Sure, it’s kind of disappointing that the race selection only features variations on humans with some defining body physiques. After years of watching promo videos, guides, wikis and competitive tournaments on YouTube, I was ready to jump into the action.įor starters, the game starts up with players being able to choose up to handful of classes among four different races: The courageous Jin (humans), the powerful Gon (Big humans), the mysterious Yun (Tall skinny female humans) and the diminutive Lyn (Tiny humans with animal ears and tails). In order to drum up some hype, NCWest is hosting five closed beta tests for anyone that purchases a founder’s pack off their website, or for anyone that’s lucky enough to get their hands on a closed beta key. Regardless, NCWest is finally ready to give B&S its chance to shine here in the west, and they’ve been going full force with weekly news updates, livestreams and promotions galore. After NCWest revealed an announcement in 2012, the game was put on a hiatus for very undisclosed reasons (although, anyone that has been paying close attention to NCSoft’s track record can easily figure out what caused such a delay). So after two and a half years of waiting (or eight plus years, depending if you’ve been waiting for an English version since its inception), NCWest has finally given North America and Europe a taste of the martial arts madness that is Blade & Soul (B&S), an Asian-themed fantasy MMORPG created by in-house development studio Team Bloodlust and originally headlined by popular Korean artist Hyung-tae Kim, best known for his work on the Magna Carta series.

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