Everything we know about Blue Protocol: Closed betas, character classes, and more in Amazon's upcoming MMO

Want to know the latest news about Blue Protocol? Blue Protocol is an upcoming free-to-play open-world MMORPG from Bandai Namco and Amazon Games, the latter of whom recently saw success with New World and Lost Ark in the same genre. It's drawing a lot of comparison to Genshin Impact thanks to its status as an F2P anime-inspired RPG, although in reality it should be quite different thanks both to its more science-fantasy inspired setting and its different monetisation model.

There's some confusion at the moment surrounding Blue Protocol's closed betas, which are intended to test the game out in stages before its planned full release later in the year. Read on below for everything we currently know about those closed beta tests, along with details of the character classes you'll be playing as, the ways in which Amazon aims to monetise the game, and more.

On this page:

• Blue Protocol beta tests
• Blue Protocol release date
• Blue Protocol classes
• Blue Protocol trailer
• Is Blue Protocol free-to-play?

Blue Protocol beta tests

A closed beta for would-be Blue Protocol players in Japan was announced for January 14th, 2023, but has now been delayed. The new date has yet to be announced, although Bandai Namco have promised more information on the rescheduled closed beta on January 25th, 2023.

Further closed betas, expected in the first half of 2023, will be open to players outside of Japan. Presumably, this will include Western Europe, North America, South America, Australia and New Zealand, as these are the regions expected to be supported at launch.

Blue Protocol release date

The full launch of Blue Protocol is expected at an unknown date sometime in 2023, likely in the latter half of the year once every region has had their closed beta.

Blue Protocol will be available on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. It will not be launching on last-gen consoles, and there's no suggestion of a planned release for any Nintendo devices at this time.

Blue Protocol classes

The following character classes will be available to play as in Blue Protocol:

• Blade Warden: Standard melee class wielding sword and shield.
• Foe Breaker: Mixed DPS/cannon melee class, wielding a hammer.
• Keen Strider: Ranged class wielding a bow.
• Spell Weaver: Mage class wielding elemental powers.
• Twin Striker: Berserker melee class wielding two hatchets.

After picking your character class, you'll be free to extensively customise an avatar according to your preferences. You'll also be able to customise your character in-game using various cosmetics, gestures, mounts, and other tweaks to their design over time.

Blue Protocol trailer

Blue Protocol was formally revealed at The Game Awards 2022 with the following premier trailer, with debuted on the same day as the gameplay trailer above:

Is Blue Protocol free-to-play?

Since Blue Protocol seems to be openly riffing on the popularity of games like Genshin Impact and Tower Of Fantasy, it's unsurprising that its developers have opted to mirror that free-to-play model. However, we all know that nothing is really free, so here's what we know so far about how Blue Protocol will be monetised:

• There will be a Season Pass.
• There will be microtransactions in the in-game store, called the Regnas Store, purchased using the game's premium currency Rose Orbs. It seems likely that these microtransactions will be largely focussed on cosmetics, since Amazon Games have tried to distance themselves from pay-to-win mechanics in both New World and their Western release of Lost Ark.
• There will not be a gacha, since characters are customised by the player rather than fixed by the game's designers.
• There will be Founders Packs akin to those Amazon Games previously released for Lost Ark, with pre-order bonuses including access to Closed Betas.

That's all we know about Blue Protocol for now, although of course we'll keep this page updated with more information as we learn it. In the meantime, there are plenty more highly-anticipated games due out in 2023, so why not check out our pages on everything we know about Starfield or everything we know about Star Wars Jedi: Survivor?