MMORPG News: Blue Protocol Global, Lost Ark, Project BBQ, Zenith, Kindred Fates

So I’m pretty excited about this week. I got to talk about games I haven’t been able to talk about in a while! New games, old games, games I think you’re definitely going to be interested in.
We’ve had a packed few weeks though and I know I’ve probably overlooked a few things.. but hopefully this is all the important stuff.
Thus, let’s take a few minutes, probably around 11 or 12, honestly, and get into this week’s Weekly Byte of MMORPG News.

Let’s start this off with Blade & Soul. In the most recent Producer’s Letter, it was revealed that the Unreal Engine 4 overhaul would be making its way to the West this year.
Not only that, but there’s a ton of content planned for each month beginning this month with a Hongmoon Level cap increase, new Heroic dungeon, continuation to the Rise of Silversteel Story, new gear, the new Silversteel raid, new class, specialization and more.
Seriously, the next 4 months are going to be pretty exciting for the game. If you want to know more about each month’s list of updates, I did a dedicated Blade & Soul video last week – I urge you to go ahead and take a look at that.

It’s always fun when I get to talk about both Blade & Soul and TERA in the same news segment. I remember when they’d have news almost weekly, nowadays it seems it’s rare to have news released monthly but here we are, defying the norm.
Fans of the game will be happy to learn that you’ll be receiving two new dungeons as part of the “Kaia’s Anvil” update going live this month. Additionally, you’ll have a new rarity level for gear and an increase in how frequently you can enter dungeons.
The dungeons in question are aimed at players level 69 and above. If you giggled at the latter half of that sentence than like me, you have the mentality of a third grader.

It’s been.. half a year since I last talked about Zenith I think. The game had a Kickstarter that went on to raise almost $300,000 – and after a few updates, fell relatively silent. Until now.
As of the beginning of March it was revealed that the game was actually making progress towards hitting their goal of entering pre-Alpha testing. At this point I believe we were supposed to be in closed-Alpha but hey – beggars can’t be choosers.
We’re getting an Alpha test of the game and will hopefully have a Closed Beta approaching the end of 2020. For those of you that backed the game, you’ll hopefully to capable of jumping in-game soon!

Take the train to Busan, they said. It’ll be fine, they said. Famous last words. Now I don’t even recall the last time I did a video on Closers. But here we are – talking about their brand new update taking us right to Busan!
And.. there isn’t much known about the update thus far other than location, and speculation that the update will feature aliens as opposed to zombies. Which is pretty cool!

If Temtem isn’t your thing, don’t worry about it. It isn’t the only online multiplayer monster collecting RPG in the works. Nope. Kindred Fates is another one that managed to raise almost $700,000 in funding.
And while the trailer showcases some bare bones gameplay, the theme, the graphical style and the features provide us with a much more mature Pokemon-esque game where you take full control of the creatures referred to as Kinfolk during battle in an action-combat mode.
Your Kinfolk can actually die, meaning that their lives are actually finite – an interesting mechanic not found in games of this kind. Now there isn’t a release date scheduled currently, all we know is that the game has an ETA of “2023” as of March 2020. But man does this look exciting!
I have a dedicated video on Kindred Fates if you’re looking for more info. I recommend checking that out!

Speaking of Temtem, it turns out they just released the roadmap for both 2020 and 2021. Additions in Spring 2020 include ranked matchmaking, spectator mode, in-game chat, chat bubbles, and club management.
Summer 2020 will see a brand new island: Kisiwa added, 25 new Temtem, player housing, climbing gear, and a new set of emotes.
Fall 2020 will feature a new island: Cipanku, another 25 new Temtem, the first Mythical Temtem, in-game tournaments, a quest diary and achievements.
Winter 2020 will include another new island: Arbury, 30 new Temtem, the 2nd Mythical Temtem, club Dojo wars, and a trading house.
Spring 2021 will have the game launch onto consoles, the official 1.0 launch of the game, the end-game island, daily and weekly quests, a battle replay system and a cosmetics store.
Finally, Summer 2021 will introduce a brand new “Nuzlocke” game mode, the 3rd Mythical Temtem, an arcade bar, draft PvP and a cosmetics battle pass.
Seriously, for a freshly release game Temtem is absolutely slaying it.

