What's old in Asia is New in America

Cabal 2 officially started its open beta test on July 2, 2015 while Echo of Soul launched on June 22, 2015. Exciting right? Sorta. The thing is, these games aren't exactly new. Cabal 2 for example entered open beta in South Korea on November 14, 2012. That's almost a 3 year gap! Echo of Soul is a bit better in this regard. It launched in its home country in September, 2013 and in the West on June 22, 2015 – less than a 2 year gap. Devilian from Trion Worlds was just announced on June 30, 2015 for an eventual release in the U.S., but Devilian isn't a new game either. It's been out in Korea since December, 2012.

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Cabal 2 Gameplay

The biggest, and most recent, offender in slow localizing is Blade & Soul from NCSoft. Since it was first announced back in 2008, the game had a tremendous amount of hype behind it, as everything from the game's visuals to combat looked new and exciting. After a long 4 year development cycle the game launched with a bang in South Korea in 2012 and news about an international release dried up. Fans of the game in the West heard nothing from NCSoft and as the years went on, hype began to die down. It wasn't until May 20, 2015 that NCSoft finally decided to announce the game for Western release, which is scheduled for release this winter. There was an incredible amount of hype behind Blade & Soul because it had excellent production value (Graphics & music) and fun combat, but it's hard to get that excited about a game that's over 3 years old in Asia.

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Blade & Soul - I'm as Sad as She is That it took this Long

Don't get me wrong, I’m glad to see more games launching in Western markets, but 3 years is a long time in the gaming world. What was once new and revolutionary can quickly become generic and stale in 3 years. The release gaps between regions can be especially frustrating to us Westerners because we're used to console games getting localized in less than a year. I was personally excited about Blade & Soul when I first saw a trailer for the game and still look forward to trying it out this winter, but it's hard to be super excited over a 3 year old game.

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Vindictus Gameplay

On the positive side, not every free to play game developer in Asia is slow to release their games internationally. Vindictus from Nexon launched in North America in less than a year after its Korean release. Nexon's Ghost in the Shell Online is scheduled for release in the West before it's Asian debut, which is definitely a bit odd, but as a gamer in the West, I certainly approve. It would be great to see more game developers launch their products in the West sooner. Especially since free to play MMORPGs can be huge successes in North America – just look at Tera.

So anyone else grumpy about the fact that it can take ages for free to play games to launch internationally? It was incredibly disappointing to see Blade & Soul just completely ignore its North American fans all these years, but I'm glad it's finally launching.