On December 10, in this year's TGA, the award for the best game of the year was finally won by "Double Trip", and the domestic game "Original God" won the best mobile game award... All of the above, there have been many reports in the industry, and there is no need to repeat them. GameLook, by contrast, would rather talk about another game:
Winner of the RPG of the Year, Tales of Arise, developed by Bandai Namco, the first game in the Legends series to be built with Unreal Engine 4.
Unexpectedly, this year, in the face of "Cyberpunk 2077" and "Monster Hunter: Rise" and other powerful players, the combination of "two-dimensional + Unreal Engine research and development" became the final winner, and also verified a new round of changes in the category.
This change also has early signs in China: in recent years, major manufacturers have collectively gambled on the second dimension, especially in Shanghai game companies. For example, not long ago, the first two-dimensional mobile game "Backlight Infiltration" and Lilith's "Apocalypse of Eden" have been exposed. As far as the current information is concerned, they are all next-generation quality, constantly promoting the ceiling of two-dimensional game research and development.
If quadratic 1.0 is the era of creative games, the current era when 3D graphics and art involution have become the main trends is the 2.0 era. So the next step will obviously be the 3.0 era of Unreal Engine's research and development of a full iteration of the two-dimensional track, at least from the current breakthrough of "Dawn Legend" can see some signs.
It is worth mentioning that at present, there are already a large wave of two-dimensional unreal projects in China, including "Magic Tower", the "Navigation King IP mobile game "Project: Fighter", "CoV", etc.
How fierce is UE hitting the quadratic element? Crush Cyberpunk 2077, Monster Hunter
First, take a look at the five games that have been shortlisted for TGA's RPG of the Year this year.
Last year's topical masterpiece "Cyberpunk 2077", thanks to the twists and turns of the plot performance and a strong sense of substitution, the first day of the game Steam online players exceeded millions. However, due to too many bugs in the early stage of the launch, too bad optimization, too slow updates and other issues, it soon experienced a big decline in heat. After a year, after a series of actions such as continuous updates and patches and 50% discount promotions, the game has also experienced a warm-up of word-of-mouth in the near future.
With elements such as Japanese style themes, ukiyo-e style art, hundred ghosts and night walks, and the NS full version of the interoperable online mode, "Monster Hunter: Rise" has also become a hot topic of discussion among players during the first release. In just a few days, the game has shipped more than 4 million units worldwide, second only to Monster Hunter: World in the first week of the series with 5 million.
Interestingly, this year, a number of two-dimensional products have also been shortlisted for the annual RPG awards, namely "True Goddess Rebirth 5" and "Crimson Knot".
Unlike the more well-known spin-off series Persona 5, True Goddess Rebirth 5 focuses more on combat and labyrinth exploration. At the same time, the content involves relatively deep content such as philosophy and religion, coupled with the slow pace and punishment difficulty, it can be said that it is a game with a high threshold.
Crimson Knot is also a two-dimensional game developed by Unreal Engine, but almost all of its plots use real-time calculations of PPT cutscenes, and only in some key plots will there be plot animations. The player's story experience is greatly reduced, and the performance can only be regarded as decent.
In contrast, the winner "Legend of Breaking Dawn" not only has the picture quality been greatly improved, but also based on the official "Atmos Shaders" rendering technology, the ruins, towns, rainforests and other scenes also have a slender and beautiful look like watercolor paintings. The scenery of the game's 5 countries and special areas always allows players to stop and watch, and the long-range scenery is particularly spectacular. In addition, the 2D characters are restored by using 3D modeled cartoon rendering, which can be said to have found a good balance between realism and cartoons.
At the same time, the game not only brings 3D performances rendered in real time under Unreal Engine 4, but also high-quality 2D cutscenes produced by ufotable UFO. Although there are still some awkward pauses and stiff cutscenes, with a mature narrative style, as well as a large number of particles and light effects, it still maintains a high standard in the overall plot performance.
The gameplay has been completely renewed, saying goodbye to the legendary series of the old era
Specifically, The Legend of Dawn discusses a grand and serious proposition: the story of slavery, oppression, and rebellion.
That is, there are two planets, Dana and Reina, and Reina invaded Dana 300 years ago, opening a 300-year history of slavery. The male protagonist Orfin is a Dana, and the female protagonist Xeno is a Renner, and the conflicting character settings also make the story more dramatic.
Although there are many logical hard wounds in the plot, the villains have no shortage of facial portrayals, and some "points to the end" are discussed for the above issues, so they have also been complained about by many players. But the game has a wealth of side quests that further refine the game's rhythm and narrative coherence. Among them, classic JRPG themes such as courage, bondage, and love run through it.
In addition to the main plot of Wang Dao, the small theater that continues the tradition of the "Legend Series", the 320 small theaters in "The Legend of Dawn" are interpreted with the help of comic book storyboarding, and each character is more distinct and three-dimensional. For example, the arrogant and petite Xinong and the Lo have left a deep impression on the player.
Of course, the biggest feature of the "Legend Series" has always been character building and action. Today, Dawn Legends also iterates on gameplay, bringing it closer to the concept of "action games".
