Following the recent death of Frontier World, the first attempt at the Unreal Engine 4 upgrade for Blade & Soul’s Korean server, NCSOFT made a huge announcement for the game’s June 2021 update. The Unreal Engine 4 project will still continue, but this time round there will be changes to how the development team implement the new engine on Blade & Soul.
UPDATE: Blade & Soul – Western server to receive Unreal Engine 4 update this summer
The key features for this update, “태동록” (or Taedongrok) are as follow:
A “live” world of Blade & Soul upgraded with Unreal Engine 4
Improved visuals compared to Frontier World, the team’s first attempt at the Unreal Engine 4 upgrade
New content such as 4-player dungeons and difficulty system
In the previous version, Frontier World, the development team at NCSOFT “tried to show more advanced graphics by applying a physics-based rendering method,” but this caused the “unique personality” of Blade & Soul to be “diluted due to the difference from the light expression used.”
NCSOFT confirmed that with the new 태동록 version, it will further “improve the graphics of the game, including characters, while maintaining a “bloomy” visual through shader supplementation and post process improvement.”
Optimization and loading speed are also improved. By implementing asynchronous loading, the loading time required for map movement will be greatly shortened by first loading data in the field of view of the connected character. In addition, the consistent lag, which has always been an issue due to optimization through engine conversion, is expected to be greatly reduced.
NCSOFT has prepared 9 major upgrades for the 태동록 version of Blade & Soul, with 3 already listed above. 6 more will be introduced over the next few months, so stay tuned for updates! FYI, the update’s title 태동록 actually means “Birth Rock,” something like a rebirth I am guessing.
