"Player feedback will continue to be a part of future updates and the development process."

Bless Unleashed has been available on Xbox One for some time now. How has the response from the community been?

Thankfully we received a good response when the game first launched, and are continuing to garner positive feedback. Of course, there will always be some negative feedback, but we have focused on resolving those player issues in our latest content updates. We are also proud to support promotions like perks for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members, which awards Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members – with rewards such as a legendary mount and lumena.

We are always grateful and aim to continue receiving positive responses through future updates.

How has the launch and post-launch of Bless Unleashed differed – or not – from that of Bless Online? Did your experience with the former make things smoother with Bless Unleashed?

Our development team is a different team from the Bless Online development team. However as we were different development teams that belonged to the same company, we were able to observe the opening of Bless Online from the sidelines.

Launching a game on a console was not an easy task during the Bless Unleashed launch process. There were difficulties in coordination and optimization in many areas, but the development team was able to overcome it all because we were very enthusiastic about creating a console game. Of course, BNEA was a huge help in making this happen.

We hope users will continue to enjoy the game and will do our best to provide a longstanding game service.

Are there any significant upcoming updates or fixes that you’re working on directly as a response to feedback from players?

As mentioned previously, Round 8 strongly believes that it is crucial to listen to and embrace feedback from users. We reviewed and incorporated user feedback received within the first month after launch such as strengthening the early parts of the game, parts regarding growth, PvP rules, convenience of controls etc. and greatly updated the game system.

The development team is satisfied with this update as it is generally positively received, and is contributing to the game’s retention.

Player feedback will continue to be a part of future updates and the development process.

"We are planning a major update related to the community, PvE, and PvP."

What are your immediate plans for Bless Unleashed in terms of additional content? Do you have any major expansions lined up?

We are planning a major update related to the community, PvE, and PvP. An upcoming update will expand the goals of the field and dungeons with Abyssal Dungeons and a King Field Boss system, which will open up a wide range of item growth through the given rewards. In the future, there will also be an update to the attributes commonly referred to as a weakness system, and the evolution of PC characters will soon follow. This is just a tiny part of the huge updates to come, so I can confidently say that we are preparing much more content for the future.

For reference, we are also expanding our lifestyle content such as fishing and superior crafting. Please look forward to what’s to come!

With Bless Unleashed PS4 and PC releases coming up, have there been any areas of the game you’ve been particularly focusing on during the process (other than optimizing for those consoles, of course)?

We are trying to avoid specialized content for each platform as much as possible. However, the rewards or products themselves for each platform may vary. This is the same as when the content of the game is the same, but the service is different.

Players will experience the same updates mentioned above regardless of what platform they choose. We are doing our best to provide a unified and smooth global service.

How important has it been to ensure that Bless Unleashed offers the same experience on every platform, especially given its online nature?

It is extremely important. Future game content needs to go beyond the platform and be approached from the perspective of sharing experiences. In particular for MMORPGs, we will be focusing on providing the same experience as much as possible because different user communities for different platforms may arise if there are contrasting experiences and specialized content on specific platforms.

Do you have any plans to launch on the Switch?

We currently do not have plans, but I think this may change depending on the needs of our users. However, I can say that we are reviewing next-gen platforms and cloud services.

The Xbox One X is a pretty powerful console. While gaming PCs are definitely far more capable than what the console can offer, and the next generation will inevitably end up trumping it thoroughly, for now, it’s the most powerful dedicated gaming hardware on the market.

It’s powerful enough that developers seem to really love it, too. Take, for instance, Round 8 Studio, developers of the upcoming Bless Unleashed, who, in an interview with GamingBolt, talked about how they feel the GPU of the Xbox One X is “marvellous”.

“The GPU of Xbox X is marvellous, and which allows us to apply various rendering technology as well as higher resolution,” they said. “For example, ‘Real-time Global Illumination’ was optimized numerous times but in the end, it was only applied on X model. It is hard to control memory usage especially for MMO with a large number of players and seamless world, so the memory available on the X model has been great.”

That said, they made it clear that the game is an Xbox One console exclusive not because of any technical constraints, but more because of a question of limited development resources.

“We felt it would be too difficult to develop both at the same time at the quality we want to deliver,” they said.

Which, I guess, is fair- those are the kinds of considerations that smaller developers must always work around. Hopefully later on, they get the chance to port the game over to other systems too, so that everyone gets to play it.

"Bless Online and Bless Unleashed are two different games, with different goals. Bless Online was designed for classic MMORPG PC fans, and it was developed to meet their needs. Bless Unleashed had a whole new goal from its design stage. Our goal is to develop a game for users who enjoy action RPG but have not experienced (or have little experience) MMO."

What are some of the major changes between this game and the PC version Bless Online?

It’s easier to answer this question by highlighting the similarities between Bless Unleashed and Bless Online because almost everything was newly developed. In general, the engine, UI, gameplay, combat, game control, scenario, monster AI, etc. were new and modified to fit console. The major similarity is the world lore. However, the storyline of Bless Unleashed is completely different than that of Bless Online, as Bless Unleashed is set in a parallel universe. You will be able to see familiar regions and NPCs, but that’s it. It’s a completely different game, after all.

It looks like you set out to make the game quite different from Bless Online. Why did you decide to do this?

Bless Online and Bless Unleashed are two different games, with different goals. Bless Online was designed for classic MMORPG PC fans, and it was developed to meet their needs. Bless Unleashed had a whole new goal from its design stage. Our goal is to develop a game for users who enjoy action RPG but have not experienced (or have little experience) MMO. The primary fans will be are players who actively play on the console platform. Based on this, almost everything needed to be changed, ranging from game control, combat, and the delivery of game content.

