What You Need To Know About Blade & Soul Heroes

It’s only been about two months since NCSoft revealed the next entry in the Blade & Soul franchise at Summer Game Fest. The anime-style MMO doesn’t just carry the IP’s name but takes place in the same world. In fact, as was explained during a recent press demo, Blade & Soul Heroes is a prequel that takes place three years before the others.

MMOBomb, along with other outlets, was invited to take part in the presentation and Q&A session hosted by Project Leader Scott Choi and Associate Producer Evan Hill. We were also offered the opportunity to interview Choi and Hill later the same day. If you’ve been curious about what type of game Heroes is, we have that information here for you.

It’s worth noting that a lot of our questions were answered in the course of the presentation, and as a result, we used our interview time to clarify some things. So, rather than doing the normal interview format, we will include that information here, along with everything we learned from the presentation.

First, let’s cover the basics. Blade & Soul Heroes is what the devs are describing as a “collectible action MMORPG”. As you’d expect, the term “collectible” refers to obtaining playable characters to add to your party. And yes, that means a certain amount of gacha elements. We’ll address the gacha aspects of the game more later in the post.

As noted, Blade & Soul Heroes is set three years before Blade & Soul and Blade & Soul Neo. As three years is not a lot of time, things won’t be all that different as far as the game’s world is concerned. And, there will be quite a few tie-ins. The same locations will exist, and players will recognize well-known characters. Of course, there will be plenty of new characters as well. And, as pointed out during our interview, the game offers players a lot of background story for the playable characters.

The game’s narrative revolves around one particular character, a girl named Yusol. At the beginning of the story, Yusol’s clan is destroyed by invaders. The story doesn’t linger at this point for too long, however. Instead, there’s a time skip of about a year, where we, as Yusol, will work to found a new clan. Part of this process is gathering heroes who will also be part of our playable team. In fact, the game almost immediately gives us the ability to choose one of five SSR characters to recruit.

Even though I suspected I wouldn’t get much of an answer, because… spoilers… I did ask if we could get more info on the main/playable character Yusol. As expected, I was told there wasn’t much they could tell us as they want us to learn about her ourselves. The good news is that we won’t have to wait very long to learn about her history and motivations. There will even be supplementary information to provide more details.

As for the game’s playstyle, Blade & Soul Heroes is a mix of action and turn-based combat. It features an open world that players can explore. And, yes, long-time Blade & Soul players will recognize the areas. One of the areas shown to us was the Bamboo Coast.

The two styles of combat work in different situations. Typically, the open world will feature the action combat style, with players able to execute different abilities, like successfully dodging enough times to be able to interrupt a boss' ability. While not solely restricted to the one mode, the turn-based combat is a feature of the game’s PvP system and, should players want to, can be done via auto-battle. Note that auto-battle is available for any turn-based content, allowing players to return to the field and continue doing other things. There’s even a picture-in-picture mode that will allow them to see what’s happening.

PvP also includes a system called “nameplate bingo” that allows players to earn rewards by completing a “bingo card”. When starting a PvP round, players can choose between a few opponents. Each will have a marker by their nameplate. Choosing and defeating the right opponents will claim a spot on the card. When a line is filled, players earn rewards.

The game features two types of boss trials: solo and party. Each version offers players different rewards. The solo version provides standard gear while the party version rewards players with accessories. For those players who aren’t terribly excited about partying with other players, I did ask if not doing so would end up having a negative impact on the player. The answer was that, while it means missing out on some gear, it won’t have a huge negative impact. That said, doing at least a small portion of multiplayer content does go some way to making the game’s mostly single-player experience easier.

Those who do take on the party content will need three other individuals to join them. They can either invite friends or send messages in the game world to find potential team members. Just be sure to have a solid team, as the content does get more difficult as time goes on. Think of it like tower dungeon content. The upside is that there are plenty of rewards available to help players progress their characters.

Speaking of teams, for the most part, players will be spending time with their teams made up of the characters they collect while playing. These teams consist of five characters with a lead character that offers a buff. Choi and Hill were quick to note that players don’t need to spend money to acquire these characters. Yes, they can be summoned via banners using currency bought with real-world cash. However, there are opportunities for free summons, and a favor system has been implemented, allowing players to pull a specific hero over time.

Of course, the characters that players will add to their rosters fill different roles. Specifically, there are four: attackers, defenders, supporters, and tacticians. When asked about balance, Choi and Hill stated that there won’t be any particularly overpowered characters in the game, and that the system will even recommend specific characters for content so that players can get the most out of them.

As you’d probably expect, the usefulness of characters can be improved using gear and various upgrade methods. Character stats can be improved via an Embue system. From the description, I took this to be similar to the Constellation system in Genshin Impact. Only in this game it also unlocks cosmetics. Skills, on the other hand, are improved via gameplay. As for gear, there was some really good news. In Blade & Soul Heroes, gear is shareable between up to 20 characters, which means you won’t have to spend as much time trying to acquire it.

When asked if there was a pity system, Choi and Hill mentioned the favor system and the ability to earn tickets for pulls through events. They also noted that players will get a ticket to select a hero after a certain number of pulls.

I asked for clarification on this in the interview, specifically whether or not there will be a clear indication as to how many pulls are required before the system kicks in, or if there will be anything indicating character drop rates. The answer is that there will be both. The system will note percentage drop rates for characters in the game and include a countdown of pulls needed to obtain a character. At this point, most gacha players are familiar with these systems, so it should be easy to determine where you stand.

As a follow-up question, I inquired as to what systems are in place to prevent issues with the gacha aspects of the game when it comes to minors. As we know, games have been accused of predatory practices in this area before and have had to pay fines. The answer, as it turns out, is a complicated yes. There are systems in place, but what systems partially depend on the platform someone is playing on.

If you’re wondering how often new content for this will come out, Choi and Hill stated that the team is shooting for updates about every 3-4 weeks. Currently, they have about a year's worth planned out, partially due to the fact that the game has been out in Korea for a while. This includes storylines, new regions, new heroes, and guardians (which are like support pets), raid content, and more.

When I later asked how they plan to keep up this pace when other games seem to average about a six-week schedule, they noted the advantage of the game having already been out, and also noted that the four-week schedule is something that’s been managed with Blade & Soul Neo. The primary concern right now is localization.

One other thing I inquired about, being an active player of gacha-type games, was whether or not the game would punish players for stepping away for a bit. As players of games like Genshin Impact are aware, there are often important story points in the game’s limited-time events. When the events end, so does the opportunity to take part in those storylines. Sometimes, this results in coming back to storylines involving characters the game insists you’ve met ,and you’re wondering who they are, or someone mentioning something that happened that you just weren’t there for.

These issues have been improved somewhat. For instance, HoYo now offers recaps of storylines in Genshin, which also happen to be useful if you’ve just forgotten something. That said, it feels like a bit of a punishment for just not being able to be there. So, I asked what Blade & Soul Heroes’ approach would be, and they stated that nothing narrative would be time-limited. It’s honestly a relief for lore junkies like me.