Analytic Dreamz: Notorious Mass Effect - "NARAKA: BLADEPOINT"

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/Analytic⁠Become A Patron Of The Notorious Mass Effect Podcast For Additional Bonus Audio And Visual Content For All Things Nme! Join Our Patreon Here: ⁠https://ow.ly/oPsc50VBOuH⁠In this Notorious Mass Effect segment, Analytic Dreamz explores Naraka: Bladepoint, the melee-focused Wuxia battle royale with over 20 million players. Dive into its rock-paper-scissors combat, grappling hook mobility, and 22+ heroes on Morus Island. Analytic Dreamz analyzes the free-to-play shift, cross-platform success (PC, Xbox, PS5, mobile), and esports growth like the J Cup. From monetization controversies to technical issues and vibrant crossovers like Persona 5, learn why this game’s martial arts twist captivates, despite matchmaking and balance debates. Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Getting into Naraka Blade Point, you're probably thinking to yourself. Why in the world are we covering the game that came out August 11th, 2021 for the PC platform? Well, I'm glad you asked, as when it comes to Naraka Blade Point is one of the more poignant examples of longevity in the gaming industry, especially talking about its initial release as it sold over 10 million copies globally by, up to June 2022 and up from six million in November 2021 as far as it transitioning to free to play in July 2023. So as far as it sustaining its longevity, there was a lot of marketing strategies put in place, which is you know making a game free for people to play. But of course, if it's free, well, just because a game is free does not mean the sales are going to be indicative of it being free to play

if it's not high quality. So of course, with the game sustaining its engagement with over 300,000 people playing the game on the everyday basis, you come to realize that a lot of people love this game and it stems from not only the regular updates, including new heroes, as you see right now, Analytic Dreams video on Spotify to see the video along with the audio, but the persona 5 collaboration.

And then, actually, let me see if, I believe it was the persona five. So yeah, the persona five collaboration. And of course, there's other collaborations such as near automata. And then you have collaborations with long men grow toes. I was just making sure I read that correctly. I was like, what in the world? That also enhanced the appeal.

And of course, as far as the esports scene with events specifically, like the J-Cup world champion, ships and the battle pass system along with the game helps drive retention which is why is one of the more important examples on why it's great to make a high quality game rather just thinking about how many dollars we can get out of the people who's playing our game so that has a lot to do with why it's still popular in the year of 2025 even though it initially released back in August 11, 2021. And of course, with that being said, people are probably wondering if you've never played the game, what is this game about? It's a battle real,

a 60 player battle realeal, melee focused battle real, and it has a Wusia. I don't even know how to pronounce that. I'm not even going to lie to you. Slash martial arts theme as far as what you're doing throughout the game. It's developed by 24 entertainment,

published by the, great net ease games i'm not going to lie to you every single time i see a popular game as far as in captivating the masses it just so happens that net ease is behind a lot of them like the way the net ease is running throughout the gaming industry behind the scenes putting out some high quality content for people to enjoy it should it needs to be a whole documentary on net ease games because right now they are going insane with the high quality games that they've been uh uh uh publishing so anyways along with the battle rea out format just know that it's close quarters combat vertical mobility and hero base ability set in the the mythical morris island and when it comes to gameplay mechanics some will say the the combat system is more of a rock paper scissors type of engagement as when it comes to normal attacks you have your counters and then you have your counters that's countered by charge attacks and then your charge attacks are countered by normal attacks you all get the point right rock paper scissors is why i started off with that. It's a very interesting pairing system. And of course, the more you get into the game,

the more you realize how advanced the mechanics actually are. There's a lot of different weapons, such as the long sword, katana, spears, great swords, and then you have your range weapons such as the bows, muskets, pistols, automatic crossbows. So they're covering the entire spectrum and how you can take out your opponent. And with that being said, the transversal is a lot of grappling, parkour and getting into the heroes there's 22 plus heroes with unique f skills and ultimates and examples of it being vipur Nying with the stun ability yodo him with the weheim with the spectral blade and then matari with the stealth aspect so of course the different game modes are not only battle real as you have bloodbath which is a death match one v one

duels you have p v e showdown which is more rogue like you have the fortress siege which is objective base pvp v e which is very interesting especially when you're looking to shape up the overall flow of gameplay especially in a longevity type of game you can't have the gameplay or just the meta being the same throughout its entire lifespan or people are going to get bored of it so it definitely switches up the aspect especially with the different game modes and the flow of the combat and then you have your different maps such as the morris island like i said earlier the hollow roth the pordoria and with that being said there's a lot of side content in case people is wondering how long is this game actually well with side content is 20 to 40 hours and of course if you just want to focus

strictly on the story with minimal narrative is 15 to 20 minute tutorial and of course the overall the overall runtime of the game would be from 15 to 25 hours but technically you could get 40 to 50 hours out of this game if you include all of the side content so a lot of people like this especially when it comes to the crossplay and cross progression if you don't know know it's supported on PC, Xbox cross save, optional cross play. So that means you can play on your PC and then keep that same save file for your Xbox console. And then all of the platforms I just named as far as PC, Xbox series X and S, PS5, mobile, Xbox 1, you know, sadly it's not on the Nintendo Switch. So you know, as far as a Nintendo Switch, I may have to get them next time, buddy.