Most of the previous "Legends series" were like fighting games, where players had to defeat enemies through combos. However, the game changed the rhythm of the series of battles, removing the previously indispensable defense system and adding the common dodge mechanism of the ACT. In other words, players need to move flexibly and use various skills to attack the weakness of the boss to play hard straight, in order to defeat the enemy.
However, due to the preposition of many of the middle and late content that needs to be unlocked, the attack power in the later stage has soared, and even become a pure numerical game, which has also caused a lot of controversy.
In essence, behind the change of "Legend of Breaking Dawn", it is more about the change of Bandai Namco's concept of IP production of "Legend Series". Once upon a time, Bandai Namco's attitude towards one of its number one IP, the "Legend Series", was more like a New Year game made by Assembly Line. At one time, there were three teams working on the "Legend Series" at the same time, and new works were released almost every year, until the emergence of "Hot Legend".
As a commemorative work for the 20th anniversary of the "Legend Series", the overall picture level of "Legend of Love" did not bring a revolutionary breakthrough at that time. Coupled with the departure of "Alixia", who was promoted as a heroine before the release, left in the middle of the game, causing a large number of players to be disappointed, resulting in an avalanche in the reputation of the game. Although the subsequent sequel "Berserk Legend" withstood the pressure and won back the word of mouth, because its overall production still revealed the characteristics of low cost, the picture quality was even much lower than that of "Legend of Love". The sales of the game are not satisfactory, and they are in the dilemma of "applauding but not calling".
The Legend of Passion
Now, after 5 years of silence, the new work "Legend of Dawn" announces the return and evolution of the "Legend Series" with new elements such as exquisite next-generation graphics, ACT combat and semi-open world, and also brings another successful template for the 3D of two-dimensional games.
What is the potential for two-dimensional upgrade UE research and development? These large domestic factories have long been established
Compared with the significance of the market level, "The Legend of Breaking Dawn" won the TGA annual RPG award, which demonstrated the powerful effect of the two-dimensional product superposition of Unreal Engine for the game circle peers, and established the next direction of category development early. Of course, "Legend of Dawn" is not the first two-dimensional product developed using Unreal Engine, and some manufacturers in China have already begun to set up a project layout.
For example, the recent hot topic of players, the "Magic Tower" developed by Hotta Studio, a subsidiary of Perfect World Games, is to create an original sci-fi wasteland open world with the help of Unreal Engine 4. Whether it is scenes with different terrains, or dynamic weather systems such as day and night, wind, snow, rain and fog, they are highly realistic to the real world.
Therefore, since the opening of reservations, the number of reservations on the entire network of the game has soared to more than 15 million, and it is regarded by the outside world as the biggest competitor of "Original God", which will be launched on December 15.
Earlier, at this year's Tencent Games Annual Conference, the Original Team of "Naruto Mobile Game" under Rubik's Cube Studios was exposed, and the Sea King IP mobile game "Project: Fighter" was also a two-dimensional mobile game produced by Unreal Engine 4.
Not long ago, the official account of the Rubik's Cube also released a video of Sauron's latest game against Hawkeye. It can be seen that both the character modeling details and the fluency of the movements, animation performances and QTE are excellent. Just over a minute, it's like a wonderful drama experience.
The much-anticipated, light-year self-developed masterpiece "CoA (Crystal Core)" was also developed by Unreal Engine. However, the game is not a Japanese two-dimensional in the traditional sense, or a domestic two-dimensional element such as "Original God", "Crash 3" and "Battle Double", but a rare Korean style art in recent years. Judging from the scenes, characters, and battle screens exposed in the current PV, its quality is already enough to look forward to. Not surprisingly, the game also scored a good score of TapTap 9.1 and 110,000 player reservations.
In fact, it is currently at a critical juncture of the two-dimensional transformation. According to iResearch's forecast, in 2020, the scale of domestic two-dimensional games will reach 41.1 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 10% of the total game market size, and will continue to grow steadily in the future. At the same time, it is expected that by 2023, the scale of China's pan-secondary users will reach 500 million.
In the next few years, the market size and the surge in users will naturally bring about an unprecedented intensification of competition in vertical tracks, which can be seen from the current domestic manufacturers' collective increase in the second dimension. However, at present, this "inner volume" that focuses on the art level is difficult to have a competitive advantage after reaching a certain critical point.
Many two-dimensional manufacturers who have noticed this have begun to devote themselves to the research and development of next-generation products early, and even directly set up projects for the research and development of unreal products, such as the early entry of large manufacturers such as Perfect World, Tencent, and Sunrise Lightyear. As a result, dawn breakout has shown the potential for two-dimensional products to upgrade to Unreal Engine development.
In GameLook's view, the second dimension is more like a super category that integrates multiple gameplay and constantly breaks through the upper limit of quality. Based on this feature, the white-hot two-dimensional track can still tap a blue market. Then, with the launch and popularization of Unreal Engine 4 or even Unreal Engine 5 in the future, there will be a large wave of collective explosion of two-dimensional Unreal products. When the time comes, it may not be as easy as being able to do the second dimension.
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GameLook Daily Game Industry Report
Global vision / depth is material