Daum Games announced that the North American and European edition of Black Desert Online will launch in early 2016 and use a buy to play model. It's a somewhat surprising monetization model considering the Korean and Russian versions are free to play. Although there will be vanity items for sale in the game's cash shop. But balancing and progression will also differ for Western players. What exactly that means is speculative. But a teaser website launched where prospective players will be able to learn information in the near future.

“We are putting a lot of effort in the game’s Western localization,” said Daniel Loehr (AKA Belsazar), Project Manager at Daum Games, “We are localizingapproximate 2.5 million words into English, German and French. Black Desert Online’s content and gameplay systems will be adjusted to accommodate Western players and our differentiating business model.”

MMOs.com was able to confirm that the first English alpha test will be happening "soon." And we will be distributing alpha keys when the time finally arrives.