NCSoft’s Blade & Soul 2 ready for takeoff on Aug. 26.

Expectations are running high as the release of NCSoft’s Blade & Soul 2 is less than a month away.

Set for launch on Aug. 26, the massive multiplayer online role-playing game is the sequel of NCSoft’s Blade & Soul, which notched the grand prize at the 2012 Korea Game Awards.

The game will be available on both PC and mobile devices. Users can enjoy Blade & Soul 2 on PC through cross-play service Purple.

Preregistrations reached 7.46 million, a record in Korea, breaking that of Lineage2M’s 7.38 million.

Meritz Securities estimates annual sales of 255.6 billion won ($223.1 million) for the new game.

By Kim Byung-wook (kbw@heraldcorp.com)