Gamespace: Why bring back Blade & Soul this way?
Andrew Long: We feel like there is a need that our community wants. They’ve seen it in other regions and it’s something that, from our standpoint, we want to be able to get this game into people’s hands. Since Blade & Soul launched nine years ago, we had a bunch of people that love the game. There’s a whole new wave of players that might not have been here nine years ago. Maybe they played Blade & Soul nine years ago and after a few months, they trickled away. So, we want to be able to reintroduce this game, tap into those audiences that we used to have, and audiences that we might never have had. We want to get that experience that we felt again.
Gamespace: Is there any worry that Neo is something that is going to split or divide the existing player base between Live and the new option?
Andrew Long: That’s of course something we think about. We’re deep in discourse with our communities, and we do see a very large amount of people that want to stay on live. They like where it’s gone, their investment in the game, and they want to keep that.
I do assume that the live community will play Neo on launch, and they’ll test it and be there. I think where live is at now, there’s a lot of people that enjoy that and won’t leave. They’re nine years with their character, they’ll try Neo to be there for the launch, but they really don’t want to leave that character behind. So, we are knowledgeable of it. We want to make sure both games have a thriving ecosystem.
Gamespace: To that extent, how easy do you feel it’s going to be for people to play both of those versions?
Andrew Long: Sure. If there’s somebody that wants to play both and loves Blade & Soul, they’re going to be able to do that. We’ve made some changes to live over the years. For example, if you miss your dailies and weeklies for two days, the rewards don’t just get wasted. They accumulate.
Blade & Soul Live is something you could come in and play probably like twice a week and you won’t be losing any rewards. For Neo, we’re really trying to capture the essence of what Blade & Soul is. The experience is going to feel similar to what it was nine years ago. Not to say we’re not going to change it and move away. It’s something that a Live player who’s really dedicated might be there for, and play the content, when we have a new update. They’re going to run through that content and maybe just swap between content releases. It (player time) is going to be something we have to be tactful of when time those launches. Don’t have a Live and Neo update one after another. How many people will do that, we’ll check and see the data when we get there. But if you are super dedicated, you can.
Gamespace: How do you feel the combat in Blade & Soul Neo stands within the MMO genre at the moment? Do you feel it’s still got relevance?
Andrew Long: The combat systems are going to be slightly different from Live. Live has nine years of development from our side. We’re pretty deep in there. Currently in Live, there are three specializations. A lot of people feel like when the specializations, especially the third, came in, we wanted to make sure that third specialization felt fun and crazy. In Neo, those specializations aren’t going to be there. It’s going to be a traditional combat that you knew and loved back then. Of course, with the new skill system, you’re going to be able to customize those abilities slightly. It’s not like we’re taking a massively different direction. As you can see form the skill customization, for example, there’s that one ability that you could spam, or it could be a debuff, or it could be a longer stun. There are small changes like that. So, we do think it’s going to feel a lot different in that aspect. As far as where we stand in the ecosystem now, I think we still have a strong foothold there because I haven’t seen too many games with this reactionary-based combat. A lot of people love the traditional rotations that you see in World of Warcraft and other games. That’s fun, mastering your rotation. However, for us, if you’re really into that twitch gameplay, you’re really going to love Blade & Soul Neo.
Gamespace: It feels to like Neo is a mix of a lot of granular changes for variety of build and flexibility. Was that the intention?
Andrew Long: The intention was not to make huge, drastic changes. There’s a lot of people that love Blade & Soul and the way it felt at the time of its launch and up in the first two years of its content. They really love that. When we introduced those third specializations, they felt like the combat decreased a little bit. Those are things that we want to take in mind when addressing NEO. The combat that they knew and loved is going to be there.
For your question about the granular changes, Blade & Soul live right now is a very grindy game. There are very small percentages to get your pieces of gear. You run a dungeon hundreds of times just to get it. In NEO, the drop rates are much higher. You’re going to be getting gear pieces much easier. We’ve changed the secondary stats, so those are going to be randomized to the two secondary stats on your weapons. You’re going to be looking for the perfect weapon. Maybe you want HP and defense, but you rolled HP and evasion. The weapon’s still going to be good, but for those people that want to min-max, that’s the reason why they’re going to be running the Infernal Lord maybe 10, 20, 30 times. We’ve moved in the direction where farming a dungeon 1000 times was a little too much. Let’s make it so it’s maybe 30-40 times. You can do that content, trade those items on the marketplace, and that’s the reason for that repetitive gameplay.
