Today Bandai Namco hosted an extensive livestream about its upcoming MMORPG Blue Protocol, sharing some interesting details about the business model and future updates.
It's worth mentioning that all the details about the business model are related to the upcoming Japanese release. At the moment, we have no idea whether Amazon Games will keep the same system when the game releases in the West.
The main currency is the Rose Orb, which can be obtained for free and purchased. The price goes from 100 yen ($0.72 at the current exchange rate) for 10 orbs to 10,000 yen ($72) for 1,550. The three discounted bundles you see in the second row can be purchased only once per account.
A release commemorative pack priced at 500 Rose Orbs will include underwear, accessories, a mount, and some consumables. A Beginner's Pack priced at 110 Rose Orb will come with glasses, consumables, and stamps.
Below you can see costumes, mounts, accessories, stamps, emotes, and consumables and their price. If you're wondering, the price is indicated near the Rose Orb (red sphere) icon.
Of course, the game will have its own gacha, and below you can see gacha banners dedicated to costumes and mounts. You can pull by using Rose Orbs or tickets you can acquire by completing content.
Costume banners are separated by gender and if you draw 10 times you get an emote. If you pull 10 times from the mount gacha, you get a fairy wing accessory.
A very interesting system has been created for duplicates. If you draw an item you already have you can send it to another character on the same account, gift it to a friend, or exchange it for BP Points.
BP Points can be exchanged in their own store for a variety of items including costumes, mounts, accessories, and Battle Imagines (abilities that can be used in combat with a variety of effects).
There is a free Battle Pass and two paid tiers, one costing 180 and the other costing 550 Rose Orbs. They include a bunch of rewards like costumes, emotes, gacha tickets, Battle Imagines, Rose Orbs, Weapon Skin tickets, BP points, and more. You can also get a discount on the following battle passes.
A Season Store is also available, requiring a certain rank to use, including more costumes, accessories, and more.
Moving on to upcoming updates, we learn that some raid missions are permanent, while some are temporary and swapped out with each update. Smaller updates will come each month, while major updates will come less often, with big ones in October 2023 and February 2024. These will include a new chapter of the story and new areas.
The update in July will include a summer celebration (which has just been teased with a blurry image), the ability to freely explore a rainy forest area, and more.
While the first large update is coming in October, August will also get a relatively big addition in the form of a new class, the Blitz Lancer (as a reminder, we don't know whether Amazon will change this name for the west as they have done with some others because... reasons).
As the name implies it's a spear user based on agility and speed with the ability to "mark" targets for other players.
The end of the livestream (which you can see below) included gameplay showcasing the desert area that will come at release, a Score Attack match, a look at emotes (including the ability to hold hands with other players), and more. You can see this starting at the 1:51:00 mark.
Incidentally, below you can also watch a new trailer featuring the photo mode following another focusing on various locations of the world, one showcasing the playable classes, another focusing on the powerful character creation tools, one showing off the costumes you can use to create your favorite anime-style look, and one showcasing emotes and stamps.
If you're unfamiliar with Blue Protocol, it's a free-to-play anime-style MMORPG with a business model focusing on battle passes and paid cosmetics. It'll be released in Japan on June 14th, 2023 for PC.
It features an extremely deep character customization suite designed to let players basically create their ideal anime-style character, on top of fast action combat and interesting character progression and storytelling.
It’s developed by a team named Project Blue Sky, which is a joint initiative of Bandai Namco Online and Bandai Namco Studios, and it was announced all the way back in 2019. Three beta tests have already been hosted for the Japanese audience, which has received the gameplay quite well.
The western release was announced in December 2022 during The Game Awards and is coming in 2024 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S following a recent delay. It will be published by Amazon Games, which is planning a beta for 2023 on PC.
While we wait, you can enjoy the impressive character creation and benchmark software, some recent gameplay, and the opening cutscene featuring the song "Mirai" by the popular Japanese band L'Arc-en-Ciel.
