NCsoft announces Blade & Soul 2, Blade & Soul M and Blade & Soul S

Following on yesterday's not-at-all disappointing announcement of Aion 2 for mobile, NCsoft also revealed a few new Blade & Soul games. Not one, not two, but three new Blade & Soul games. You would think that at least one of them was aimed at the PC platform, but you would be wrong – all three games are for mobile devices.

NCsoft released trailers for the trio, but the best that I can say is “man, that's some nice CGI right there.” As for gameplay itself, there is none in sight, although some sequences seem to be intentionally made to resemble actual gameplay, for some reason.

MMOCulture has some extra info and I'll try to make a summary of it all.

Blade & Soul 2

Blade & Soul 2 was originally revealed by late 2017 and went through a redesign in 2018. The sequel to the acclaimed PC game takes place in the future, where Blade & Soul heroes have become legends. Obviously, you can expect new characters and new areas, and NCsoft states that the game will bring smarter monsters that behave differently according to player's actions.

Concerning the NPCs, these won't be static quest givers as seen in the original and many other MMOs; instead, they will roam the world and play a relevant part in the ecosystem. Finally, there shouldn't be a faction system, with players enjoying a “free community” system.

Blade & Soul M

Blade & Soul M is apparently a revamp of the PC game for mobile devices, developed by the original makers, Team Bloodlust. Running on the Unreal Engine 4, this game comes with a story branching system, meaning that player's choices will have different outcomes and affect the game world. “Advanced forms of combat” and “actively changing environments” are other big words that come with this announcement.

Blade & Soul S

Finally, the third game is Blade & Soul S. A quick look at the trailer is enough to see that the characters are deformed, almost as if they were chibi versions of the originals. This makes it suited to a wide audience and is a prequel to the PC game, as it takes place three years before the original events. There is a dynamic world that changes in real-time, combat is said to take place in the open world and you can collect new and recurring characters from the series.

If you think that this is too much Blade & Soul for anyone to handle, don't forget that China has two other games as well: Blade & Soul: Hongmoon Rising (a browser-based MMORPG) and a Blade & Soul Mobile card battler. Die-hard fans just can't miss Blade & Soul: The Musical as well. I'm not even joking here.