Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 558 Influence

The next morning.

The sky outside the window was just beginning to lighten, carrying the unique chill and quiet of the Spring Festival holiday.

Chu Chen's biological clock is more punctual than an alarm clock. He opened his eyes, and since Song Yueying was still asleep, he moved very quietly. After getting up and washing up briefly, he...

He went to the study and opened his laptop.

With great power comes great responsibility. As the biggest beneficiary of Xingchen, Chu Chen also needs to handle work during his holidays.

As I said before, there's not much to do during the Spring Festival in China, but matters from the branches in Europe, America, Japan, and other places will still reach him, so the Spring Festival holiday is not a long time for Chu Chen.

The workload is much smaller, but it's not like there's no work at all.

The first email Chu Chen saw when he woke up was from the Japanese branch, titled "Report on the Japan Open Beta Livestream Event of 'Final Forbidden Zone'".

The email reported two pieces of news, one good and one bad.

First, the bad news: last night's "Voice Actor's Desperate Battle" live stream event, judging from the data, can only be described as "mediocre".

Despite the significant investment in promotion by Hoshino Japan and the presence of popular guests, the peak number of online viewers and the average viewing time of the live stream only reached average levels, failing to achieve the anticipated blockbuster effect.

"The live stream was only so-so. Viewers mainly complained about the 'slow pace' and 'not understanding what the professional players were doing.' Although the voice actors tried their best to entertain, the overall viewing experience didn't stand out from similar programs..."

Chu Chen wasn't too surprised; it was perfectly understandable that the live stream of this kind of shooting game might have slightly less impressive visuals.

However, some clever touches mixed in with this bad news made Chu Chen quite gratified. One of them mentioned that, in order to create a good show, the production team secretly replaced all sixteen professional teams with elementary school students in one of the matches.

Viewers watching the live stream can see elementary school students playing games, and they can also see the nervousness that the voice actors feel when facing elementary school students.

This also led to a famous scene.

A female voice actress who had been constantly used as a live target by professional players and screamed throughout the game, encountered this team of "professional players" around the corner. After a flurry of hip-fire shooting, she miraculously eliminated all three of them.

At that moment, she froze on the spot, then burst into a thunderous cheer, dancing with excitement, even jumping up and down on the chair, shouting at the camera.

"Did you see that?! I did it! I did it!"

The problem is, at the very moment she screamed, the other half of the live stream showed three children with speechless expressions.
"The bad news is that the live stream itself didn't get a great response, but the good news is that our clips went viral."

After the live stream ended, the Starry Night Japan operations team, following the pre-arranged plan, edited the several-hour-long live stream content into hundreds of short videos ranging from one to three minutes, and distributed them to major video websites and social media platforms.

This method of compressing and disseminating the essence quickly proved effective.

Emotions are highly contagious, just like a bunch of funny compilations of PUBG, which even people who don't play the game can understand.

In his report, Li Suhao analyzed that the reason why this video clip became so popular was not only because the content itself was interesting, but also because of another key reason.

That is, the gameplay of "Final Zone" is more friendly to casual players.

As mentioned before, *Final Zone* adopted many mature battle royale mechanics from later games, such as skills and respawning, which significantly lowered the barrier to entry and the viewing experience for players. The introduction of skills, in particular, meant that while skilled players could still easily defeat average players, even those with less-than-ideal aim could contribute to the team by using crucial skills.

Furthermore, the skills of some powerful characters can allow newbies to turn the tide of battle.

In addition, many adjustments have been made to the details of "Final Zone", such as footstep reminders, enemy firing direction reminders, teammate marking, and circle shrinking alarms.
These seemingly minor changes have led to the assessment that the software is "easier to use".

In addition, the Starry Night auxiliary shoulder buttons were already quite mature at this time, so the popularity of "Final Zone" continued to rise two days after its open beta test.

For fans of anime and manga, it's worth trying to find something that suits their taste.

Players who don't like anime but play PUBG also came to join the fun because of the new settings in "Final Zone". In addition, the fact that there are no barriers to entry for the public beta of "Final Zone" further amplified this mentality of joining in the fun.

Starting from the third day of the Lunar New Year, this trend began to spread rapidly and started to spread from person to person.

"The wolf is coming! The global online player count of 'Final Zone' has surpassed 500 million, overtaking 'PUBG'!"

"Redefining 'Battle Royale'? How did StarCraft Games surpass its predecessor?"

The headlines of major gaming media outlets were unanimously dominated by the words "Final Forbidden Zone," and this time it wasn't just in China; many mainstream media outlets in Europe and America also reported on it.

For example, PCGAME, the largest gaming website in Europe and America, even gave it a front-page shot.

How StarCraft Games Reimagined Battle Royale with Anime Style

The accompanying image features "WA2000," the most popular character in "Final Zone," holding a sniper rifle against a black background. The image is half-crouched, with a skirt, black stockings, and a sniper rifle, creating a striking visual impact.

Incidentally, WA2000 is popular because she and Mosin-Nagant are the only two sniper characters in this test.

In numerous highlight reels, it frequently appears
Returning to media reports.

Gun, car, and sports games are the most popular genres among Western players. This combination of anime style, skills, weapons, and battle royale gameplay is quite something, isn't it?

It's somewhat similar to General Tso's Chicken in the United States.

It has both anime style and shooting elements that they are familiar with. The combination of the two naturally attracts more attention. Just like this article on PCGAME, it starts by assuming that "Final Zone" has already been a success.

"From a mod for Arma to a standalone chapter in H1Z1, and then to the global explosion of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, the battle royale genre has made an astonishing leap from subculture to mainstream in just a few years. However, just when everyone thought that the ultimate form of this genre was PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, StarCraft Games from the East gave a completely new answer with End Zone."

"If 'PUBG' is a military simulation documentary that pursues the ultimate realism, then 'The End Zone' is a commercial blockbuster that combines superpowers and modern warfare."

"'Cool' and 'exhilarating' experiences are something you absolutely can't experience in other games."

If you only read these reports, you would never guess that the game in the report is still in testing.

Even IGN gave it a high score of 8.5.

The review stated: "It inherits the essence of battle royale and infuses it with a completely new soul using the concept of 'heroes,' making it perhaps the most revolutionary multiplayer shooter in recent years."

(End of this chapter)