Crimson Test

Overview

The Crimson Test (绯红测试 Fēihóng Cèshì) was the first closed beta test of Lord of Mysteries. Sign-ups for Mainland Chinese PC players opened on January 15, 2026 at 09:30 China Standard Time and closed on February 1, 2026. Selected testers received SMS invitations from around January 20, and the build went live on February 5, 2026, finishing before February 23 so that the test wrapped up ahead of Chinese New Year on February 17.

SPARK NEXA ran the Crimson Test as a limited, non-monetised, account-wipe beta. There was no in-game store and no premium currency purchase, and no progress carried over. The launcher was never publicly distributed: it shipped only to confirmed testers to keep the build off the open internet, and testers signed a confidentiality agreement covering screenshots, footage, and detailed mechanics.

This page is a historical record of that February 2026 build, not a description of the live game. The game launched in Mainland China on August 21, 2026, and the rosters, caps, and rules below were the test's, not the launch client's. For the current game start at Getting Started.

Sign-Up

The sign-up portal ran on the official Mainland Chinese site. Players chose the 'make an appointment to become an extraordinary person' (預約成為非凡者) option and completed a questionnaire covering email, hardware specs, prior MMO experience, prior Beyonder lore familiarity, and gameplay preferences. WeChat verification was recommended over phone-number verification because the WeChat path tolerated shared landlines.

An in-game host character named Susie fronted the recruitment survey in official communications, framing the sign-up as the player's first contact with the Beyonder world. Susie has outlasted the test and is now a standing in-character mascot the studio uses across its official channels.

Each test qualification was bound to a single device. A confirmed tester could not share access between two computers, and a qualification could not be transferred. The one-device-per-qualification rule was enforced at launcher-login time.

The test was restricted to the Mainland China region and shipped with no English client: menu strings, voiceovers, and quest text were Chinese only. That has not changed since. No release outside Mainland China has been announced, and the studio has published nothing about a schedule for one. See CN vs Global for the current position.

Six Playable Pathways

The Crimson Test made 6 of the 22 Pathways playable. The same six became the launch roster. Progression in the test was capped around Sequence 7; the launch client's ceiling has not been published. See Sequences for the full ladder.

Two of those roles are easy to get backwards. The Warrior is the party's frontline protection: mastery of weapons and armour, greatsword melee, damage reduction, blocking, and an area taunt to hold a boss. The Bard is a melee physical damage class built for sustained output and single-target execution, and its signature contribution is purification, which it can briefly grant to allies, plus a short death-immunity effect. The Bard does not tank. See Pathway Roles for the full party-composition mapping.

All six Sequence 9 Pathways received the Mr. Fool grafting treatment, which hands the player borrowed copies of higher-Sequence abilities at reduced strength. The Assassin Pathway and Hunter Pathway were explicitly excluded, and neither has shipped since. The studio has named the Monster, Lawyer, and Assassin Pathways as its stated priorities for post-launch development, without publishing an order or a timetable for the remaining sixteen.

Class change (转职) was not in the Crimson Test and is not in the launch build either. It is reported to arrive alongside the Assassin Pathway and to require Sequence 4 or higher, so it sits well beyond anything the beta reached.

World Content

World content covered Tingen and the surrounding areas of the early novel arc. The campaign retraced the early novel through the player's own Beyonder, with Klein Moretti's history overlaid as Mr. Fool visions. The Tingen Nighthawks and the Church of the Evernight Goddess appeared as introductory faction contacts. Backlund was built and previewed but gated behind later progression, and it was not the focus of this test; it is still staged as post-launch content on the studio's four-year plan.

Testers built an original Beyonder through the Character Creation suite rather than playing as Klein. Around the same period the studio described the creator's time budget as roughly two hours on the face and a full day on outfits. Other systems it highlighted in this window were the dice-roll exploration checks, a Solo Mode toggle with AI teammates, and the Sanity System permadeath rules, most of which were already running in the Crimson Test build.

Test reports also described open-world PvP zoning in the contested areas outside the city, an early version of the systems documented under Faction Warfare and PvP.

Test Schedule

Key dates, compiled from official announcements, with the two milestones that followed the test:

Tester Guidelines

Confidentiality was mandatory. Public footage, livestreams, screenshots, and detailed mechanic posts were prohibited unless a streamer-program waiver specifically allowed them. Bug reports and balance feedback went through an in-game Feedback panel and a dedicated post-test survey.

Account data was wiped at the end of the test. Premium currency did not exist in the build, but cosmetic test items (free outfits, props, banner frames) were awarded for participation and removed at the wipe. A small pool of testers received 'Founder of the Crimson Test' commemorative cosmetics tied to their account rather than to the wiped build.

Platforms in Scope

PC only. macOS was not supported in this build, and mobile testing was held back for a later round. The Gray Fog Test in June 2026 was the first to open PC, Android, and iOS at once, and the launch client added HarmonyOS as a fourth platform alongside a cloud-gaming option. See System Requirements for both the beta specifications and the shipped launch requirements.

What Happened to Crimson Test Data

Nothing from the Crimson Test carried into the live game. The launch client is a newer version, the old test installers stopped working, and test progress was neither inherited nor shared in either direction. Before launch the studio asked everyone who had played the Crimson Test or the Gray Fog Test to uninstall their old client and clear its leftover files first. That is what makes this page purely historical: every account that played here started again from nothing on August 21.

Followed By: The Gray Fog Test

On May 22, 2026 the studio opened recruitment for the second closed beta, the Gray Fog Test (灰雾测试). It ran from June 26 to July 5, 2026, covered PC, Android, and iOS simultaneously as the game's first multi-platform test, and was structured as a limited-capacity paid wipe test (限量计费删档测试) rather than a free one. Servers closed at 21:00 on July 5, after a finale week that opened the test's capstone raid and its large-scale PvP modes. It was the last beta before launch.

Related

Release and Platforms covers the launch platforms and the launch-week schedule. Development History traces the project from the studio's founding through to launch day, and Dev Roadmap sets both tests in the wider development timeline. Multiplayer and Co-Op and Dungeons and Raids describe the team-content systems this round stress-tested.