Pay-to-play MMO Black Desert Online will be releasing come March 3rd, and they’ve announced another beta test will be running from February 18th through the 22nd. If you’re unfamiliar, Black Desert is the one with the ludicrously robust character creator that Fraser spent a day making horrors with. Once you’re into the game, it’s action-focused combat and world-destroying stakes, with an awful lot of windows to sort through.
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Here’s their latest trailer, which oddly decides for a light soundtrack instead of, y’know, any of the dialogue the characters are clearly saying:
MMO trailers: for when you think you’ve seen it all. Not too impressive, really, and given there’s no way to pick the game up for free they might have a problem attracting players in the highly competitive market. You can sign up for non-guaranteed access to the beta on the official site. As a buy-to-play game using the Guild Wars 2 model of box purchase, no subscription but cosmetic micro-transaction store, you can also pre-order it at the two higher levels to gain access.
Those deals on various extras will also only be running until February 26th, so that’s how long you’ve got to grab them if you’ve already decided it’s for you. Meanwhile, they’re running a competition on their website to create the ugliest possible character with their creator. Rewards include some in-game currency, beta access, a t-shirt and a large figurine. Even if you just want to mess about with it, the character creator is completely free.
I’m interested to see how Black Desert Online does, especially in the wake of Blade & Soul’s fairly immense popularity. It’s releasing under a different model at a very competitive time of year – there’s no way I’m going to have time for it – but there’s clearly still life in the ol’ MMO horse yet. Every time I read the name I am expecting it to be a game about oil reserves, though.