Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 586 Two-Dimensional Horizon?

Time passed by, and the number of people in the venue increased, completely filling the once spacious media seating area.

The air was filled with the sounds of conversations in various languages, the low hum of equipment, and a faint sense of anticipation, like a pot of water about to boil.

They endured it all, until finally the lights in the venue began to dim slowly, the noise from the crowd subsided, and everyone turned their attention to the huge screen in the center of the stage.

On the screen, the Starry Night Games logo floated silently, with a countdown number below it. Tens of millions of players worldwide saw this number at the same time.

In China, Bilibili at 8 a.m. has probably never been so lively. In the live stream jointly promoted by Xingchen, Bilibili, and titok, the barrage of comments surged almost instantly.

[It's here! It's finally starting!]

[Selling sunflower seeds, peanuts, and bottled water in the front row; also, offering tea to Xingchen!]

I've watched that trailer from Sony's press conference twenty times, and I can finally see the whole thing!

To be honest, this is a really impressive lineup. Is this the first time a domestic manufacturer has held a standalone press conference at E3?

[Stop breastfeeding! Stop breastfeeding! I'm so nervous, please don't mess it up!]

Inside the venue, Chen Mo and Kong Yao also stopped talking, their fingers hovering over the laptop keyboards, ready to record every moment of the press conference.

The countdown has entered its final minute.

"Boom."

A heavy heartbeat resounded throughout the venue through the speakers, as if striking the hearts of everyone present.

"Boom."

The numbers on the screen began to flash in rhythm with my heartbeat.

"Boom."

"Ten, nine, eight..."

The moment the countdown reached zero, the entire venue fell into complete darkness and silence.

The screen suddenly lit up the next second.

On the huge screen, there was no rousing music or cool logo animation, only a deep darkness and a line of small white text slowly emerging from the darkness.

The loneliest thing in the universe is not the vast sea of ​​stars, but the destruction of our home.

Immediately afterwards, a magnificent and desolate piece of music began to play, and a vast starry sky appeared on the screen. The camera quickly zoomed in, and soon a planet appeared in the center of the frame.

A deep, magnetic male voice rang out, carrying an epic quality.

"When a star reaches the end of its life, it collapses, explodes, and returns everything that made it up to the universe."

"But when a planet's core cools, its magnetic field disappears, its atmosphere is lost, and life faces a long and desperate suffocation. Its death is silent."

The camera pierced through the clouds and soon came to the plains that had flashed by for a few seconds during Sony's pre-show press conference a few hours earlier.

"But our ancestors did not sit idly by and wait for their doom."

The narrator's voice rose slightly, and the scene then shifted.

Countless ships of unimaginable size, like worker ants orbiting a star, are dismantling a colossal gas giant. Magnificent rings are broken down into their most basic form, reshaped and compressed under unimaginable force.

"They decided to perform a cosmic-level heart surgery on their planet." A sphere, as dazzling as the sun and composed of pure energy and unknown metals, slowly approached the dying blue planet, pulled by countless ships.

"They named this artificial core—the Star Core."

The entire Starcore series consists of two parts: the main game, Starcore: Reboot, and the prequel, Starcore: Extinction.

The core of its plot is that the protagonist, the player, arrives on a strange planet.

Although there are many relics left by advanced civilizations on this planet, the people living on this land are still in the age of cold weapons.

They regarded some relics left behind by their high-tech civilization as miracles. The first spin-off, "Star Core: Extinction," tells the story of the protagonist's arrival and observation of this planet. He unexpectedly discovers that the planet is about to die and gradually unravels the mystery.

So this opening scene is actually about one thing: what exactly is the "star core" in the title?

If you look closely, you'll find that the first half of this PV is actually very similar to the camera work style of The Wandering Earth.

In fact, this storyboard was indeed created by Guo Fan's team.

For Chu Chen, this type of shot was still beautiful, but not as amazing. However, for the other players in the room, it was something special, especially since "The Wandering Earth" had not yet been released.

The unique sense of tragedy and the tension in the text, presented within this grand narrative, are still strong.

After explaining the core concept of the Star Core, the PV quickly moved into its second phase, which is the classic scene demonstration that almost all games show in their promotional videos.

However, unlike other game showcase scenes, the art style of all the scenes displayed in this PV is very unique.

For example, in the vast desert, a tribe made of huge metal wreckage is holding a sacrificial ceremony.

The tribe's inhabitants wore rough animal skins and linen, with strange paint on their faces, but the "god" they worshipped was a giant mech that was stuck diagonally in the sand, its chest still shimmering with a faint blue light.

Deep in the rainforest, the roots of towering ancient trees entangled the hovercraft that had long since lost power, and vines sprouted from the opening in the cockpit, blooming with unknown wildflowers.

A group of hunters, armed with spears crafted from high-tech alloys, carefully tracked their prey.

Their leader wore not animal teeth around his neck, but a necklace of energy crystals that refracted a mesmerizing light in the dim forest glow.

At the summit of the snow-capped mountain, an ancient temple is built against the mountainside, where monks chant sutras in the biting cold wind.

What they struck was not a bronze bell, but a huge cannon barrel stuck upside down on the mountaintop.

With each impact, the cannon barrel emitted a deep, long hum that echoed throughout the valley, carrying a strange flavor that blended Zen and iron-bloodedness.

This unique art style is somewhat similar to Sony's popular title "Horizon Zero Dawn," released last year, which drew gasps from many attendees.

"Fuck..."

"Anime Horizon???"

But if you look closely, you'll find that although the scenes are somewhat similar, the specific art styles are actually completely different, partly due to the different rendering methods.

The rendering style of "Star Core: Reboot" belongs to the realistic anime style. The reason for choosing this direction is that Star Core is good at anime.

On the other hand, it's also a form of "opportunism".

Because 3D rendering is relatively easier than pure AAA, Chu Chen timed the game's release in 2020, which was actually a compromise.

(End of this chapter)