Droid Gamers: Hands On With The Black Beacon Global Beta

In case you hadn’t seen the news, gacha action-RPG Black Beacon kicked off its global beta test  a few days ago. 

Not sure if you should rush off and download it right now? Relax. That’s what we’re here for. We went hands-on with the global beta over the weekend to see whether Black Beacon is set to become the next mobile gacha blockbuster. 

Setting And Story

Let’s start with the premise. Black Beacon is an action RPG gacha game, kicking off within the towering halls of the Library Of Babel.

Interestingly, the Library of Babel is a reference to a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, about a world in the form of a vast library containing every possible combination of letters. The vast majority of the books in this library are necessarily nonsense, but, as dictated by the laws of probability, it also has every book known to humanity hidden away somewhere inside. 

Black Beacon’s Library of Babel also takes notes from the biblical Tower of Babel, a tower created to reach heaven. The setting is full of references to judeo-christian mythology and the bible, which is quite an interesting departure from other folklore sources. We can dig it: we’ve seen Evangelion.

In Black Beacon you take on the role of The Seer, who, like many gacha game protagonists, wakes up in a strange place with no idea how they got there. To make matters worse, you inherit some extremely weighty destiny. Congratulations – you are the new custodian of the vast and mysterious Library of Babel.

Fortunately, the other characters in the game seem unfazed by your arrival, though they’re pretty economical with information. 

Your arrival seems to trigger a big change in the Library, and not necessarily in a good way. A monster starts clawing its way out of the depths. Between that, some time travel Doctor Who River Song shenanigans, and a clockwork star that’s poised to take out you and everyone you’ve met, you’re going to have to hit the ground running. 

Okay, we’ve probably waxed about the story for long enough. Let’s talk about how Black Beacon plays.

Gameplay

Black Beacon is a 3D free-roaming affair, and you’re able to explore areas in either a top-down or free camera perspective, depending on your preference. You can swap between them just by pinching or unpinching on the touchscreen controls. 

The game has a realtime combat system. It’s a hacky, slashy affair that sees you chaining together combos and firing off moves. It also has a quite fun little feature of encouraging character-switching mid-fight, or even mid-combo. 

The tag team strategy lets the benched characters regenerate their stamina faster. There’s no penalty for swapping in and out, so you’re free to deploy and call back your team as if you’re playing a version of Pokemon populated by anime characters. 

Combat relies on timing and spotting enemy cues. It’s deep but accessible, and certainly not an exercise in mindless button-mashing. While you can plough through the grunts without too much trouble, if you don’t pay attention to what some of your more powerful opponents are doing they’ll force you to concentrate by flinging you across the arena.

Black Beacon is a gacha, so of course it comes with a bunch of different characters. Thankfully, the variation in combat styles and moves makes each new character feel like a meaningful change. Interaction-wise, a few of them are interesting enough that you’ll want to get to know them. 

Playing The Beta

If this all sounds like your kind of thing, then you might want to take a look at the global beta test. It’s available through Google Play if you’re on Android, and if you’re on iOS users can test through TestFlight (but the number of testers allowed is limited). Just follow the link and sign up to download the game and play the first five chapters.

And if the test does take your fancy, then you might also want to pre-register. If you do it via the official website, you can get 10 Development Material Boxes, while on Google Play you can snag an exclusive costume for Zero.

It’s too soon to say whether Black Beacon has what it takes to become the Next Big Thing in gacha, but we’re interested to find out.