The Weekly Raid: What Are Your Bless Online First Impressions?

Its finally here! The Western version of the highly anticipated fantasy MMORPG Bless Online had its founders launch on May 28, 2018. Players willing to pay $40, $70, or $150 for the various Founders' Pack flocked on to the single server on launch day. The server soon crashed and NeoWiz was forced to add additional servers. This process repeated itself several times throughout launch day until servers finally stabilized by the next day.

More patient players can wait until May 30, now only a day away, and grab the game for $30 and skip the initial server stability issues. These patient players will also have the benefit of various first impressions to help guide their purchase decision. Despite being heavily hyped, the general consensus among the MMORPG community is that Bless Online proved to be a disappointment.

Bless Online is built on the Unreal 3 engine, originally released in 2007, and DirectX9, a version of Microsoft's graphics API initially released in 2002. The archaic software stack likely explains the difficulty developer NeoWiz has had in optimizing the game to run properly. The game just can't utilize the hardware features available in modern computers, causing low framerates, stutters, and outright crashes even on the highest end computers.

Besides the unsolved technical issues, its clear NeoWiz phoned in the game's localization. In-game text is so poorly translated that even the brief tutorial includes conflicting wording for skill names.

Despite these technical flaws, Bless Online had a phenomenal launch day in of popularity. It grabbed the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd spot on the Steam Global Top Sales list:

Additionnaly, Bless Online was the 2nd most viewed game on twitch, second only to Fortnite. The initial hype, including by many of the top personalities on twitch, soon made way for dissapointment. Prominent MMORPG commentators including SodaPoppin and TheLazyPeon had poor initial impressions:

We're still collecting our thoughts on Bless Online, but in the mean time we'd like to hear your first impressions. Have you been following the game's Western development? Were you let down by the hype or did the game meet your expectations? Share your thoughts below!