The long awaited upgrade to Unreal Engine 4 is now live in Blade & Soul, bringing upgraded graphics, UI, and the new Dual Blade class, among other improvements and tweaks to the MMO.
The much anticipated upgrade to the Blade & Soul engine brings a host of improvements, which the NCSoft team detail in a new round of patch notes to accompany today's update. The upgrade also brings the aforementioned Dual Blade class, the dual wielding DPS class that has two very different specializations: the stance-heavy Shifting Blades and the buffing whirling blades of the Lotus.
The upgrade also brings with it an all new 4-player dungeon, Forest of the Echoes, and makes a note that future dungeons themselves will now be 4-player dungeons, though existing dungeons will firmly remain 6-person encounters.
A brace of achievements have also been added to Blade & Soul, giving players more to...well...achieve in their journeys in the MMO, specifically thanks to the new Forest of Echoes dungeon. And while Final Fantasy XIV made some waves by announcing they were removing belts with Endwalker, Blade & Soul is doing the opposite, with today's patch adding both gloves and belts as new accessories. NPCs are also seeing a rebalance thanks to new difficulty modes arriving in Blade & Soul.
You can check out the full patch notes here. Blade & Soul has been ramping up to this upgrade for more than a year now, with a special site devoted to showcasing the different improvements that would be coming as a result of the new engine. You can check out our previous coverage here.
