“Mid-March” has now become late March, but regardless the Japanese network test for Blue Protocol is indeed starting this month: A recent livestream from some of the devs at Bandai Namco confirms that testing will run between March 31st and April 2nd.
According to a live fan translation of the stream, the devs plan to have scheduled maintenance on March 31st at 8:00 p.m. JST (10:00 a.m. EDT), while additional maintenance or updates may be required as the devs monitor the test.
As for content in the network test, that will include five classes, a character maximum level of 20, an “adventure rank” cap of four, the first chapter of the game’s main scenario, and some special quests. The test build will also feature four regions including a zone known as Montegnor Valley that was previewed a couple of times. Additionally, the test doesn’t appear to be under an NDA, but the devs are asking players to post a spoiler warning for any story content.
Fans in the west are still in for a pretty lengthy wait as Blue Protocol isn’t projected to come to our side of the globe until late 2023 via Amazon Games’ publishing. Still, there is the benchmark tool and character creator on hand, plenty of anticipation on our part, and now a few more previews to ogle.
