The rise of traditional culture is undoubtedly one of the mainstream trends in China in recent years. With the importance of national self-confidence and cultural self-confidence, not only has the national style culture won the favor of the younger generation, but also allowed the national tide to penetrate into the commercial entertainment fields such as Hanfu and cultural and creative products, and the game circle is no exception.
Indeed, today's national style and national tide have become a fragrant feast for domestic game companies, and have evolved into a wave of cross-border cooperation between games and traditional culture.
However, when the linkage of national style becomes the norm, and more and more manufacturers are accustomed to using cultural and creative IP such as the Forbidden City to win more attention, does the simple pan-entertainment cooperation really allow players in different circles to re-understand and pay attention to traditional culture? GameLook believes that the answer is still debatable.
With the same consideration in mind, a special linkage in the recent game circle has aroused the interest of GameLook: on the one hand, the leader of the ancient style fantasy online game "The Ghost of the New Qiannu", and the other is the Xi'an Forest of Steles Museum, which carries one of the Chinese cultural veins.
The reason why it is called "special", whether it is a horizontal comparison of the current game market, or a vertical comparison with the "New Qiannu Ghost" itself, this national style linkage is obviously different from the past. Continuing to look at the customized content, it also highlights the game's understanding and deep integration of the connotation of the national style culture.
Obviously, when most game manufacturers are still excavating the fit between the game itself and the national style culture and seeking cross-border cooperation, "The Ghost of the New Qiannu" is not satisfied with the shallow linkage of the appearance and the gods, but takes the initiative to open a new and in-depth exploration of the national style linkage, intuitively showing the unique thinking of this 11-year-old evergreen tree on long-term operation.
From pan-entertainment to deep integration, explore new channels for cultural inheritance
Strictly speaking, before this linkage, "Ghost of a New Lady" has long been an important participant in the domestic game inheritance traditional culture boom.
"The Ghost of the New Lady", which was born from the classical novel, has a strong traditional cultural connotation. The story and world view derived after that also revolve around this core, and the game naturally has a natural advantage in the pan-entertainment linkage of the same national tide IP.
Because of this, this game with a distinctive national style label has been actively exploring the organic combination of traditional culture and games, and constantly trying to inherit and promote Traditional Chinese culture in new forms.
For example, in the previous expansion film "Crossing Love", "The Ghost of the New Lady" uses the traditional theatrical form of shadow puppet illustration to portray the story of the group portrait of the Demon Spirit City, and appropriately interprets the ancient style plot with the help of classical art that has been passed down for thousands of years. At the same time, the game recreates the classic "Chasing Han Xin under Xiao He Yue" in the form of Kunqu Opera, paying tribute to the national essence of opera through the new digital form of the game.
Not only that, "The Ghost of the New Lady" also insists on exploring the music of the national style, and tries to show the diversified charm of traditional culture. For example, the NPC Chen Yuanyuan Su small role song "Golden Wisp" sung by pure Wu language, the folk art style displayed by Wu Nong's soft language chanting has left a deep impression on many players.
In December, the game turned to a very different direction: it joined forces with Phoenix Legend to create the majestic national song "Looking at the Stars" using a variety of instruments. This distinctive style of music quickly attracted the attention of users in different circles, and the number of B-station views of related videos quickly exceeded one million.
It can be seen that in the past eleven years, "Ghost of a New Lady" has continuously explored the possibility of National Style IP cooperation through diversified pan-entertainment forms. However, with the rapid changes in the market environment, this national style game gradually realized that now if it wants to truly realize the youthful interpretation and inheritance of traditional culture, it is more necessary to customize the deep linkage.
In this case, "Ghost of a New Lady" further cooperates with Wenbo IP, which has a distinct sense of history, and tries to advance the shallow pan-entertainment cooperation into a deeper cultural inheritance exploration.
