⌖ Moonlight Blade is releasing in North America and Europe in English in the (near?) future. Here are my thoughts along with the news of the announcement, or lack thereof. Watch Moonlight Blade channels streaming live on Twitch. Sign up or login to join the community and follow your favorite Moonlight Blade streamers!

One thing that really, really entices me about MMOs is their character creation.You can’t say you don’t spend hours trying to craft the perfect character. That’d be a lie. I spend a while, granted, but my wife. Don’t even get me started on her. She gets ready to go out faster than she creates a character, and man.Now the character models in Moonlight Blade are absolutely gorgeous, and the game gives you a lot of options to choose between when crafting your masterpiece.You’re given quite a large selection of hairstyles to choose between, and a character creator tool similar to Black Desert.You have the ability to grab each piece of your characters face and drag it around until you’re comfortable with what you’ve done.However, you don’t have the ability to craft the body the same way. Character creation only allows the customization of your characters face, not the entire body.Which is fine – trust me, you can do so much with your characters’ face that it’s probably one of my favorite facial customizers in an MMO outside of Black Desert.

Combat is a strange beast to tackle.You have the ability to make it action combat or semi tab-target combat.The action combat still locks on to a specific target, but you’re not required to be within attacking range like tab-target games. So while technically action combat, it’s unusual to still require a target.Tab-target mode though allows you to fight like you would in a more traditional combat style, while giving you access to large AoEs that hit multiple targets at once, making it semi-action oriented.All in all, the combat is definitely strange, as it’s neither action combat nor is it tab-target. Opting to offer the option for either, and not allowing either in its true form is an.

Interesting route to take. I will preface this with a warning that I may very well butcher the pronunciation of these class names.They are not basic sounding classes like “Warrior” or “Priest”, so I apologize in advance.Now, there are a large variety of classes in Moonlight Blade to choose from.

You have the Zhenwu, Taibai, Tangmen, Begger Sect, Shenwei, Tianxiang, Shendao, and finally, the Wudu.Each of them offer a vastly different playstyle than the other; something I often find lacking between classes in MMOs.I can’t stress enough how irrirating it is seeing something like “Warrior, Berserker, Guardian, Paladin, Lancer” all essentially being the same damn thing, minus their weapon of choice. Unfortunately, even though I’m part Chinese, I understand literally nothing of it.I can speak like. Two words in Chinese, that’s it. Don’t get me started on attempting to read it though. That shit looks some kinda alien hieroglyphic to me.But, the game is very story-heavy. Every zone I went to, every hub I went to, every town or city I went to had some backstory to it and that is minus the main scenario.The main scenario is the main driving force behind everything you do in the game.

There are so, so many important NPCs involved in your story that it became a little daunting just attempting to keep up with who was good, bad, or even if I’d seen them before.Which isn’t a bad thing.I love story in my games, and the fact that there is so much in this game gives me high expectations for its Western release.Unfortunately, though. With how often translations of Eastern MMORPGs turn out well, my expectations for even a semi-comprehensible story is low. Graphically, Moonlight Blade looks beautiful.It isn’t a fantasy themed MMORPG but that doesn’t mean the world the game is set in is anything other than gorgeous.From the huge forests, to the large valleys, to the giant mountains you get to scale and fly over.I haven’t ever seen scenery this expansive nor breathtaking in an MMO before.Then the character models, the outfits your character progresses through.

Everything is so detailed, right down to the individual strands of material.Outside of Black Desert Online, I would dare say that there isn’t an MMORPG at this point in time capable of matching Moonlight Blade, graphically. Moonlight Blade has the largest game-world I’ve probably ever seen.It is huge. Absolutely, insanely huge.

The fact that when I mounted up to get from one quest hub to another it actually took minutes – and how little over the map I moved, was just ridiculous.How you travel the world is comparable to Revelation Online. Mounted, flying. Regardless of the mode of travel, the world is large, open and filled with content.I honestly don’t see the English team finding this an easy task to translate completely. With such a large world to explore, you’re no doubt wondering about all the varied options you have for PvE activities, am I right?Dungeons – Traditional dungeons that you group together for.Raids – Traditional raids that require you form a larger party and tackle much more difficult encounters.Questing – Like most MMORPGs, Moonlight Blade offers both the main scenario and side quests to tackle. The main scenario is quite expansive, and there are side quests seemingly around every corner.And. Outside of that I honestly cannot say what will or will not make it through in the official English release of Moonlight Blade. But as of right now, these are at least the PvE activities that are confirmed.

PvP in Moonlight Blade functions similarly to World of Warcraft. Like the Horde and Alliance in WoW, Moonlight Blade has 4 distinct factions each with their own differing storylines.Like in Blade and Soul, you can only join a guild of the same faction. So keep that in mind when choosing.There are two separate modes to participate in: Instanced PvP like arena matches between a small group of people, and Open World PvP.So if you’re a fan of exclusively instanced-based PvP, I assure you that you’re going to get ganked in the open world. You find those ass-hats everywhere and this will be no different. Especially when three other factions are capable of killing you.

Overview Moonlight Blade OverviewMoonlight Blade is an upcoming wuxia MMORPG set in ancient China with distinct RPG features. Explore an enormous world 18 times bigger than Skyrim, and constructed with the aid of movie makers to create a cinematic combat experience. Create your character, choosing from 8 clans—from spear-wielding Shenwei to poison-assassin Five Venoms. Earn experience by questing, completing daily role-playing quests, or meditating under an instructor.

Or, explore the world and discover Inspiration Points, allotting experience to zealous adventurers. Use Qing Gong skills to travel freely across the world—jumping, gliding, and soaring between destinations. An active combat system allows players to dodge attacks, and renegotiate their position using Qing Gong. Defend effectively and chain combos to deal devastating damage. System Requirements Moonlight Blade System RequirementsMinimum Requirements:Operating System: Windows 7 64 bitProcessor: Pentium4 2.0Ghz or similarGraphics Card: GGeForce 6600 or aboveRam: 2 GBRecommended Requirements:Operating System: Windows 7 64 bitProcessor: Core E8400 3.0Ghz or aboveGraphics Card: GeForce 9800GT or aboveRam: 4 GBOfficial system requirements have not yet been released for Moonlight Blade. The requirements above our based on our experience and will be updated when official numbers become available.

Additional Info Moonlight Blade Additional InformationDeveloper: Tencent GamesEngine: Quick-silverClosed Beta: July 01, 2014 (CN)Open Beta: July 01, 2015 (CN)Development History / Background:Moonlight Blade is developed by Chinese development company Tencent Games and published through its game portal QQ Games. The game was revealed at the 2012 Tencent Game Carnival.

It is the first martial arts MMORPG to support DirectX11. Moonlight Blade entered open beta on July 01, 2015 and it is not region-locked, making it available globally.