Gamespace: Does that mean that gear is going to better support a wider variety of builds for characters? Players like to min-max, and it would be unfortunate if the swaps and weapons provided access to defense for a particular character but then still forwarded the same sort of min-maxing where those choices become largely irrelevant.
Andrew Long: We don’t want to follow the line with cookie-cutter builds. For example, you’ll go online and say, “How do I play my Blade Master?” That’s not what we want to do. There are a lot of combinations with the mantra system that we want to see the community do. We’ve added 20 plus in there that, as you scroll through, are all different types of mantras with passive benefits you can add. It’s on all accessories, not just the weapons. The combination of how those are going to work together, there are limitless possibilities that we want to see from the community. Then we’ll address it from there. We don’t want it to be where you just get the best gear and you’re done. There are going to be different variations. If I’m a Blade Master and I want to be #1 DPS, I can do that. If I want to be a Blade Master that supports the team more, maybe I’ll be more about debuffing. There are different variations of gameplay that we think are going to make it feel unique to you. You don’t just have to be that class and play it the same way.
Gamespace: Are there other ways that Neo has changed to allow you to pick and change the way you build a character?
Andrew Long: We didn’t touch upon it too much in the showcase, but our new skill customization system is not simply just going down those trees. On pieces of gear, there are going to be skill slots. Not the soul core that you saw and not those mantra levels at the bottom. There are going to be skill slots. You’re going to be able to take, let’s say, Thunder Drake Slash to do more damage. You’re going to put that effect on your accessory and then move those around to different accessories. We’ll have a showcase about that coming out soon to go deeper into that. That’s going to be one of the systems where there are going to be combinations of skills and buffs that we haven’t even seen yet, that we’re happy to look at when the players put them together and see how they interact.
Gamespace: Moving on from progression to the important stuff, Looking good! New improved graphics mean not only obvious changes to new and improved environments, but I’m interested in how that has changed cosmetics. How many new cosmetic items are we going to get and how drastic are those changes compared to what players might already know?
Andrew Long: For the cosmetics, every single cosmetic is not already ported over. We’re looking at them and we want to bring as many as possible, but we want to make sure that the essence of that costume is there. There’s also something we want to do with the Haran weapon outfit. It has those effects on those animations. We feel like some cosmetics from live didn’t get the treatment they should have gotten. When we bring them over, we might add in those animations and effects. Anything we felt was missing, we might elevate it. We don’t want to take a costume and dumb it down from the other region. We’re going to be monitoring feedback on the community discord. The costumes that we haven’t imported over, we’re gathering from the community what they want to see and when they want to bring it. There’s a lot of cool stuff that Andrew is doing here with costume contests and things of that nature. We can elevate that.
Gamespace: Are we going to see community costume design contests within Blade & Soul Neo from the Western release, or are we primarily going to be consuming the content that’s coming from Korea in terms of cosmetics and store items?
Andrew Gant: As Live players will be aware, this was an annual thing that we did in our region every year for Blade & Soul live. We want to continue that tradition. We want new things as well. There have been a lot of staff and changes since Blade & Soul live was formed in the beginning, and the world has changed as well. I have a lot of things that I’m really interested in doing with the community. I’m very passionate about having our community be a part of the game and having their hand in changing the game. Not changing the game itself but adding their mark to the game. I want the community to see something in the game that they were a part of, whether it’s naming an NPC, creating a costume, or changing a storyline. I’m really into having staff involvement in the game and role-playing events where they’re in the game and a surprise happens. They have no idea what will happen and the whole play goes out in front of them. These are the things that we have the chance to be unique to our region. I think that’s a big opportunity where we can make our mark as far as our region goes.
With Blade & Soul Neo bringing a whole new way to play on 25 February 2025, I’m cautiously optimistic about this. Maybe I’m looking back nostalgically, but maybe infinite ability to Windwalk wherever I want means I’ll be away touring the world instead of running headlong into PvP. If you’re looking to find out more about Blade & Soul Neo check out our look at the hands off presentation report and head over to the official website
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