Today, Bandai Namco Online Studios announced that its MMORPG Blue Protocol will launch on June 14th in Japan.
However, it also confirmed that the game’s Western launch is officially delayed. Blue Protocol, which was targeting a launch in the latter half of this year across Western territories, will now be available at some point in 2024. PC players can still look forward to a chance to play the game in 2023, as the Western PC Closed Beta test is scheduled before the end of the year.
The developers didn’t dwell too much on the reasons for the delay, though they did mention the continued efforts to localize the game’s stories and build an infrastructure to support the ‘massive online raids’.
Today, there was also an official developer live stream. The folks at Blue ProtocolDB have translated key tidbits of information here. Bandai Namco Online Studios confirmed that the story would take place over three Chapters. At launch, the level cap will be 50.
A number of improvements and tweaks were made following the feedback relayed by users during the Network Test. For example, player characters now slowly regain health out of combat and can increase the rate by sitting. Cooldown times have been reduced across the board, and Spell Weavers can look forward to consuming less mana for their spells as well as a substantial damage boost.
Last but not least, the developers discussed the post-launch roadmap. Every four months, a new story Chapter will be released. Meanwhile, players can look forward to new content and missions.
Blue Protocol was first unveiled in July 2019. At the time, it wasn’t yet clear whether there would be a Westen release at all. That became a bit more likely in early 2020 when Bandai Namco Online Studios started looking for an English localization director.
The developers largely worked in silence for a couple of years, and fans weren’t even sure whether the game would ever be released. Finally, at The Game Awards 2022, Bandai Namco Online Studios announced a partnership with Amazon Game Studios, which would act as the publisher of Blue Protocol in North and South America, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
The game is a free-to-play MMORPG for PC and consoles. It features action-packed combat with a fluid class system where players can switch classes simply by changing their weapons. There are six classes available at launch: the Blade Warden (sword and shield), the Twin Striker (dual-wielding axes), the Keen Strider (bow), the Spell Weaver (staff), and the Foe Breaker (hammer).