It’s been a couple months since I included Lost Ark in a news video. And while I have a dedicated Lost Ark video coming out on Monday, I do want to talk a little about it here.
Smilegate have introduced a brand new Battle Royale into the game, a new affection system, your own island, new difficulties to raids, removed gender-locking and have several classes planned.
Yup – they have pretty much the entire year planned out with content slowly releasing over the course of it. If you want more info and elaboration on various features, you’ll have to wait until Monday.
Trust me, there’s no way I could go over everything here without taking up 6 or so minutes of your time.

Yup, despite Nexon being a bit of an MMO graveyard these days, they actually released a brand new update last month called “Call of the Wild.”
The update added a brand new raid dungeon called Yatuman’s Altar, with a chance of obtaining not only a brand new Dragon mount that looks pretty sick – no joke, but also the option of obtaining a brand new pet as well.
I know that there are still players that play Riders of Icarus – it was one of Mrs Stix’s favorite MMOs of all time and honestly, even though the game is kinda slow and clunky, it isn’t half bad.

Development has been so slow on Ashes of Creation I’d almost forgotten it existed. Well, I’d like to say that but I’m constantly reminded that Ashes of Creation: Apocalypse exists in its place.
So, when it was revealed that they’ll finally not only be showcasing actual gameplay from the MMO in the near future, but also hopefully going into the first stage of Alpha testing, I’ll admit, I was a little surprised.
I was under the impression that the game would be stuck in development hell, but hey – here we are. Almost, anyway.
Hopefully in the coming months we’ll have a dedicated video for Ashes of Creation actually talking about progress, and seeing where the game actually ends up going.
That’s kind of exciting.. if there are many fans left even interested in the game, which after the Apocalypse debacle.. might not be many.

In exciting news, Nexon revealed during their 4th Quarter 2019 financial report that among other titles, Project BBQ would finally be releasing this year in South Korea.
I know, a South Korean release doesn’t mean anything with regards to a North American or European release but a lot of people were of the impression that Project BBQ was dead. This is evidence to the contrary.
However, it is worth noting that the game is still likely quite a ways – potentially years off of releasing anywhere outside of South Korea.
And even then.. we’ve seen little to no information other than this small confirmation regarding the game, which isn’t a good sign.
Like several of the other games thus far, I’ve actually done a much more in-depth, detailed video on this that I recommend watching if you’re interested in learning more.

I know you guys are typically against mobile titles, but Dragon Raja isn’t your ordinary looking mobile game. I did a dedicated video on it a week ago and my god it’s one of the best looking mobile games I’ve ever seen.
The reason I’m talking about it today though is due to the fact that it just recently launched – I think a little over a week ago by this point? And is being played by a surplus of players.
I’d recommend using an emulator, as the game looks fantastic in HD if you can get your settings right. If only PC games took the time to look this good.

Fresh off the success of opting to release the game completely free for an entire week, a patch went live for Black Desert that allows cross-play between both the PS4 and the Xbox One.
While that isn’t full cross-play – neglecting to include PC players, it’s a solid first step in increasing player ability to play with one another.
They also went on to detail additional information regarding their upcoming O’dylitta region and associated content, which has been delayed for quite a while.

I know you guys are excited for anything Blue Protocol related. We all are – so this may come as bad news to a few of you. Bandai Namco announced that while the Closed Beta was scheduled to release this month, it has been delayed until Mid-April.
Granted that’s only a few week delay, so I don’t personally see much issue with it especially considering they mentioned that the game was created with a global release in mind.
Yup – they pretty much confirmed that while their focus right now is on their Japanese release, and this closed beta is for feedback purposes pertaining to the Japanese release, they plan on releasing it into additional countries after Japan.