Blue Archive

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Blue Archive.

As part of a "Warehouse clearance sale"¹ the Blue Archive developers have released several videos showcasing footage from early builds of the game. Many of these show early battle UI, placeholder character models and more!

Very early development#

Watch on YouTubeDated 2018, this footage shows a very early battle system with completely different character models. The developers said they used enemy models from a different Nexon Games game (Hit) as placeholders as well². Early skill buttons showcase 5 different skills with no cost bar and two extra buttons which machine translate to "Global" and "Finishing Move". An ammo counter is visible to each character's HP bar as well as the enemy's HP bar, something that was completely scrapped later on in development.

Watch on YouTubeOnce the models were replaced with more anime-looking ones, the halos make their first appearance as well, along with different camera angles.

While the previous footage showed the skill icons with a 15 second countdown overlay, in this footage they can be seen in full, however they are never used.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTubeThe next footage that was released shows a new indoor area, the removal of the ammo counter, and a redesign of the skill buttons. Although the skill buttons seem to have been blurred by the developers, it's possible to see that each skill fills up individually per-character, instead of being based on a cost bar shared between everyone. Also visible is an EX skill being used by an early version of the character Nonomi.

Watch on YouTubeShiroko appears for the first time! The battle system has a few extra features as well: alongside the addition of the Auto button, two new items can be found in the bottom left - one to create cover at will, and one to use healing. It was also possible to manually reposition characters at any point. Many of these features ended up being added as chraracter-specific skills.

References#