Anime MMOs are the hot new thing, thanks in large part to HoYoverse’s international success with Genshin Impact and, more recently, Honkai Star Rail. Bandai Namco normally makes a name for itself in this space with the single-player Tales of series, but the Tokyo-based company recently launched Blue Protocol, its own anime MMO. Unlike with some of the studio’s previous games, the days of Bandai Namco RPGs never leaving Japan are, it seems, well and truly over. Amazon Games is bringing it to North America and Europe sometime in 2023.
“Bandai Namco has a very particular vision it wants for the game and it comes through the art style, it comes through the gameplay, and they want to make sure that it reaches that mass market,” Amazon Game Studios’ franchise leader Mike Zadorojny tells us.
We had a chance to go hands-on with Blue Protocol and came away impressed with the potential of its world and storytelling.
It feels like a fully-fledged, big-budget Bandai Namco RPG out of the gate – no half-measures. Blue Protocol kicks off with a lengthy anime music video, like what you’d find in a Tales game, full of lingering shots of characters and what look like important locations.
“I think the big difference is it’s not just a game, it’s an IP,” Zadorojny says. “The experience is great. You get in there, it sets the tone and sets the stage for everything. But what else can we do with it? I think that’s the question that we’ll be answering over the next few years.”
Zadorojny stopped short of saying whether Amazon and Bandai have plans for a Blue Protocol anime, but given the volume of video game adaptations on TV, we wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen.
That’s a long way down the road, though. The Blue Protocol game has to prove itself first, and if what we played is any indication, that shouldn’t be too hard.
Blue Protocol is an action MMORPG, and we were able to see some of the battle system’s complexities when we entered a dungeon with five other players.
The party has the usual range of classes you’d expect in an MMO, including healers and tanks. Even though we were all newbies with just minutes to prepare in advance, each player was pulling off snazzy combos and smashing down huge monsters like it was second nature.
The dungeon itself was a bit less flashy. The one we experienced was linear, with frequent stops where we were forced to eliminate a certain number of monsters before moving on. In this dungeon at least, the focus is very clearly on combat instead of puzzles, and there were even opportunities to come up with some strategies and enemy placements to make the most of our combined efforts.
For example, some areas have enemies on high platforms that you can bring down with explosives, while others let you sneak up and shove foes off a cliff and avoid battle altogether.
Combat is all well and good, but an RPG needs a strong story to carve a place for itself as well. Zadorojny said Bandai and Amazon are committed to building an impressive narrative for Blue Protocol, one that stretches well beyond its launch version. Like most live service games, Blue Protocol will unfold in segments over time as new updates roll out.
Central to the plot are those characters you see in the initial opening cinematic. Your own hero is one you create yourself, but the supporting cast sticks with you throughout the journey, helping you understand the world and your place in it – though, admittedly, we didn’t get to see much of that.
We’ll have to wait a while longer to find out more about Blue Protocol’s world and the people who call it home, but for now, you can sign up to be a beta tester for the Western version of the game now on the Blue Protocol website.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF.