What can you tell us about the progression system in the game?

Like a classic MMO, there are various progression systems in the game, like character growth and skill points, item acquisition, item reinforcement, etc. You can also create a new item through crafting system, increase your wealth through products from your estate from the housing system, and trade with other users.

I believe a core fun factor in MMOs is increasing one’s assets. As time passes users should get stronger as they play the game and receive rarer rewards. However, if there is a huge gap between high level users and new users, it will hurt the game’s fun factor and negatively affect users in the both groups. To properly balance this, we developed a new system called “Blessing.” Through this system, high level users are guaranteed rewards, and at the same time maintains a reasonable balance between high level users and new users.

When the game releases, what is the end-game content that will be available to players?

We are planning to periodically release new stories in episode form. We call these “campaigns,” and there are various qualifications that will need to be met to participate. After reaching max level, a new region for those users will open where they will clear quests and upgrade their gear to meet the qualifications for the next campaign.

After completing the campaign, users will prepare for the next campaign. During this phase users will farm, grow their estate, participate in Crusades/Region quests, and play various in-game contents. This will be the basic gameplay flow.

"Fundamentally, the traditional MMORPG genre is not suitable to play with a controller. Traditionally, MMORPGs gameplay is based on various skills/corresponding buttons, complex items/skills and their mechanism, and targeting based combat system. All the factors listed here do not work well with console environment. We had to verify and improve basic MMORPG systems to work in a console setting, which uses controller and TV to operate. I believe this aspect was the biggest challenge we faced."

What would you say are some of the crucial aspects you had to work on to make a console MMORPG?

Fundamentally, the traditional MMORPG genre is not suitable to play with a controller. Traditionally, MMORPGs gameplay is based on various skills/corresponding buttons, complex items/skills and their mechanism, and targeting based combat system. All the factors listed here do not work well with console environment. We had to verify and improve basic MMORPG systems to work in a console setting, which uses controller and TV to operate. I believe this aspect was the biggest challenge we faced.

Given that the game seems an upgrade over Bless Online in some ways, is there any chance that it could make its way to the PC as well?

Currently, we are focusing on making the MMO experience fun and amazing for the console. For other platforms, we’d need time to assess.

What can you tell us about the combo system in the game?

For all classes, you can start the combos with the X or Y buttons. The combos grow automatically as you level up. As a character grows, it can acquire skill points which you can invest to reinforce or enhance combos as you want. There are also class specific skills aside from the combo system.

We’ve heard that there will be no passive HP regeneration in the game, which is a little unusual. What made you arrive at this decision?

We wanted to emphasize the value of health as a resource. Bless Unleashed is non-targeting game, which means players can dodge the attacks of stronger opponent, depending on their ability. We focused on the accomplishment of user who successfully dodge the enemy’s attack. Let’s say there is a user who perfectly dodged and avoided all damage with hard effort. How would this user feel when they see another user who lost took a lot of damage while playing absentmindedly but recovers quickly by nature? We believe protecting the achievement of user who understands mechanism of action game and play hard.

Of course, there are some ways to recover health beyond a health potion. If you sit near the bonfires located in various places, health will recover slowly. Cooking food can also help to increase the speed of health recovery. Users close to bonfires can use voice chat to coordinate cooking and sharing food.

"Bless Unleashed is a free-to-play game and will have microtransactions. It is important to us to avoid pay to win features, so we are working closely with BNEA. The in-game currency, Star seed, is completely separated from the cash currency. Cash currency will only unlock items like costumes."

How will you be implementing microtransactions in the game?

Bless Unleashed is a free-to-play game and will have microtransactions. It is important to us to avoid pay to win features, so we are working closely with BNEA. The in-game currency, Star seed, is completely separated from the cash currency. Cash currency will only unlock items like costumes. 

The game will feature Xbox One X specific enhancements. What can players expect if they are playing the game on Xbox One X in terms of resolution and fps?

Bless Unleashed supports 4K resolution with Dynamic Resolution technology.

And how will the base Xbox One version turn out in terms of resolution and frame rate?

Like many Xbox One games, we are targeting 900p and 30fps as the baseline.

From a development perspective, how do you find the Xbox One X to be? With so much GPU power, we are sure you must be doing some amazing things.

The GPU of Xbox X is marvellous, and which allows us to apply various rendering technology as well as higher resolution. For example, ‘Real-time Global Illumination’ was optimized numerous times but in the end, it was only applied on X model. It is hard to control memory usage especially for MMO with a large number of players and seamless world, so the memory available on the X model has been great.

Is there a specific reason why the game is not coming on the PS4 along with the Xbox One version?

We felt it would be too difficult to develop both at the same time at the quality we want to deliver.

"Development efficiency improved on current console architecture generation, so I expect the new versions to have better performance without big change on architecture. If this can help with backward compatibility, I think creating a game on console platform will be more efficient."

Next gen is coming sooner or later. From a development perspective, what is your biggest expectation from PS5 and Xbox Scarlett?

Development efficiency improved on current console architecture generation, so I expect the new versions to have better performance without big change on architecture. If this can help with backward compatibility, I think creating a game on console platform will be more efficient. Obviously, it will be great if the performance improves but I particularly expect the improvement on clock rate of CPU. Many cores will be a great help for parallel processing, however to solve work which can’t be divided, the clock rate should be higher. The last thing what I really hope to see is an attached solid state hard drive.  We are spending a lot of time reducing loading time.