Customized content is promoted layer by layer, making context protection more experiential
Many people must remember that this year's CCTV Spring Festival Gala has amazed countless Chinese people's dance and poetry drama "Only This Green". It is through the technique of abstract freehand that the famous painting "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" by the Northern Song Dynasty painter Wang Ximeng is transformed into a beautiful dance form. This innovative performance immediately exploded into the circle, once again refreshing the public's understanding of traditional culture combined with dance poetry.
This also attracted the attention of "New Qiannu Ghost", so in this linkage, the game specially invited Zhang Han, a dancer in "Only This Green", to join, combined with the collection of the Forest of Steles in Xi'an to create a customized national style virtual dance drama "Beilin Huazhang".
After contributing a wonderful live-action performance, with the help of accurate motion capture technology and fine model movements, every subtle expression and every water sleeve in Zhang Han's performance can be highly restored to the virtual dance drama. In particular, the freehand Chinese painting-like ink scenes in the game, the magnificent and solemn statue of King Ming of Matou, and the miniature map of ancient Chang'an City have created a dream experience that is difficult to reproduce in reality for the whole dance drama.
It is not difficult to see that the stage of the entire dance drama has always changed with the time change of the forest of steles. For example, in the first chapter, "Ode to Music", it tells the birth of elegant pen and ink and unique calligraphy. The whole stage seems to ripple between the clouds and mist landscapes copied by the ink, and the blank rice paper hangs high. Later, as the dancers performed, one after another pen and ink began to brush the dragon and snake, jumping on the paper.
After the second chapter, "Blessing Prayer", the wind and clouds suddenly changed, the dancers fell to the bottom of the water surging with dark waves, and the giant stele was locked and it was difficult to see the sky. The vibration brought by the dance gradually made the dancers and the stele fall into the endless deep sea. It symbolizes the tragic natural and man-made disasters of the ancient relics and the loss of countless treasures in the world.
Fortunately, the inheritors took advantage of the stone and bluntness, and used the forest of steles to inherit the context and re-study the study of Chinese culture. The whole stage immediately ushered in the final chapter of "Inheritance", countless celebrities' calligraphy and stele forests bloomed with golden light, rising with the solemn statue of King Ming of Matou, and the performance also changed from a single person to a double dance that competed with each other. It means that although they have encountered disasters in the world, countless people are cultivating themselves, refraining from self-denial, and successfully inheriting the vein of the stele forest in the struggle, and at this moment, the stage has finally ushered in the light representing the future and hope.
During the performance, Zhang Han played zhao Kun, a famous epigrapher and collector of the Ming Dynasty, as a clue character, throughout the dance drama. Among them, there is not only the dance form with traditional characteristics of water sleeves, but also vividly restores the "Kuixing Point Bucket" shape in the famous collection of the Forest of Steles in Xi'an. In a breath of surprise, the art of the Forest of Steles will be displayed intuitively and storytellingly in front of the player's eyes.
Of course, relying only on dance language to interpret the beauty of calligraphy and the long-standing inheritance of the Forest of Steles is not the whole of this linkage. In the game, "The Ghost of the New Qiannu" bid farewell to the fancy popular science, but continued to use Zhao Kun as the protagonist, bringing players to experience the plot and activities of protecting the stone stele and restoring the stone stele. Through customized gameplay, we will further understand the Forest of Steles itself, and spontaneously generate the concept of cultural protection in our own experience.
It is worth mentioning that this online linkage has gained the attention of CCTV. CCTV1 and CCTV13 both take "Online Forest of Steles Story Teaches You to Read The History of Steles", reporting on the virtual stage drama in the game, as well as players' participation in activities such as collecting and repairing steles, and performing the history of stele forests with scientific and technological technology, which has aroused a lot of heated discussion.
Most of the respondents thought that "expressing the charm of words in the form of dance" was very innovative, and at the same time" to "experience the process of restoring cultural relics and protecting culture... It was a very special experience."
From the national style virtual dance drama interpreting the history of the stele forest, to the exclusive activities in the game to participate in the protection of the stele... Obviously, the thinking of "New Qiannu Ghost" on the linkage of cultural and creative IP is no longer limited to the simple goal of draining and pulling new ones, but truly putting the promotion of traditional culture in the first place.
