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My first impression of Blue Protocol, a free-to-play MMO from Bandai Namco and Amazon Games that's headed West next year, comes with a disclaimer: I'm usually not an MMORPG person.
I've sampled quite a few of the best MMOs, but outside Destiny 2 as an adult and Runescape as a teen, usually only in bursts, often while treating them like single-player games wherever possible. This is actually why I was interested in Blue Protocol to begin with. It does seem to have the grindy bones of an MMO you could turn into a lifestyle game if that's your bag, but to my delight, it also seems like a fun and free JRPG unabashedly infused with the energy and style of games like Bandai's Tails series.
I was able to squeeze in about 35 minutes with Blue Protocol in the Amazon Games booth at this year's Summer Game Fest, and it was one of the most hectic demos I've experienced in the 10 years I've been writing about games. MMOs are notoriously hard to preview because a quick bite of a vertical slice cannot possibly teach you everything about the gameplay loop, the end game grind, and so on, and that was certainly the case here.
I barely had time to breathe as I shuffled around different activities on a virtual tour. There's still quite a lot I'd like to know, though input from one lead dev helped clear up a few things. But if you only take one thing away from this preview, let it be this: I want to play more of Blue Protocol after sampling it.
New World
As I inevitably do in MMOs, I started by trying to make a cute avatar based on a character from one of the best anime games – in this case, Kisara from Tales of Arise, partly because she's a great tank and I knew from minute one that I'd be playing the class with a shield. As I'll explain later, I did not regret this choice of class. Blue Protocol's character creator is fairly basic, a far cry from anime boutiques like Code Vein, but it gets the job done and I quickly ended up with a likable look.
I liked my character even more after seeing them in the introductory animated cutscene, which is an impressive match for the lavish anime shorts sprinkled over the game. Bandai's role in Blue Protocol is clearest in its visuals, from the overall style to specific character designs. Everyone accessorizes and the world is lush and vibrant.
Unfortunately, I only got about 90-seconds to take in that world before I was shepherded into a six-player dungeon for the bulk of my session. The world looked nice! I want to see more of it! But combat was the focus of my Blue Protocol preview, and I can't really complain because it seems pretty good.
Combat is king
Blue Protocol is a third-person action game, not a tab-target MMO. You'll dodge, block, parry, and chain combos together as you would in other Bandai games – check out our Code Vein review or Scarlet Nexus review if you're after a clearer picture. Blue Protocol has five classes at the time of writing, with a promising, lance-wielding sixth coming in the not-too-distant future. The Keen Strider is an archer, Twin Striker is a dual-wielding melee unit, Spell Weaver's the mage of the group, Foe Breaker uses a hard-hitting hammer, and Blade Warden packs a sword-and-shield.
Like Final Fantasy 14, classes are tied to weapons and there's no need to level multiple characters; you can swap classes whenever you're outside big combat zones. Crafting stronger weapons is central to Blue Protocol's progression, and as I understand it, that grind can get quite long if you want it to, with a whole lot of mob farming on the way.
Interestingly, I'm told that these classes deliberately skirt around the classic triangle of DPS, healers, and tanks by giving every class some flexibility through two creature summons, four active skills, class-agnostic passive abilities, and itemization that can be adjusted to play more offensively or supportively. My default demo Blade Warden was geared for defense with lots of blocking abilities that could shield my teammates, and these actually came into play in a meaningful way even in a beginner dungeon.
I asked franchise lead Mike Zadorojny about my personal acid test for MMO classes: babies and babysitters. For those who don't yet subscribe to this theory, just know that DPS classes are babies and supports babysit them. Humoring me, he explains that some of Blue Protocol's babysitters can equip abilities to resurrect allies faster or, as I was while playing Blade Warden, take damage for teammates. You can skew more defensively, but I get the impression that everyone is a DPS on some level, which makes sense for this kind of action system.
I was only able to properly play Blade Warden for about 20 minutes, but despite that I still had a good time. Attacks look and feel powerful, and it didn't take long for me to start chaining abilities together and stacking up the party chain meter. Charge in with a shield bash, time a stun to interrupt an enemy attack, pop two cooldowns for burst damage, and then fire a pocketed ultimate to heal up. Facing a bunch of enemy mage attacks, I'd set up a big shield of light to let the archers behind me attack uninterrupted. Look at me, being a good babysitter.
To my surprise, the Blade Warden also has a proper parry built in, and after swatting a fireball away with a flick of my wrist, I was overjoyed with my choice of class. I'm a sucker for parries in action games, and I speak with experience when I say it's rare for an MMO to pull off a good one. There's also some added depth in basic attacks. If you time a directional input just right, you can put a spin on the angle of your character's swing or cause them to move just enough to dodge an enemy AoE marker without breaking your flow. The final boss of my dungeon was a lame boar with a bunch of HP, but slashing it was satisfying at least. Blue Protocol has a remarkably robust action system for a free game that seems to be pretty big.
It's clear you're going to farm A Lot of mobs in Blue Protocol, from 30-player world bosses to six-player raids and time attacks, so I suppose killing them had better be fun. My demo was encouraging on that front. My hope is that the 2024 launch takes me back to the Tales of Berseria days of turning my brain off and just comboing the daylights out of some dudes for a few hours to unwind, now in a stunning colorful world and sometimes with the company of some other players.
The question now is whether free-to-play MMO baggage like gacha cosmetics and a premium battle pass will somehow get in the way of that fun. I'm told the devs are still evaluating systems like these in the context of the game's Western release, so I don't know what to expect there. In any case, my hopes for Blue Protocol as a JRPG vacation spot are still alive, and that's good news for now.
Blue Protocol was one of the new games of 2023 that we were keeping a close eye on, although it was delayed to 2024 in the US and UK back in May. Bandai Namco and Amazon Games is now targeting a 2024 release window for its action-MMORPG, where it will launch on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X.
