I’m happy to share with you all that Bless Unleashed, a free-to-play action MMORPG coming first to Xbox One, is entering its second closed beta test today (Thursday, July 11th) at 10:00 AM PDT. This beta test will run until Monday, July 15th at 10:00 AM PDT. We’ve worked hard with our development team at Round 8 Studio to make some major improvements from our last beta test, focusing on squashing annoying bugs, crashes, and most importantly, responding to high priority feedback from our community.

If you’re not familiar with Bless Unleashed, you should know we’re different than many other MMOs on Xbox One. We’ve built the game in Unreal Engine 4. Bless Unleashed is also Xbox One X Enhanced, making it one of the most beautiful MMOs available. Combat is fast-paced action where you must correctly time your attacks to chain your combos together and there is no natural health regeneration between fights. This makes our game very skill based, and provides a level of difficulty many MMOs simply don’t have. You’ll face fearsome foes, do battle with giants, dragons, and experience your own brush with divinity as you challenge the gods, survive against all odds, and make them pray.

Here’s a high level overview at some of the changes in this latest Closed Beta Test:

We’ve resolved 99% of the crash issues that players experienced in our last Closed Beta Test.

We’ve worked hard to optimize the game for better performance on Xbox One and Xbox One S consoles.

We’ve updated network code to improve the input delay players experienced in combat during our last beta test.

We’ve revamped our Prologue Chapter in Telarion to provide a new streamlined experience for new users, and the ability to skip the Prologue for users who prefer to jump right into the fight!

We added the ability to sprint (out of combat) and dash (in combat) based on player feedback. Sprinting and dashing will drain your stamina however, and if you use this too much, you may not be able to roll out of the way of a powerful blow.

Added a “lock on” feature for bosses and elite enemies, based on player feedback.

Updated class combos and revised combo unlock requirements.

And so much more…

Please check out the Welcome Screen in game for the patch notes and a full list of changes and current known issues.

For this testing phase, we’re especially interested in how you feel about the changes made to the Prologue. We hope that the optimization work we’ve performed will have addressed your feedback regarding input delay and slow combat, as well as changes to class combos and unlock requirements.

Of course, as this is a beta test there will still be bugs, and the game is still under active development. There may be bugs which weren’t uncovered in the previous closed betas which could still result in crashes. Class and combat balance, as in any MMO, is ongoing. Bless Unleashed is a game which is meant to grow and continue to be lived in for years, and we’re hoping that you’ll take some time this weekend to join us in the world of Lumios.

Please make sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or check us out on Reddit! Planning on playing Bless Unleashed this weekend? If so, please make sure to leave us feedback at one of those locations as well. We take your feedback very seriously!

Bless Unleashed Closed Beta schedule:

Thursday July 11th at 10 AM PDT – Monday July 15th at 10 AM PDT

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

Sign-in and launch the Xbox Insider Hub on Xbox One (or install the Xbox Insider Hub from the Store first if needed). Navigate to Insider content > Bless Unleashed. Select Join. Wait until the registration completes to be redirected to the Store and install Bless Unleashed!

NOTE: The Bless Unleashed Closed Beta is not available in the following countries: China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Brazil, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium.

If you encounter any issues while participating in the Bless Unleashed Closed Beta, please submit feedback via Report a problem (hold down the Xbox button on your controller and select Report a problem from the power menu).

Thanks for being an Xbox Insider! I hope to see you in Lumios this weekend, and look forward to sharing your feedback with our development team to continue to improve Bless Unleashed.