Specifically, it is manifested in jumping out of a single form of pan-entertainment, but trying to integrate into the unique narrative form and influence of the game, working together online and offline to enhance the player's experience and sense of participation, promoting players to understand and join in the protection and inheritance of traditional culture, and effectively implementing the meaning of the national style linkage.
Diversified linkage leverages greater possibilities, and innovative practices help long-term operations
Not only that, if the linkage is placed in the long-term operation of "New Qiannu Ghost", it can be found that the innovative national style linkage exploration is actually just another "daily" of this 11-year-old game.
Also in GameLook's view, the linkage with the Forest of Steles Museum is obviously only the beginning of the game's cultural and creative cooperation plan. After all, the distinctive traditional cultural label of "New Qiannu Ghost" itself has given it a large space for development in the connotation and extension of the deep linkage of humanistic IP.
You know, backed by the core of the game's national style culture, "New Qiannu Ghost" has always drawn the essence from classical culture, and combined with the world view to continuously enrich the connotation of the game. After experiencing the restoration and shaping of quaint scenes such as Beijing, Hangzhou, Kunlun, and the long-term preparation of NPC such as Chen Yuanyuan and Zhao Kun, the game has long been transformed into a natural stage and source of inspiration for the reinterpretation of humanistic IP.
Based on the same considerations, the game upgraded the entire game in 2020, and finally the picture quality was significantly improved. It not only fits the general aesthetic level of current players, but also lays the foundation for the display of traditional crafts such as Chinese style murals, stone carvings, or embroidery in the game later, that is, the expressive dimension of the picture can better carry cultural content.
Specifically, not only the modeling of classic scenes such as sandscopes, Batu Caves, and Lan ruo Temple, but also the details and richness of light and shadow have been innovated; the faces, hair colors, various emotional actions, and even character bones of the characters have also been optimized, and the fashion has been replaced with a new PBR material. Today, the in-game characters have delicate faces, the roots of the hair are clearly visible, and the various fabric materials are even more lifelike... Even compared to the new games on the market, it is not inferior.
It is also due to the iterative upgrading of screen expression, in addition to the cultural and creative linkage, "New Qiannu Ghost" continues to explore innovative practice forms in the game. For example, since last year, the game has held many virtual festivals, constantly trying to effectively combine classical culture with modern forms of expression.
From the first performance in April 2021, which can only be presented on a single stage, by the end of the year players can already ride on dandelions and hover in the air to watch the performance. After that, he also created a 3D national style avatar for the Phoenix Legend, and held an in-game concert of the star avatar for the first time.
In just a few months, the game's virtual festival has become more and more colorful, and now players can even immerse themselves in the virtual festival to save the forest of monuments. For some new users who are still slightly unfamiliar with the game, they feel the unique charm of Metavalse in advance, which once again refreshes the cognition of this part of the player.
Indeed, whether in terms of game content or artistic performance, "Ghost of a New Lady" has successfully transformed from pan-entertainment cooperation to deep national style linkage. And continue to explore the digital expression of classical aesthetics, and then output innovative content with real cultural value.
It is also understandable that to this day, after 11 years of long-distance running, "Ghost of the New Lady" is still regarded as a "new game" by a large number of players.
epilogue
In general perception, longevity and youth are often seen as two big concepts that are semantically contradictory and cannot be placed in the same context. However, in the game circle, "Ghost of the New Lady" is regarded as a veritable "game that is both long and young".
This is not the subjective conclusion of GameLook, in the past ten years of long-term operation, "New Qiannu Ghost" not only continues to upgrade the quality and content of the game, but also greatly meets the needs of current players. At the same time, it is also thinking and exploring the integration practice of games and cultural inheritance, and excavating the national style content in various innovative ways, and creating surprises for players one after another.
After the eleventh anniversary, it is difficult not to look forward to how this "new game" will bring surprises to players in the future.
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GameLook Daily Game Industry Report
Global vision / depth is material