The newest class, Qi Master, was recently announced. You may need the time get up to speed in Blade & Soul, which takes a lot of cues from fighting games.

Name reservation starts January 11 (you can get into that nifty character creator, too) for people who purchased FounderвЂ™s packs of this otherwise free-to-play game and early access to the game itself begins January 15.

The official release date is January 19, 2016. It went into beta last month and some beta weekends remain: November 24вЂ“30 (English), December 11вЂ“14 (English, French, German), December 18вЂ“21 (English, French, German).

Hugely popular Korean MMO Blade & Soul was confirmed for Western release over three years ago and itвЂ™s finally happening. Expect more specifics once weвЂ™re able to get some play time.ItвЂ™s been a long time coming. With a striking art style thanks to the work of art director Hyung-Tae Kim and his team, along with the interesting gameplay mechanics, thereвЂ™s definite potential here. ItвЂ™s not clear how often these cut-scenes will trigger throughout Blade & Soul, but hopefully as the journey continues the focus on story doesnвЂ™t dissipate. ThereвЂ™s story too, presented with fully-voiced, stylishly directed cut-scenes at the beginning that set up your quest for revenge. Whether this system will remain fun to use throughout the course of the entire leveling process remains to be seen, but for now, like with the combat system, it certainly seems promising. As you level up and learn more movement options, youвЂ™ll be able to run across walls at high speeds and across water and float through the air so eventually youвЂ™ll never really need to use roads. YouвЂ™ll be able to augment your characterвЂ™s statistics as well in a number of ways, but based on the way NCsoft talks about the game, it seems like skilled play is of more importance that equipped items.ДЄside from the promising combat system, movement around the world in Blade & Soul seems like it could be especially entertaining. The fact that enemies will actually get knocked around huge distances like in traditional third-person action games instead of staying artificially pinned to the ground like in most MMOs is certainly eye-catching, and seems to have gameplay implications as distance from target plays determines available attacks. Team Bloodlust hopes to turn MMO fights into more skill-based encounters by letting you string together big combos if youвЂ™re able to time strikes within small activation windows. That may seem like fairly standard MMO content, but the class abilities start to get more interesting with something like the Kung Fu Master, whoвЂ™s built to brawl and actually knock enemies over and pummel them on the ground. The Force Master attacks from long distances with magical blasts, while the Berserker stays up close and swings around gigantic axes. As one of six classes youвЂ™ll have a variety of ways to strike. During a fight youвЂ™ll be able to set up counterattacks, block and hop out of the way of incoming enemy weapon attacks and offensive magic.

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