On March 10, Eagle Point Network's new official account "Ark of Tomorrow: The End" on B station, Weibo, TapTap and other platforms was exposed, although it was to expose any content at that time, but the news has attracted the attention of many players.
On March 16, the official website of Ark of Tomorrow: The End was launched, and a 35-second pilot trailer PV was announced, and the end of the video indicated that more news would be released on the 18th.
At 11 o'clock today (March 18), the end of the official website countdown, we finally saw the true face of Lushan - a concept CG + a real machine demonstration, as well as several art concept maps, a little text introduction about the world view.
However, these contents do not completely dispel the doubts in the minds of players, the new game of eagle horn network, what medicine is sold in the gourd?
3D real-time strategy RPG, Ark of Tomorrow: The End of The End, opening up new tracks?
According to the analysis of the official website by netizens on March 16, several keywords were excavated: Terminal, Eagle Horn, Gang shaped mountain, Tawei II, light science fiction, 3D real-time strategy RPG, free download, PC, mobile phone, etc., involving game producers, world views, game types, corresponding platforms, etc. Combined with the new content released today, GameRes has done a job of combing through the general appearance of Ark of Tomorrow: The End.
1. Ark of Tomorrow: The End and Ark of Tomorrow
Unlike Ark of Tomorrow: The End of Tomorrow (hereinafter referred to as "The End of the End"), another game previously exposed by Eagle Point Network, "From Stardust", its title prefix carries the word "Ark of Tomorrow", which means that "The End" has various connections with "Ark of Tomorrow", or follows the worldview of the latter, or the prequel or sequel to the latter.
From the introduction of the official website, it can be seen that the world in which "The End of the End" is located is the same as the Terra Continent of the "Ark of Tomorrow", with natural disasters and dangers, and the source stone is also regarded as the main source of energy, and the flashing burn marks in the concept CG are even hinting at the existence of ore disease in this world.
The official currently announced character modeling is also consistent with "Ark of Tomorrow", with animal ears and humanoids, and the racial characteristics of some characters can remind players of well-known characters in "Tomorrow's Ark".
Players jokingly claim that one or two (from left to right) characters have some connection with Kelsey and Chen in Ark of Tomorrow
In any case, the story content of "The End" must be inextricably linked to "Ark of Tomorrow", although the place of occurrence is quite different from the time point, but Eagle Point Network is ready to expand "Tomorrow's Ark" into a more extensive brand.
2. Worldview
The concept CG begins with a visually stunning image that tells the player that the story of The End takes place in outer space, on a planet called Taudus. According to the official website, many years ago, the Pioneer Gate took root in Taju, built a mobile city on it, and built a new civilization, but there are still a large number of undeveloped uninhabited areas on this planet.
The development of the no-man's land mostly relies on the "End Of Industries" with automatic construction equipment, and an "accidental conflict" a few years ago caused great damage to the core department of "End Industries", the Protocol Recycling Department, after the reorganization, End Industries set off again, while players will serve as the administrators of "End Industries", leading the operators to deploy new integrated industrial production lines, while recovering lost technology and exploring the secrets of the ruins of Tower Y.
In the words on the official website, it can be guessed that this work is not simple, and the player will face the fourth valley in the development zone, which is the harshest environment and the most scarce resources, and at the same time may also be involved in the struggle between different forces.
3. Game type
Although the official pointed out in tapTap's introduction that "End of the End" is a 3D real-time strategy RPG, the real-life picture released today has brought a lot of doubts.
First of all, the combination of real-time system + strategy + RPG is unusual.
In general, more mentioned is the real-time strategy game (RTS), which is a kind of strategy game, the main feature of which is that the game is real-time rather than turn-based, and has distinct elements such as resource collection, base building, and technological development.
In the concept CG released today, some of the characteristics of real-time strategy games can be seen.
At the beginning of the video, a launcher-like thing descends from space to Tower Ueira, and after landing on the ground, the shell falls off, revealing the behemoth inside, with graphics and copywriting pointing out that this is an "integrated industrial system".
In a later screen we can see more clearly how the system works:
Bases, energy equipment, transportation equipment, the mining industry, these elements are not unfamiliar to RTS gamers, with distinct traces of collection, construction, and development.
But how do real-time strategy games relate to role-playing (RPG)?
Strategy games and role-playing integration, the result is mostly turn-based strategy games, commonly known as battle flag games, so as to erase the base management of RTS games, real-time system elements; of course, RTS game history has also been born "Warcraft 3" with heroic units of real-time strategy games, characters not only have exclusive skills, but also in the game to upgrade, wear equipment, "End of the End" is it possible to be such a game?
