Most battle royales open with a gun, while NARAKA: BLADEPOINT opens with a sword and a grappling line

A battle royale usually begins with a scramble for firearms. NARAKA: BLADEPOINT begins with a scramble for swords, spears and poles. Sixty players land on the same island and fight until one is left, which is the familiar part. What differs is the object in hand and the distance at which the fight happens.

The Korean Steam listing describes the game as sixty players in one match, with wire action and close-quarters combat combined into a chaotic melee[2]. It was made by 24 Entertainment and published by NetEase Games[1]. The Steam release was 11 August 2021, and the PS5 version followed on 13 July 2023[1][7]. The base price is nothing[1]. Everything below was checked on 3 September 2026.

A wall is a route, not cover

Movement here treats terrain as something to pass through. Wire action is the term for it: a hooked line attaches to a roof or a branch and pulls the character up, so ground that another battle royale would ask you to walk around gets crossed directly. Valve’s own copy calls the result gravity-defying movement[2].

Combat happens at arm’s length most of the time. Ranged weapons exist, but the storefront leads with melee[2], and the top community tags run Battle Royale, Multiplayer, Martial Arts, PvP[1].

The genre field says something narrower. Steam files the game under Action, Adventure, Massively Multiplayer and Free to Play[2]. Neither battle royale nor wuxia is an official genre label; both come from user tags and the store description.

Heroes are chosen rather than built. Each has a distinct kit, and a customisation system sits alongside them[2]. The first several matches go to memorising names. Without knowing what each hero can do, an opponent vanishing onto a rooftop reads as a bug rather than a cooldown.

What landed on 3 September

The publication date of this review is also a patch date. A new update notice went up on the official site on 3 September 2026[4]. It adds the hero Anassa Nangong and moves Showdown into Season 6.0: Sandforge, with a new boss, Herald Elder Vasshani.

Seven Souljades were added in the same patch, among them Pyreheart, Venom Tempering and Primal Starfall. The recast system was reworked around a resource called Spirit Essence[4]. The Wanchu map was revised as well.

An event runs alongside the patch. Lucky Wheel opens on 3 September and closes on 8 October. Players assemble a pool of ten rewards themselves and spin it with Nightfiend Mark, and anything won is removed from the pool[4].

The cadence is worth checking before starting a five-year-old live game. Ahead of 3 September, the official news index lists updates on 30 July, 16 July and 2 July[10], which is a fortnightly rhythm held into the game’s sixth year.

Population figures move within a single day. On 3 September the rank and the concurrent count on Steam’s most-played chart differed at every reading. One number held steady across all of them: a same-day peak of 76,395 concurrent players[3].

588 Gold on one storefront, 38,600 won on the other

Payment arrives through two channels. One is the in-game shop, the other is a set of DLC packs sold separately on Steam.

The in-game currency is Gold. The PlayStation Store add-on list carries five bundles: 120 Gold for $0.99, 1,280 Gold for $9.99, 3,240 Gold for $24.99, 6,560 Gold for $49.99 and 12,960 Gold for $99.99[7].

Skin prices appear in the patch notes themselves. Gloomlight, a skin for the new hero, is discounted from 1,600 Gold to 588 Gold, and The Harvest Matron from 2,600 Gold to 1,800 Gold[4]. The emote pack Free Pop runs 1,800 Gold down to 520 Gold. At list price, a single outfit sits between 1,600 and 2,600 Gold.

Steam prices operate on a different scale. Four skin packs are sold as DLC: Flying Squirrel at 38,600 won and Phoenix Princess Pack at 32,200 won, with Iris’ Whisper Pack and Gossamer Iris Pack at 23,950 won each. All four shipped on 20 December 2023, and the figures above are the Korean storefront’s[8].

Flying Squirrel is the most expensive of the four, and it contains a single item: a legendary skin for the grappling hook[8]. On the same day, the in-game shop was selling a hero outfit for 588 Gold[4].

Season passes are paid separately. The same PlayStation add-on list shows JS1 Season Pack at $14.99, Baize’s Blessing at $4.99 and Refined Choice Gift at $69.99[7]. A JS1 gift for PlayStation Plus subscribers is listed at $0.00.