But anyways, as far as what I read. really wanted to get into because I like to do review roundos, but also I like to get into the analytical data, especially with these games being so popular amongst the masses. As like I said earlier, as far as it coming out the gate selling over 10 million copies globally as far as 2021 to 22, just know as of 2025, it has 20 plus million global players on the game and the peak concurrent Steam data has 300,000 daily as far as what I was saying in earlier. And that's as of this year. So it's up to date as far as the 300,000 concurrent peak from Steam.

So with that being said, there was a lot of copies sold even before it went free to play. So a lot of people are probably just thinking to themselves, well, if this game wasn't free to play, nobody will be playing it, which is far from the truth as it sold over six million copies when it was $20. So this game went from being $20 to completely free. And it wasn't because people wasn't playing the game. They just wanted to open up the or lower the barrier of entry, especially for people who was excited about the game because of course, especially in today's age, you know, a lot of people don't have the disposable income to play all these different games because of course, like I always say, gaming is an expensive hobby. It's a luxury,

not a necessity should not be picking certain games over base necessities like food and water right hopefully that's not news to anybody but just wanted to say that just in case people don't understand as far as the whole making a game free to play so more people can get into it so some people just don't have the exposable funds to get into a lot of different games and with this game going free to play all the way back in 2023, as far as July specifically, people started to play it even more, and then they come to realize that they like the battery off format because it always just takes a little bit for people

who are stuck in the ways to kind of realize, hey, I actually like this different format that I've never played in gaming before. Let me keep putting more time into it, and then that's how it happens. So as far as the UI, a lot of people, as far as the Roundup, a lot of people is talking about the UI

and talking about how there's too many, many currencies and the user interface is way too convoluted. These are just some of the nitpicks that people have. Some people are saying that there's a lot of balance issues as far as heroes being OP slash certain weapons being really OP, whether it's the spear specifically in the game. And they talk about the slow balancing pace as far as patches. And the developers, as far as 24 entertainment, taking their time to patch some of the OP mechanics in the game and of course when it comes to net ease you know the old net ease kerfuffle

always comes up in the light of day as far as them talking about privacy concerns over account linking such as a facebook net ease google you know net ease always finds themselves in the privacy concerns from the masses even though every single game you hop on there's a whole terms uh in agreement type of contract that nobody reads and they just signed it blindly like literally on one of those type of contract they could be putting oh y'all gonna pay us $500 an hour and then because nobody reads the terms and agreement before you get into the game they'll probably just not even know right because who's out here reading the terms of agreement before they get into a game exactly so anyways getting back into the game um when it comes to a lot of the interesting aspects like i already talked about

as far as how they've kept their longevity just know they the e-sports growth, uh, growth like I talked about earlier, the J-Cup, the Celestial Cup, there's a lot of competitive events and scenes that flourish in China. So that's one of the main reasons why this game is still impacting the masses to this day, because of course, that helps out a lot as far as the esports growing, uh, well, getting enamored with your game to the point where now it's a staple in esports, not just something that's here or today, gone tomorrow. It's really one of the more, uh, pivotal games.

when it comes to the e-sports scene but also the battle reaile scene so you know a lot of people attribute battle rea out to um an h1 z1 or a pub g or i forgot to turn my alerts off uh shout out to holly fan for subscribe you all how pan how do i say that i don't even know isn't that crazy i'm recording and i forgot to turn my alerts off but shout out to you for subscribing i don't even know what platform it is because I don't have my thing up but anyways let's get back into it but shout out to you see if you subscribe or follow well I'm gonna try to turn it off next time but you know if I'm streaming that stuff pops up um so anyways I'm just gonna keep that in there I'm definitely not editing that out you know shout out to uh long shout out to people uh supporting while you're not even streaming

so anyways um getting back into Naraka blade point that's it that's that's funny um the launch I already talked about the launch and the success of that. Now, I do want to get into a little bit of the review roundup because that's why I do with every video game at getting to the sales because analytical data is something that I try to prod myself on as far as having it and giving it and disseminating it to the public. And also the review roundup is something I want to give to give you a consensus on what people think about this particular game. Because IGN gave this an 8 out of 10 praising this game for a superb melee combat and gravity defining. move defying movement offering a fresh spin on battle real and then they said though network issues and bot matches with drawbacks and then you have pc gamer giving this a 75 out of 100 highlighting a lot of the complex skill based combat and fluid park court but noted a steep learning curve

in erratic animations and in gamer um actually let me see uh uh p c games games well I already went with PC gamer um NME for those who uh don't know what that platform is hold up I'm not talking about my podcast notorious mass effect let me see gaming publication I probably heard of it hopefully um it's the british music website and the nmee stands for our new musical express which is um interesting because they're covering this game but anyways um they gave no numerical score but found it fun with satisfying melee so i don't know why in the world they've reviewed this game when the music publication but they basically just came out like hey this game's so good we're gonna let you know how we feel about it so shout out to them but um and then let me see m m o r pg.com gave this a 7 out of 10

saying they appreciated the innovative melee combat and weapons variety but felt longevity suffered due to a a stale gameplay loop so of course they fixed that as that was put out back in 2021 as far as that review as 2025 still having a peak concurrent of 300,000 players so safe to say that i think a lot of the marketing strategies put behind this game whether it's collaborating with persona five royale whether it's collaborating with near automata it's just showcasing how and what to do if you want people to stay in your game for the long call so with that being said click my link my bio let me know one of my social medias what do you think about naraca blade point and of course like i said is on pc xbox ps5 mobile so that being said are you more willing to give this game a try

and if so what stood out to you the most as far as throughout this review