Breakers: Unlock the World – Everything You Need to Know Going Into 2024

BREAKERS: Unlock the World is a large, upcoming Anime RPG from Vic Game Studios. It was announced at Tokyo Game Show 2023, and featured both a gameplay teaser and trailer, separated days apart.
From what we’ve seen, the game will be very narrative driven. It will feature a pre-determined main character, beautiful world, and pretty fluid action combat.

Yes, BREAKERS will be entirely free to play. The reason for a free business model is due to the Gacha nature of the game. A lot of games, including MMOs are implementing Gacha elements. Tower of Fantasy, Blue Protocol, Ni no Kuni Cross Worlds, Dragon Raja, GRAN SAGA, ODIN Valhalla Rising and Noah’s Heart are all Gacha MMOs.
With the success of Gacha as a type of monetization, it seems only natural to implement it in a game that would largely benefit from it.

It was announced that BREAKERS would be fully cross-platform compatible between PC and Mobile. I know, I know. “ew, why mobile?” Because most games these days are releasing with Mobile functionality, and it guarantees significantly more money in the long-term.
Some of the most popular games around the world are either mobile compatible, or working on mobile functionality. Genshin, RuneScape, Albion Online, Black Desert.
Being cross-platform compatible with mobile is only bad if the game is built as a mobile game, rather than with mobile functionality in mind.

Action. Complete action combat.
Based off of what we’ve seen from trailers, there are going to be a number of different characters you can pull for through Gacha, and every single character will feature their own distinct combat style. We only saw a few characters in the trailer, but the combat was based in high-fantasy.
Magic, swords, and the combat looked and felt very smooth, very fluid. Not as flashy as Punishing Gray Raven, but it felt slower and more strategic. Both types of combat are good and serve their own purpose and I don’t think either is inherently better than the other.

They state it will feature an open world to explore, but that’s a little vague. Games like Final Fantasy XIV are considered “open-world,” yet the areas are segregated, meaning they’re split from other zones by a load screen.
Black Desert Online also features an open world, and that has no loading screens whatsoever, and is entirely, seamlessly accessible. So we’ll have to wait and see which type of world they adopt.

Not in the traditional sense. There will be class archetypes. Each character you recruit will fit into a certain mold – tanks, DPS – ranged or melee, supports, healers.
This means every character will suit a different situation and scenario, bringing with them their own unique benefits – and drawbacks. Meaning team composition and growth is going to be an important aspect of the game.

Unfortunately, there will be no character creation in any capacity. However, that doesn’t mean there won’t be any customization for your character.
It’s unconfirmed whether you’re forced into playing as a single gender, a pre-determined character, or if you can choose between either male or female, and customize aspects – like the outfit of your character.

Hah.. I mean it’s a Gacha game. If there are more powerful characters – SSR heroes or 6* heroes, and you can obtain them via real currency Gacha pulls, then there will be pay to win. Although the severity of pay to win is entirely dependent on whether there will be co-operative play.
If you can engage in PvP like in Tower of Fantasy, then yes pay to win will be horrendous. If there’s only co-op PvE, then you can likely get carried by whales and it won’t be nearly as bad. But if it’s single-player… I mean who will the pay to win even affect? What’s there to win? Bragging rights over damage numbers?

I think this is one of the largest concerns. We all hate censorship in our games, but Korea is known for producing some pretty explicit games. Significantly more so than any other Asian developer.
With this in mind, I wouldn’t expect BREAKERS to be particularly censored. Especially after that specific scene we see in the trailer, between the main character and the female mage. At least I think she was a mage. I was distracted during the scene. But you know which scene I’m talking about.

We don’t have any confirmation of co-operative play at present. The world itself definitely seems pretty massive. However, I’m 50-50 on whether the game will feature multiplayer functionality, which would mean it carries a fairly large chance there’s no “massive” aspect at all.

Unfortunately they haven’t elaborated on gear currently. Whether you’ll farm gear in the way you farm Artifacts in Genshin, or if there’ll be a gear system present in any capacity. Please, god, if any devs are watching this – please don’t give us another Artifact system. Nobody likes grinding RNG Artifacts.

Currently, the studio plans on releasing BREAKERS Globally. I couldn’t find any information online about any type of region locking so players all over the world should be able to access the game without restriction. Which is great news for us! Their other game, Black Clover M doesn’t seem to be region restricted. At least I don’t think it is.

At present, the devs haven’t confirmed any dates for Beta tests, either Closed, Open, or Alphas. That doesn’t mean they have no plans for one. I’m sure, given their announcement at Tokyo Game Show 2023, they have something planned for the very near future.
Given the amount of content we saw in this trailer, I’d speculate they’re honestly not too far from a test phase of sorts.
If they do plan on holding a Beta test, I’ll make sure to update you all though so I’ll be sure to keep an eye on it.

Honestly? We don’t know. What we do know, is that they are far enough through the development process that they have characters, combat, and entire areas built. There is no pre-registration available yet, but I wouldn’t expect it to be all that far off.
Typically, studios open pre-registration when they’re nearing the completion of the game.
If we’re lucky, we might get the game next year – in 2024. And I couldn’t be more excited.

And that’s BREAKERS. An absolutely gorgeous Anime-inspired action RPG from a studio that really hasn’t developed much.. which could be good. Or bad.
This could be an insanely good game, or end up disappointing us, who knows.