https://steamcommunity.com/games/681660/announcements/detail/1597003298501799444
Color me surprised… NOT. I mentioned this early last year along with how “realistically unoptimistic” I was about the game; more so once they announced their founders pack pricing with a ridiculously priced collectors edition and then when Neowiz’ other subsidiary studio announced a completely new Bless title for Xbox One that would be published by Bandai Namco (with all the stops pulled out to ensure it was a completely separate game based on the Bless IP).
The surefire telegraph however was when NBS announced the Korean service would be shutting down. None of these Korean studios have any incentive to work hard on a title for regions deployed outside of the country once the service has been shuttered domestically.
Then most recently in April of this year, the corporate reorganization was an early heads up with regards to the Steam version being on borrowed time.
Another buy-2-play converted failure is Warlords Awakening which will be shutting down at the end of this month. And this is what gives me HUGE pause with Astellia Online (another F2P title in Korea that is being released as a B2P in the west) where I have doubts the Korean service will last through 2020.
Neowiz isn’t exactly dumb; they had their other subsidiary create a “new” Bless game for console (Xbox One) and IF they designed it correctly (basing it on Microsoft’s Unified Windows Platform API’s), can eventually target PC’s (running Windows 10). Console has a totally different demographic that doesn’t pay attention to a lot of what is happening on other platforms. Many Xbox One players will never know that the predecessor of Bless Unleashed was shutdown on PC for example. While it will be F2P on console, they will try to monetize the hell out of it. My point is that I would not be surprised to see Bless Unleashed eventually launched on PC once enough time has passed for the sting from the closure of Bless Online to have passed. Caveat Emptor applies here.
