The whole saga of development for Bless Online has been a lot of false starts and half-launches (the short version is that the game had its publisher pull out and then it was hastily decided to self-publish), so fans still waiting for news and a playable version of the game are probably unpleasantly familiar with being promised that the game is coming very soon. Really, we mean it. The latest post on the game from the development team contains an interview with director Jae-hoon Jeon, who promises that the game is coming to Steam early access as soon as possible. While he fears that the trial and error process might lead to some hurt feelings, the important thing is getting player feedback about the game’s new directions and refinement.
Most of the work for overhauling the game has started with a complete rework of the game’s combat system to make skills feel more impactful, introducing skill combos and adding in the first pass of skill customization mechanics. The goal is to keep individual fights feeling more interesting, and by extension making moment-to-moment and repeated gameplay experiences from becoming boring. Understandable goals, although you’ll have to wait until the game is actually in early access to see how it all plays out.
