Blue Protocol Might Be the Competition Genshin Impact Needs | Push Square

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For as unfathomably popular Genshin Impact has been all these years, you could argue it's always had things a bit easy. There is nothing else quite like it on consoles, and consistent content updates along with new waifus to metaphorically marry every other month have turned a lot of fans' free time into a second job. With Blue Protocol, though, there's finally a compelling alternative on PS5. From Bandai Namco and Amazon Games, the 2024 title looks primed to steal at least some of that audience with a new, colourful world and many more anime fighters to level up. We played 45 minutes of the online RPG at a preview event to see what's what, and found an experience shaping up to be compelling competition for the HoYoverse mega-hit.

For starters, it has all the hallmarks of a game you could eventually consider your second life. Blue Protocol is a free-to-play undertaking that packs all the kind of buzzwords hardcore Push Square readers hate: Battle Passes, cosmetic items, character purchases, and microtransactions. Luckily for Bandai Namco, though, there's so much more to the enthusiast space than just devout single player buyers.

Given the size and scale of an online RPG such as this, less than an hour of play — on a mouse and keyboard, no less — was nowhere near enough time for us to properly wrap our head around everything Blue Protocol has to offer. After quickly working through the character creation system, watching the introductory cutscene, and completing the tutorial, we were given roughly 20 minutes to explore parts of the multiple open zones before heading into a far more structured dungeon with a full party of other journalists at the event.

Combat plays out in real-time, with loads of abilities to equip and