It is difficult to speculate, and the real machine demonstration immediately following the concept CG caused a lot of interference to the previous inference.
In the real-world demo, the player controls the 3D characters running through the scene from a third-person perspective.
The map also has certain puzzle-solving elements:
Players need to avoid the shock waves that are emitted
Judging from the real-time demonstration, the perspective adopted by "The End" is different from the common real-time strategy game, which has components such as map exploration and puzzle solving, but its actual combat screen is unknown.
What kind of game will End of the End be? One possibility is that the real-time strategy part is separated from the exploration and combat part, such as the Steam game "The Last Spell", in which the player directs the construction of the town during the day and controls the hero team to defeat the enemy at night. It could also be a new way of playing with real-time strategy that you haven't seen before.
More information may be available from the main UI at the beginning of the live demo video.
The game has a formation module, and its business model is most likely to take the route of character extraction; there are multiple interaction points in the center of the screen, which means that the game adopts a level-like advancement method.
The focus is on the information displayed in the lower left corner, which shows the energy and resource output of each region, indicating that there are obvious base management elements in the game.
Will it be just a built-in business simulation module like the base in Ark of Tomorrow? Or is it a considerable part of the game, or even the main gameplay of the game?
Based on the information currently disclosed by the official, it is still unclear what route the gameplay of "The End" takes, but it is clear that it is rare.
4. Production information
In addition to the "Eagle Point Network", there is a first-published name in addition to the "Eagle Corner Network", which is homophone "Crater", which means mountain contour/mountain contour.
In the pilot trailer PV, you can see many elements related to the crater:
Some media pointed out that "The End" was developed by Eagle Horn Pioneer, a subsidiary of Eagle Point Network, and The Shaped Mountain was the name of the research and development studio.
"The End" will be a cross-platform game, including mobile and PC, and Eagle Point Network has been aimed at the global market from the beginning, and it has registered a Twitter account in four languages of Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean when it was exposed on March 10.
Eagle Point Network's publicity with obvious nodes is quite effective, only on the B station, the concept CG has achieved a score of 1.65 million plays in 6 hours, and the TapTap reservation has exceeded 200,000.
At the same time, Eagle Point Network has also embedded recruitment needs on the official website of "End", and most of the positions are set up by the "End" project.
The unusual Eagle Point network
Since the advent of "Ark of Tomorrow", every step taken by eagle corner networks has been somewhat reasonable but unexpected.
"Ark of Tomorrow" was a dark horse in the domestic mobile game market that year, and the niche tower defense + secondary yuan can burst out such a huge potential that many people in the industry are shocked.
The second game "From Stardust", which was exposed last year, is also a buyout turn-based RPG that focuses on the micro-innovation of box court exploration and turn-based gameplay.
And "The End", just in the attribution of the game type is enough to make people curious.
However, the birth of "The End" is not unforeseeable, it carries a lot of traces of the Eagle Horn network.
The most obvious is its consistent art style, fashion sense of functional wind clothing, the preference for industrial portrayal, the ingenious flat UI design, in the Game of Eagle Corner Network can always find some science and engineering terms and tones.
The game type of "End of The End" is not completely built from scratch, "Ark of Tomorrow" has a base operation module, and "From Stardust" has 3D scenes and 3D character interaction content.
Its technological accumulation is obvious. In "From Stardust", Eagle Angle Network has set out to build its own 3D rendering pipeline to achieve customized 3D graphics effects.
Before the Spring Festival, the "Will Drink" activity pilot PV of "Ark of Tomorrow" can be regarded as a phased achievement of Eagle Point Network on the road of 3D rendering exploration.
"Will Drink" activity pilot PV
At a time when "Ark of Tomorrow" is soaring, Eagle Point Network is not content with the status quo, but is constantly exploring new development directions, and continues to output high-quality content with more mature technology and production mode.
This content is certainly not limited to games. After "Ark of Tomorrow", Eagle Point Network has also established a number of related brands, such as "Siren Records" in the music field, "Chaolongshan" in the surrounding brand, "Yishishan" in the clothing field, and even the "Cubes Collective Kupasi" music project announced at the end of last year.
Eagle Point Network has the ability to constantly expand the boundaries of a game around a game, so that the game is more than the game, or rather, the game has multiple cores that express itself.
From this point of view, "The End" prefixed with the "Ark of Tomorrow" naturally can not be regarded as just a game, it is the performance of the accumulation of Eagle Angle network technology, but it is also an important cultural expression carrier, which indicates that the brand of "Ark of Tomorrow" will embark on a new level.