Black Desert Online officially launched into open beta in Russia this week and has been out in Asia for some time, but there's been little word about a North American / European release even though everyone expected it. Today, I was able to confirm that Black Desert Online will be launching into Alpha in Europe and North America relatively soon. I spoke with someone over at Daum (the game's developer) via email about a key giveaway for the North American / EU version of the game as seen here:

As you can tell I am back in online games and busy with getting everything ready for Black Desert Online's US/European launch. Soon we will have a first alpha test (English) and we would like to invite your community to test out the game. Alpha keys will be distributed to gain access to the game client.

MMOs.com will be distributing alpha keys for Black Desert Online as soon as we receive them, so keep an eye out for it. There's no release schedule yet for the game, but it's great to see that a Western release has finally been confirmed. As per the email above, the Western beta should be "soon". I'm personally excited to give the game a try, especially since I've already seen dozens of videos about the game. I can already tell that I'll have a lot of fun with the game's character creation, which from the looks of the video below, is incredible.

Update: The NA/EU Release has officially been confirmed for early 2016. The game will launch as BUY TO PLAY.