Random items are declared, the odds are not

No page publishes the pull rates. The PlayStation Store states that in-game purchases include random items[7], and the global official site, the 3 September patch notes and the Steam listing all lack an odds table[9][4][1]. Anyone who wants a percentage before paying is, as of today, paying without one.

Bundle sizes also fail to divide into skin prices. A 2,600 Gold outfit cannot be bought with the $9.99 bundle, which supplies 1,280 Gold. The $24.99 bundle supplies 3,240 Gold and leaves 640 Gold behind after the purchase. That calculation combines two confirmed figures; it is not a sentence any storefront wrote.

Other currencies appear inside the game. The 3 September notice lists two Lunar Pavilion items priced in Jade Disks, at 80 and 40 respectively, and the Lucky Wheel spends Nightfiend Mark[4]. Whether either resource is bought or earned is not settled by the notice, so this review names them and stops there.

There is a documented route that costs nothing. The River Runs Red Relic Mysteries season, announced on 10 July, accrues Season Treasure Points as Codex collectibles are filled in, and pays out at 10,000, 40,000, 80,000, 120,000 and 160,000 points in materials, a badge and cosmetics[5]. That notice mentions no paid pass at all.

Two machines, a language gap, and a December deadline

Korean support is official on both storefronts. Steam lists Korean among the supported languages[2], as does the PlayStation Store[7], and Steam marks it as including voice work rather than subtitles alone[1]. Thirteen languages appear on the Steam list in total.

The official website is a different matter. Its language picker offers English, Traditional Chinese and Japanese[9]. The Korean index URL does not resolve, and Korean announcements survive only at individual article addresses, which have to be found by search rather than navigation.

Two machines run the game. The PC build is Windows-only, with macOS and Linux both marked unsupported in Steam’s store data[2]. On console there is PS5 and nothing else, no PS4 edition[7]. The PlayStation listing adds an online requirement, sixty-player matches, DualSense vibration, PS5 Pro Enhanced and cloud streaming for Premium subscribers[7]. There is no mobile release on the global stores.

The Epic version has a closing date. The official FAQ says purchases and downloads on the Epic Games Store stopped on 1 July PT, and that the game leaves the storefront entirely on 29 December PT[6]. In between, logging in triggers a migration prompt that carries progress across, after which the client is redownloaded from the official site[6].

Who should pass, and who should clear an evening

Start with the people this does not fit. Anyone playing only on a phone has no way to run it. The same goes for macOS and Linux users and for anyone still on a PS4[2][7]. Players who dislike paying for appearance will keep running into a 38,600 won hook skin[8].

The fit is on the other side. Spacing, timing and reading an opponent’s swing matter more here than aim, and terrain rewards anyone who enjoys climbing it. A sixty-player brawl that sounds like steel rather than gunfire is an unusual thing to find at no cost, and the evaluation costs only time[1].

The practical sequence is short. Install from Steam or the PlayStation Store, play a handful of matches, and decide about Gold afterwards. If the decision goes toward buying, check the list price of the specific skin first, because it is the skin price rather than the bundle price that determines how much Gold gets stranded.

Epic account holders have one more date to track. Migration has to be completed before 29 December PT; after that, the registration page has to be requested through official channels or customer support[6].

Sources

[1] Valve. NARAKA: BLADEPOINT on Steam. Retrieved 3 September 2026.

[2] Valve. Steam app details, appid 1203220, Korean storefront. Retrieved 3 September 2026.

[3] Valve. Steam most played chart. Retrieved 3 September 2026.

[4] 24 Entertainment. NARAKA: BLADEPOINT Update, September 3rd, 2026. 3 September 2026.

[5] 24 Entertainment. River Runs Red Relic Mysteries Season Notice. 10 July 2026.

[6] 24 Entertainment. Epic Account Migration FAQ. 26 June 2026.

[7] Sony Interactive Entertainment. NARAKA: BLADEPOINT on the PlayStation Store. Retrieved 3 September 2026.

[8] Valve. NARAKA: BLADEPOINT - Flying Squirrel on Steam. Retrieved 3 September 2026.

[9] 24 Entertainment. NARAKA: BLADEPOINT official site. Retrieved 3 September 2026.

[10] 24 Entertainment. Official news index. Retrieved 3 September 2026.