At the Neowiz business booth, nestled among the many exhibitors at G-Star Korea, I sat down with lead producer Jacob Han to talk about the eye-widening visual feast that is Bless, an MMO currently in production.

Having already spent hands on time with the game itself, I was overflowing with questions for Han and though our time was limited – believe me, I went well over the allotted time, I’m such a cad – a number of very interesting details emerged from our conversation.

As you know from my previous article – haven’t seen it? Go here now! – I had the rather wonderful opportunity to go to G-Star, Korea in order to get my hands on Bless.

Early trailers had produced quite a bit of salivation due to the sheer quality of design and graphical intensity displayed therein. So this past week I found myself on the G-Star conference floor jumping into the battle between the nations of Hieron and Unión, the two factions in Bless.

Just to clarify, all of the images contained within this article are screenshots I took while playing the game, none of them were provided from NEOWIZ’s stock catalogue.

What I saw while playing is what you will see in the images, except where I crop as the page just isn't big enough to fit everything in.

Honestly I don't know if seeing this in English would make this any more cool - Bless Online's intro trailer is entirely in Korean, but it's still very stylish and fancy, and I have to admit the armor designs make my fantasy writer side smile in excitement.

Julian "Mirai" Williams

If you've seen any of the trailers for Bless — the one below, for example — it's difficult to think of any title currently on the market that looks quite the same. As the head of NeoWiz's American office was keen to remind us, all of the footage shown in the trailers and screenshots are rendered with the in-game engine.

I was in attendance at a presentation conducted by NEOWIZ in beautiful Busan, South Korea where my bulging eyes were greeted by a stunning display of the modified Unreal 3 engine at work. To add a little meat to the elegantly crafted bones, we were given details of what we can expect from Bless, which is still early in development.

There will be 10 races to choose from by launch, but the standout so far has to be the Pantera. Making the Thundercats look flea-bitten, these massive feline creatures are tremendously cool down to every follicle of their fur — which you swear you can see individually at times.

I'll say this much about Bless Online - it's gorgeous. And now, with G-Star in Korea going on, more and more details are coming out for gameplay and...it's still gorgeous. The animations are all solid, the combat indicators are very clear, and the spell effects are great. There's not a huge amount of information as of yet, but I want to try it for the presentation alone.

Here for you now is a solid 24 minute block of video showing the travel system, some of the open world, and the core gameplay. Bon appetite!

Julian "Mirai" Williams

With a flair for the dramatic and gorgeous, the new Bless trailer shows off some impressive cutscenes, some pseudo-gameplay, and lots and lots of gorgeous boss battles. Minotaurs with axes, gargoyles, demons, trolls, worgs, whatever your flavor of big bad. And when I say 'big,' I mean, goddamn, because they are huge. Neowiz's big new title looks very impressive, and I'm eagerly waiting for more details to surface

Julian "Mirai" Williams

Well what's this now?

Neowiz, F2P Korean MMO giant, has just unveiled a new teaser and website for upcoming game Bless Online, with a handful of character images, details, and maps, as snagged by Steparu.com. Running on the Unreal 3 engine, and featuring eight classes to choose from, this game has a lot of potential, even if our information on it is slim. 

But not for long! Our very own EIC, Scott Hawkes, is heading to Korea for G-Star next week, where he'll be able to give us more details on the game (if you ask nicely)!

Julian "Mirai" Williams