After a year and a half, Blade Symphony is now free-to-play. We didnt want to do this for lowering complexity (although, it is much easier to develop for now.) We didnt want to do this for money (theres only 4 items for sale.) We didnt want to do this to manage overhead (even if were now offloading all inventory stuff to Steam.) We wanted to do this, so that this game could be more accessible, and have a longer life. The game deserves to be tried out, even if its approaching 5 years of age, and started development in 2007. So here it is, and thanks for playing. As for the changes in this release; theres new unlockables in town! As players progress up the level chain, they will either be given the existing items that you may know and love, or new items that weve put into the game. In total, 48 new items have been added. Weve added this to encourage trading and purchasing, we hope you enjoy the new items! Here's a sneak peak of all of the new items!
For those of you with performance issues, weve significantly improved asset streaming. Its also a toggle in the video settings to turn it on or off. Please try and play with it, because we know we could stream more aggressively, and want to work on this feature more. Were also doing our best to improve general performance, so bear with us! Weve completely rebuilt duel_castle from the ground up! Castle is a favorite of many, but we wanted to get its performance updated, which involved starting from scratch. Many thanks to Karo, the original author of the map, for allowing us to give it some TLC. Weve added a Find Duel option to the Main Menu. There are parameters that can be toggled, but this should help players quickly get into the fight. Finally, we do want to mention that items for those that purchased the game are coming. In total, 10 exclusive items will be given out to owners of the premium game. We hope we won't have to stop there.

Changelog since Patch 7

Changes

• The game is now free.
• Added new unlockable path B to items system.
• Added new version of duel_castle
• Added a toggle to turn Asset Streaming on or off in the Video settings menu.
• Added a Find Duel option to the Main Menu, so that new players can quickly join a server.
• Added notifications for when a player levels up
• Changed bb_feint_cancel_amount to 0.35 from .51
• Changed bb_feint_cooldown to .75 from 1.5
• Changed bb_feintcancel_cooldown to 1.0 from 2.3
• Changed Katana base damage to .85 from .90
• Players now unqueue from a match when a duel is lost.
• Controller button mapping now uses built-in Steam controller mapping.
• Replaced Player Level with Time Played in Server Details screen.
• Added a notification to alert the server when players level up.
• Added new menu scenes to the main menu.

Optimizations

• Significantly improved asset streaming.
• Removed expensive water from duel_monastery and free_monastery.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed duel style image showing the local players emblem when receiving a private duel request in free for all maps.
• Fixed various issues with emblem shaders and layering system, so that emblems are displayed correctly during a match introduction.
• Fixed style button disappearing on spectator controls.
• Fixed players to be able to attack after a duel has ended or draws have taken place.
• Fixed players seeing white summary screens.
• Fixed notifications showing with garbled text when joining a server.
• Fixed an issue where the game would crash after a player received an item.
• Fixed a variety of crashes (big thanks to Liam Dawe, Prohorov, Unno, and several others)
• Fixed reflection issue on various textures in ffa_community