Published on October 29, 20150

Blade & Soul: first closed beta begins today

After many years of waiting, the Blade and Soul closed beta begins today! This is just the first of five closed beta stages, and the initial stage begins a day earlier – Thursday, October 29 – than what was initially announced. Closed Beta 1 servers will go live at 10am PDT and everyone who has purchased a Founder’s Pack has immediate access into all Closed Beta Weekends. For everyone else, it's signing up and keeping an eye on your email as invites are going out soon.

NCsoft wants your feedback on all closed betas, so you should fill the in-game surveys to hopefully help out the devs and earn some rewards at the same time. This is one of the several features of the closed beta that were announced a while ago. There is also the usual Premium Membership option for those who want to support the game and get some perks along the way.

While the first closed beta runs on North American servers, everyone with a Founder's Pack or a key will be able to play – however, the second closed beta will premiere the European servers, so this should help with any ping issues that EU players may have.

Here is the Blade & Soul closed beta schedule and our alpha test impressions, both on the character creation system and the Lyn Summoner prologue. Let's end with the new trailer aptly titled When Heroes Rise.