Melee battle royale Naraka: Bladepoint is going free-to-play next week
Magic martial arts, grapple hooks and rooftop-hopping make Naraka: Bladepoint one of the best battle royales on PC. Now it's going free-to-play next week on Thursday, July 13th.
Developers 24 Entertainment announced the switch during this past week's Naraka Fest 2023 livestream. The servers will go offline for maintenance at 2pm PST (10pm BST) on July 13th, and afterwards will be available to download for free via Steam and Epic. At the time of writing the game would cost £18/$20.
"All in-game content is available to free players, including all game modes, events, cosmetics, character customization, etc.", says their free-to-play FAQ. You'll need to unlock cosmetics and all but four starter heroes with Hero Coins, however. Free players can earn a maximum 35 Hero Coins per-week through play, with a single character costing 100 Hero Coins.
Or, of course, you can spend real money to purchase Standard, Deluxe or Ultimate editions to lift the limit, gain a bundle of in-game money, and unlock characters faster.
Existing players who bought or buy the game prior to the switch will receive in-game currency as a "reward". There was also a new character, a new weapon and a handful of other events announced during the Naraka Fest stream.
Naraka Bladepoint pits up to 60 players against one another while a contracting ring of death gradually shrinks the arena, but otherwise doesn't feel much like other battle royales. As Matt (RPS in peace) explained in his Naraka Bladepoint review, it's not a game about hiding in the long grass, and its melee sword combat is "much more Tekken than Chivalry", complete with combos and animation cancelling.
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