NARAKA: BLADEPOINT in brief: an interview with the dev team

NARAKA: BLADEPOINT has gone through several beta sessions by now, with a global release set for Summer 2021. Another one is planned for June, with adjustments for characters and weapons briefly touched upon, alongside reveals and teasers for upcoming content. For the unfamiliar, here’s an overview of the game as given on its Steam Store Page:

NARAKA: BLADEPOINT is a 60-player action Battle Royale offering players insane mobility powered by parkour and grappling hook, a vast arsenal of melee and ranged weapons, and a roaster of characters with powerful abilities—transform yourself into a gigantic Vajra Warrior and crush your enemies!

We briefly interview the devs about their ongoing work on NARAKA: BLADEPOINT.

The beta builds have naturally evolved over the course of time, starting out with only three melee weapons for players to choose from. The fourth will be coming soon in the June beta, with the Three-section Staff, Shield & Axe and Dagger options being considered for the fifth. They also want to know what you, the players, think would be your most favourite melee weapon. Perhaps the one with the most votes will get implemented first, who can say?

With NARAKA being a 60-player battle royale, balancing will be another one of those important touchstones. Thanks to the beta tests, it’s how the dev team can work on balance issues in a live gameplay environment. They assure they are going through the data and feedback, with some of the upcoming changes revealed in their latest blog post; it previews the tweaks to heroes Temulch and Tarka Ji, as well as the Pistol, besides additions or revisions for SoulJades and finer things with regards to realism. In answering our questions, the team also mention the optimizations for the Long Sword and Counter.

They don’t reveal the nature of the two new maps coming to the beta, but they will be working on other game modes. No specifics were provided for these game modes either, unfortunately, so we’d have to wait with the rest of you. With regards to content updates, the team pretty much confirm updates will roll out seasonally. The exact length of a season is not fixed yet, but you can expect one to last for roughly three months. Seasons will also be accompanied by a season pass. These passes typically mean cosmetics in most other titles, in which case the dev team expects to stick to its traditional theme for now. No swimsuits for summer just yet?

That’s about all the time the devs had for our interview regarding NARAKA: BLADEPOINT. The game is slated for that global release summer 2021 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and of course, PC. They have an upcoming showcase at E3 on 13 June, so expect more information then!

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