NARAKA: BLADEPOINT, developed by 24 Entertainment, is a battle royale with a focus on speed, fluidity, and customizatio. It stands out among large competitors such as Apex Legends, due in part to its melee focused combat. NARAKA: BLADEPOINT also offers a variety of game modes to ease new players into this genre and help veterans avoid battle royale fatigue.
NARAKA: BLADEPOINT's preview event gave the opportunity to play with and talk to Raylan Kwan, 24 Entertainment's Marketing Manager. According to Kwan, NARAKA: BLADEPOINT initially entered development as something completely different but the team quickly saw the potential it had to switch up a genre dominated by gunplay. The goal quickly transitioned towards developing a game that represented the future of battle royales.
The best way to describe NARAKA: BLADEPOINT is as a mix of Warframe, Sekiro, and action-adventure RPGs. The first thing that stands out is the fluidity and speed of the combat, aided in part by the grappling hooks which can be used to quickly escape from combat scenarios or engage in them. NARAKA shows how grappling hooks can work in multiplayer games, allowing players to automatically lock onto enemies and fly towards them with incredible speed to deliver a devastating combo. The rhythm of each fight has been refined as well, allowing an attacker to have the upper hand until the last hit of their combo which gives the defending enemy the opportunity to parry and completely change the tide of the fight.
The wide variety of weapons allow for a mix of close-up melee attacks and long range attacks. The bow, canon, and musket are a few examples of powerful ranged weapons that have unique alternative firing modes while the katana, longsword, and spear encourage completely different styles of play. It doesn't stop there thanks to Souljades, which provide common buffs like damage resistance and rare buffs that completely change how a weapon functions. For example, the bow has two Souljades which give it a multi-shot and explosive arrows respectively, but they can also be stacked on top of each other to create a devastating bow build.
This is just one example of the real-time RPG elements that also include weapon repairs, ability upgrades, Demon's Souls-like character customization, and more. The amount of options and mechanics can be quite overwhelming, and many players may not know about or utilize a lot of the smaller elements of the game - thankfully, none of it is necessary to achieve victory. To better help players get a grasp on NARAKA's gameplay and mechanics, it includes an open training mode, replayable tutorial sequence, and The Bloodbath, a free-for-all death match mode.
There are many more features than Kwan mentioned during the preview event, such as already implementing anti-cheating support. NARAKA: BLADEPOINT is drawing attention through its unique gameplay, community engagement, and willingness to listen to fan feedback to better the experience. Players who either love battle royales, or feel intimidated by them, should keep NARAKA: BLADEPOINT on their radar.
NARAKA: BLADEPOINT is releasing August 12, 2021 on PC and has an open beta running until June 22, 2021. Screen Rant was provided a preview build and interview opportunity for the purposes of this preview.