Bloodline Champions just launched a few weeks ago, so Senior Staff Writer Chris "Pwyff" Tom donned his competitive helmet once more to check out all that this arena-based game has to offer.

In other areas of development, Stunlock Studios has been fairly good at keeping up with industry expectations. For a competitive game, BLC was wise to feature a ranked matchmaking system out the door, in addition to team-based ranked matches. Players can also judge the abilities of their teammates easily through BLC's 'player rating' system, which operates independently of win-loss ratio and, instead, depends upon an averaging a player's game statistics, like healing done, damage done, damage taken, etc.

If you bundle all of this up and place it in direct comparison to my preview experiences with BLC in closed beta, I cannot stress just how impressed I am with how far this game has come; server stability has been great for me thus far and, although I'm not sure if this is the result of Funcom's publishing agreement with Stunlock Studios, I also have to give credit to Funcom for at least seeing the great potential that this game, and this studio, has for growth. Potential, however, is a great word to use here, because I do feel that there is much more that can be done to make Bloodline Champions soar. It's not to say that the game is 'lacking,' because BLC is, at this moment, a solid addition to any competitive gamer's rotation, I just happen to see more opportunities for growth.

For example, while the addition of four new bloodlines is great for keeping player interest high (I'm a particularly avid fan of the Guardian), I would love to see more depth and customization being added for already existing bloodlines. By this, I don't mean more character skins and weapon skins (although I really wouldn't mind that), but something like the addition of unique modifiers that subtly change how a bloodline plays (obviously achievable only through in-game earned currency), like dealing less damage but being slightly faster, or being able to specify which two skills would be available in "EX" mode, are all additions that would keep me coming back. While it's one thing to become better and better at a specific bloodline, I would love having a more 'objective' form of growth.

Ultimately, Bloodline Champions is definitely a game you need to check out, if just to appreciate the solid innovation that went into it. It's probably not worth the hefty $89.99 for the 'Titan' edition, unless you really want to check out those four new bloodlines out the gate and you're a staunch supporter of Stunlock Studios, but I can wholeheartedly say that this is a game worth supporting. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what comes next.