The cult-hit browser game Blaseball is making a triumphant return after a long hiatus, and fans couldn't be happier. Although it appears on the surface to be a typical sports simulation game, Blaseball is a game full of surreal plot twists and absurd mechanics. With so much storied history, players looking to foray into Blaseball for the first time with its upcoming season may be intimidated by how much there is to learn - here's a breakdown of the biggest Blaseball takeaways.
Blaseball does feature some of the typical mechanics of a normal fantasy sports game, allowing players to place bets on their favorite team, but most of the game is much more absurd than that. For starters, Blaseball is categorized as a "splort," and in the last season the ILB - the Internet Blaseball League - consisted of 24 teams split into two Leagues: Wild and Mild. Each game has a variety of strange weather conditions that can affect it, like Salmon, Glitter, and Blooddrain. In the original run of Blaseball, each player has various attributes like Ruthlessness, Anticapitalism, and Thwackability that impacted their performance and star rating. However, in a recent interview with Blaseball developers, it was stated that stats are slated to change - into what is currently unknown, but the new attributes will likely be just as silly.
Blaseball - Eras, Seasons, & Blessings Explained
Blaseball's history is divided into different Eras, each consisting of multiple ILB seasons. Previously, each season lasted a week's time, with matches taking place every hour on the game's website. Each season, players have different things they can vote for and spend their winnings on, with the ability to enact Decrees, Blessings, and after season 12, Wills were introduced for Elections as well. Blessings are bonuses given to specific team members, while Decrees are large-scale rule changes, and Wills are quite similar to Blessings, but often with more chaotic consequences.
It's nearly impossible to summarize every single interesting event that's ever happened throughout the game's 24 seasons, because the surreal horror of Blaseball is nearly infinite. With games happening every hour, and strange occurrences taking place during each one, Blaseball has accumlated an incredibly storied history. However, there have been some especially standout Blaseball moments that are worth noting - some because of their impact, and some simply because of how strange they are.
Blaseball began with the Discipline Era, which encompassed seasons one through 11. Almost immediately, one of the first things players voted for was to open The Forbidden Book, which would alter the course of Blaseball forever. Soon after the book was opened, fatalities started to occur as players began being incinerated by umpires during games. Notably, the first fatality was Seattle Garages player Jaylen Hotdogfingers, who was then brought back to life in season six after fans exploited a Blessing that allowed the 14th-most Idolized player to be stolen by a team - one of the first unexpected player-organized events.
A Short History Of Blaseball Lore & Events
Idolized players as a mechanic has caused many interesting Blaseball events, including a Peanut God unleashing its wrath on players throughout all teams. Beginning in season three, players could choose to Idolize a player and earn coins whenever they achieved something like a home run. An entity named The Shelled One requested that certain players be idolized, and when players didn't obey their orders, team members soon found themselves entombed in peanut shells. The Shelled One is one of many mysterious entities to come into Blaseball over the years - others include a giant squid called The Monitor, who among other jobs is the custodian of incinerated player museum The Hall of Flame, The Microphone, whose contributions include the weather type Feedback which can cause players to switch teams, and The Reader, who offered Tarot card readings until season 19.
Blaseball continued to eschew the typical norms of a baseball sim like MLB: The Show as it entered its Expansion Era. It was previously announced that the first team to win three championships would Ascend - but it was unclear what that meant. This team was the Baltimore Crabs, and their Ascension was quickly followed by a Descension that caused much instability within the Blaseball universe, including an event called The Rift that led to an event called The Second Wyatt Masoning, where 14 players all named Wyatt Mason came through The Rift to join the game. The first Wyatt Masoning had occurred several seasons before, when the entire roster of the LA Unlimited Tacos team was filled with players name Wyatt Mason.
The Descension of the Baltimore Crabs also triggered the Flooding Crisis. The weather type known as Flooding not only removes all players from the bases, but has the chance to bring players to the mysteriously titled Elsewhere. Players would typically take multiple in-game weeks to return to the bizarre browser game and could return with the status effect Scattered, meaning they were missing letters from their name and no longer had any of the Vibes stat. As the Era continued, players also began to disappear from their teams after earning the attribute Redacted, a mystery that has never fully been solved.
What You Should Know About Blaseball Teams
Although there are many amazingly-named teams for Blaseball players to choose from, some have been more successful over the game's history than others. Teams like the Baltimore Crabs, Canada Moist Talkers, Hellmouth Sunbeams, and Core Mechanics have all seen multiple championship wins. Conversely, teams like the New York Millenials, Ohio Worms, and Boston Flowers have never seen a championship victory.
Although all of Blaseball's backstory is strange, some of the weirdest in-game lore is how season 24 ended: with a weather condition called Black Hole (Black Hole) nullifying every team and in turn Blaseball itself. Now, a year later, an event called Fall Ball that began last week means that the players previously sucked into the Black Hole (Black Hole) will begin falling out. However, developers have stated that while the teams themselves will be back, the specific players that will return are currently a mystery. Fall Ball is the precursor to a brand-new Blaseball Era, and developers seem intent on making it the strangest one yet.
As Blaseball welcomes a new Era, it will also welcome a slew of new players who were perhaps intrigued by the game's original run, but didn't get into it before it ended. Although Blaseball has a large amount of lore most new players don't know, developers are trying to make this new Era more accessible than ever before, a goal that will be helped in part by the upcoming release of a Blaseball mobile app, which will offer a whole new way to play. Although it's largely unknown what the future of Blaseball will hold, one thing's for certain: It's going to get weird.