Blue Protocol — hands on with an Anime come to life at Summer Game Fest 2023

When I saw the trailer for Blue Protocol I knew it was going to eat my time like a bowl of candy. I recently got to check it out at Summer Game Fest, running a quick dungeon with other members of the gaming press. While it’s a challenge to pack everything an MMO can do into a short 30 minute demo, the taste we got showed a lot of promise. From the wonderful character creator to the chaotic combat, it’s clear that developer Project Sky Blue and Amazon Games have something special on their hands.

More than just an MMO, Blue Protocol is an action-heavy reaction-based combat adventure set in the world of Regnas. If you take one look at the character creator and sample dungeon below, it’s every bit an Anime come to life.

While the story is still a bit of a mystery (and that intro above isn’t going to shed a whole lot of light on it), we did get an overview of the five classes that’ll be available at launch. I say “at launch” as the developers were clear that they intend to expand this roster over time. They also wanted to make it clear that these are soft jobs, with each class able to perform the functions of the others, though they do have advantages afforded by their job.

The first class is the Blade Warden. This is the melee class of Blue Protocol, wielding a sword and shield and engaging at close range. Next up is the Foe Breaker – a heavy DPS character, able to dish out massive amounts of damage with a huge hammer that can also transform into a cannon! The Twin Striker is your fast-paced dual-wielding, hatchet-slinging melee class, traversing the battlefield at speed and putting a lot of hurt on foes very quickly. Next up is the Keen Strider. This class is primarily an archer, able to dish out damage rapidly and at a distance, though as we discussed earlier, they can easily engage at close distance, albeit not as well as a Blade Warden. The final class for launch is the Spell Weaver – your elemental mage, able to throw fire, ice, and lightning.

Each one of the classes we played had a mechanic to charge up secondary attacks, as well as a handful of massive primary attacks. All of these moves had varied cooldowns, though chaining them can often lead to faster cooldowns. These attacks also often compliment one another, with the elemental attacks being the most obvious. When partnered up for our dungeon crawl, you can see these chain attacks and power-synergies popping off routinely, especially against larger foes.

During our dungeon crawl we got to see a number of mechanics in action. My Spell Weaver could hold down their elemental attack button, charging it to a second level before unleashing it. I could also send out a massive beast bound to my 1 key to charge through the crowd, doing a lot of damage but more importantly stunning them in place. Juggling my four attack powers, as well as the two beast-based attacks, is a delicate but simple chain. It’s easy to pick up and a challenge to master. The last attack is the tab key, and that’s bound to my ultimate attack. With an anime-style flourish (complete with close-up), my character would charge up and then drop meteors and a massive wall of fire directly on my enemies. Any but the most stalwart of foes would perish immediately, though this attack has a rather lengthy cooldown to keep you honest.

What struck me most about Blue Protocol was the great amount of accessibility. With only a few minutes to familiarize myself with my chosen class (after I spent an inordinate amount of time with character customization – there’s SO much to choose from!) I was able to join the raid and be very effective in no time at all. That’s not to say the game isn’t complex – it very much is, but the team at Project Sky Blue have worked very hard on the UX/UI to make it easy to understand. I always had a very clear understanding of what attacks I should use and when, and I never had trouble figuring out my role in the battle.

We didn’t get into a few last bits of info I wanted to bring to you, namely how this free-to-play game would utilize cosmetics to further additional development, or anything approaching a release date (the current estimate is “sometime in 2024”), but based on the fantastic work Amazon has put into bringing their other Asian-market products such as Lost Ark, or their own games like New World and several upcoming gems like Tomb Raider, it’s clear that they have a solid strategy for their games division.

I came away from my short time with Blue Protocol knowing that this game is going to be a huge hit with anime fans and combat aficionados alike. Enjoy my dungeon run above, and look for our continued coverage as we head further into 2023.

Blue Protocol is headed to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC sometime in 2024.

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