On the evening of January 17 of this year, Riot announced their next five-year plan, informing players of the new direction that Riot will choose, the new business it will expand, and most importantly, when to complete the sequel to "A Battle of two cities".
2021 for the fist and the global game industry is a very special year, the game industry booming, and the fist game is the most important part of it, according to statistics, every month more than 180 million players in the game of fist, but also because of this huge user base, so that this year's LOL global finals became the highest number of views ever, this year fist created countless miracles, and the game that created miracles is the most popular MOBA game - "League of Legends".
Think about it carefully, "League of Legends" from the original "DOTA" imitators, to today's MOBA field leaders, how much optimization and change has been experienced in the middle, from simple imitation to become a blockbuster product that meets the needs of the market and players, how much effort Fist and Tencent have spent, these players have seen it.
Nowadays, Fist has worked hard to carry out a new game research and development business, and even began to enter the field of single-player games, multi-directional development. But in the next five years, will they be able to find a new genre to replace League of Legends? After MOBA, what type of game will become the focus of global players?
Possible types of new blockbuster games
I have to say that since "League of Legends" brought up a new wave of MOBA game types, such games have not left the player's field of vision, from "DOTA" to "League of Legends" to the mobile game "Glory of the King", this kind of game has been proving its commercial value, more and more simplified game mechanics, relatively fair game mechanisms, a variety of confrontation modes, making MOBA a more popular game type.
But any game genre will have a certain lifespan, and the MOBA genre, which has been in the hot stage for a long time, will also usher in its decline, so there must be a new game type to take over the market share he has vacated, which is what other track games have to think about.
Among them, the most popular is the chicken type game, because there are too many similarities in the game mechanics, heavy confrontation of the game competitiveness, multiplayer cooperative gameplay, changeable battles, and gradually growing game attributes, these features have greatly improved the social attributes of the game, so that the game can pull more users to play together, which is quite similar to today's MOBA games.
On the other hand, the entertainment value of chicken-eating games is not low, and it can be said that it is one of the popular genres in the game live broadcast area, because the changeable battle situation and the interesting interaction of player cooperation have greatly enhanced the spread value of the game.
SLG games are also competitive game types, although relatively speaking, the social attributes of such games are too weak, the gameplay and mechanics are somewhat slow, but after precipitation, the user stickiness of the game will also have a greater improvement, not only allowing more players to enjoy the fun brought by long-term cultivation, but also making the user group of the game more refined.
In overseas markets, SLG games are also popular spicy chickens, because the strategic gameplay is challenging for players, allowing more players to immerse themselves in the gameplay of the game. From another point of view, SLG games have lower requirements for screen and operation, and the configuration requirements of mobile games are not high, which to some extent also reduces the cost of playing players, so that more players can enjoy the fun of the game.
There is also the new APRG boom brought by "Original God" and "Phantom Tower", the new mode of open world and RPG, these two games represent the development direction of two games, on the one hand, the RPG game with a single-player experience, and the traditional MMORPG mode on the other, all of which have gone out of their own style, and also proved to more players that the type and gameplay of the game can be compatible and integrated.
The necessity of compound game mechanics
In fact, compared with the traditional single game play and mechanism, more games have begun to embark on the route of compound game mechanics, because of the progress of game technology, players' own requirements for the game are gradually increasing, and it is difficult for a single game to meet the longer-term play needs of more players, so a composite game mechanism is born to constitute a new type of game.
Xiao Lei once reviewed "Maiden Frontline: Cloud Map Project" is a good example, with two popular mechanics of wargames and roguelike, and then using the familiar old IP to form this special game.
Chicken eating games are also under the trend of this compound mechanism, colliding with more different sparks, such as NetEase's "Forever Doomed", Dreamgame's "Wuxia Qi", both games are a combination of martial arts action elements and chicken eating gameplay mechanism, breaking the stereotype that eating chicken can only be a shooting game.
And card games are also constantly synthesizing popular gameplay on the market, with the combination of real-time combat elements of Harry Potter: Magic Awakening, the addition of love elements of interactive elements of "Light and Night Love", and the combination of the previous game and tower defense gameplay of "Clash of Clans: Clash Royale", these games are expanding the possibilities of card game development, but also to some extent change the player's stereotype of card games.
For example, the female-oriented games mentioned in the previous article have also taken on a new look this year, combining love and reasoning with the "Undetermined Event Book", "Huayishan Heart Moon" that joins the ancient style cultivation elements and strategy battles, and "Ink Soul" that has made great efforts in plot and character shaping, these games are all new attempts for women to play games, in addition to the traditional love elements and cultivation mechanisms, adding more different mechanistic gameplay, and constantly exporting more gameplay to female players.
The reason why today's games need to design a composite game mechanism is because with the increase in players' playing needs, a single gameplay will consume the patience of players to some extent, and only then do composite gameplay needs to create new needs.
On the other hand, the composite gameplay can collide with new sparks to a certain extent, laying a new foundation for new game types, just like the chicken eating game of the 2017 fire, which also stood out from the gameplay of the "Armed Assault" series, combined with the survival gameplay of "Dayz", which produced this very special competitive mode today.
In the future, to find a new game type to replace today's MOBA, it may take more attempts and developments, after all, MOBA games have also developed to today's scale under long-term polishing and improvement.
This is inseparable from Tencent's high-quality long-term operation and the clear idea of Fist in game development ideas. It is necessary to reduce the complexity of gameplay and reduce the learning cost of players at the beginning of game design, so that the game can be understood and recognized by more players.
League of Legends is taken from the essence of DOTA and presented in the most concise way, which may be why it can still remain hot today.
The future of esports is uncertain
Nowadays, e-sports events have a very professional development in the world, from FPS to MOBA to eat chicken, game e-sports events are the best way to expand influence, let more players delve into, let more people see the charm of professional e-sports, which is the best direction for game development.
But nowadays, in fact, there is no game of e-sports development can be as mature as MOBA games and have a huge influence, it can be said that if MOBA games are not accepted by players now, then the global e-sports events may fall into a trough, even the popular FPS games are difficult to compare.
As early as 2019, "PUBG" has declined to varying degrees on international mainstream live broadcasting platforms such as Twitch, Youtube, facebook Gaming, and the total viewing time of PUBG in the second quarter has dropped by 300 hours compared with 6800 hours in the previous quarter. Even Fortnite, which tops the list, was not spared, and the overall ratings of the most popular survival competitive game in Europe and the United States fell by 3.66 hours from the first quarter.
And the fist is also trying to create a new breakthrough, the MOBA FPS "Fearless Contract" released in 2019 is also a new attempt for them, this kind of gameplay similar to "Overwatch" plus "CS: GO" has indeed attracted the attention of a large number of players to a certain extent, but unfortunately the game is still not open beta in China, and the popularity of "Overwatch" has also begun to decline, and "Fearless Contract" is still in response in China.
At the beginning of last year, without any substantive updates to "CS:GO", the live broadcast of "Fearless Covenant" failed to continue the height of the service, but was surpassed by "CS:GO" without any substantive updates. In fact, to some extent, the base game mode of "Fearless Contract" is similar to "CS:GO", the user groups of the two are easy to duplicate, and while the user base overlaps, today's "Fearless Contract" still lacks user precipitation for a certain period of time.
In order to make further breakthroughs, or find a new game to replace League of Legends, Fist may take longer to develop and research the player's favorite gameplay and mechanics, on the basis of which a new blockbuster may be derived. But before that, perhaps the completion of the "League of Legends" spin-off series will be more stable and appropriate, of course, "Battle of Two Cities" must also be continuously updated, otherwise players may dream of it.