minus point for the immersion, which is repeatedly destroyed by invisible walls.
In this fight in the starting area, the city is on fire. However, you cannot touch the fire itself. It is simply behind a wall.
Also, regarding colors, Bless Unleashed seems very pale to me. Everything appears somewhat brightened through the filters, and I personally find that unattractive.
Really nice armors: An optical aspect that I noticed positively in videos and reviews is the visual development of the characters.
The better equipment you gather, the cooler you look. There are also clear differences in the equipment, which I like – even though I am not a “fashion addict”.
Moreover, there are costumes and the option to overlay equipment with other, already existing skins and adjust their colors. Here, Bless Unleashed can convince.
Much grind, even in the mid-game
What is the gameplay loop of the MMORPG? In Bless Unleashed, much revolves around quests and tasks in the open world. This is actually well done. Events and world bosses continually appear, which need to be tackled. Furthermore, it actually feels lively, unlike many other MMORPGs.
However, grinding plays an important role in Bless Unleashed:
- You gather XP to level up
- You gather XP for certain skills
- You constantly need a higher gear score to experience content
You primarily do this at the beginning through quests. These are divided into two types – blue for story quests and yellow for side quests – but are very uninspired and offer little variety. Especially in the early stages, much consists of running from NPC to NPC and mindlessly defeating monsters.
However, Bless Unleashed’s quest system does not feel well-developed overall. The quests often reward you with less and weaker equipment than you would actually need for your progression. You can even notice this already in the first hours.
How do you grind? At this point, I can only rely on statements from players and other reviews. However, they mostly criticize two things:
- You constantly need new equipment to experience the newest content. The gear score is usually too low.
- For this, you often grind world bosses and hope for a rare drop of new equipment. But that very much depends on luck.
- Alternatively, you use the upgrade system for equipment.
However, at some point during the upgrades, there is a threshold where the upgrades can go wrong. After that, you must repair the equipment before you can try to upgrade it again.
You can also use star seeds for these upgrades. This is a rare resource that you can earn in-game. However, you can also only use this one resource to trade with other players to obtain equipment.
The earned gold in the game can only be exchanged once a day for a specific amount of star seeds. Otherwise, the gold is primarily used for merchants. This makes the currency feel relatively unnecessary in the mid- and end-game.
Open-world PvP: If you wish, you can activate PvP in the interface in Bless Unleashed and attack other players outside of cities and starting zones. All areas from level 20 are considered PvP zones. However, there is the restriction that you can only attack players within +-5 levels.
If you attack players who do not have PvP activated, there is a karma system. This means that at a certain level, guards attack you, and other players can kill you without repercussions.
In addition to open PvP, there is also a battleground for 30v30.
So far, I have not really engaged with PvP.
Is it better than Bless Online?
In terms of performance, Bless Unleashed does significantly better than its predecessor. I had almost no issues in beta and was able to play smoothly. However, Round 8 Studios still needs to refine the controls on PC as I personally saw a lot of flaws.
In the gameplay itself, I still see many similar problems. Uninspired quests, a lot of grinding, open-world PvP, and clunky combat. Neither of the two MMORPGs have truly convinced me.
In fact, the strong race lock is even a small step back compared to Bless Unleashed.
Conclusion on Bless Unleashed
Solid free-to-play MMORPG with a lot of potential that unfortunately is not being fully realized.
After about 5 hours of Bless Unleashed overall, my conclusion is rather sobering. The MMORPG can score points with its performance, very good start, and interesting boss fights. It is also fun to walk through and explore the world.
However, I already did not like the combat system on PC from the start. The combos feel uninspired, and the long animations take away any sense of dynamics and action. The monotonous quests and the race lock are also two downsides on my list.
While I have not yet delved deeply into grinding, what I have heard so far does not sound very appealing.
The problem I see with Bless Unleashed is the low chance of improvement. Similar issues were already criticized two years ago with Bless Online at the launch of the game on Xbox One. But apparently, little has been learned from that. Even though Unleashed is better than Bless Online, I would really wish that the MMORPG would step it up and improve upon the port to PC and the combat system. Because the game fundamentally has potential. However, very little of it is realized.
Alexander Leitsch
MMORPG expert at MyMMO
What are your experiences with Bless Unleashed? Have you already tried the new MMORPG on Xbox or PC? Where are your criticisms? And did you hope that it would be significantly better than Bless Online? Feel free to let us know in the comments!
