| How big a splash can Lilith's third SLG make? |
Text/Andrew Lilith's another new SLG work has started beta. On Friday, Warpath opened its first test in China, and after getting its version number at the end of last year, the product was scheduled for April this year.
"Medal of War" is Lilith's third SLG after "Sword and Home" (launched in 2017) "Awakening of Nations", and their second self-developed SLG. It was tested in overseas markets two years ago. In the eyes of the outside world, cards and SLG are undoubtedly Lilith's two trump cards, "Dota Legend", "Sword and Expedition" and "Awakening of Nations", all of which have led some research and development trends in their respective categories. Now that another SLG from Lilith is about to go online, will it be different?
01 Probably Lilith's first "non-cartoon style" game
If there is any external commonality in several of Lilith's main products in the past, it should be a cartoon with very obvious characteristics - the specific details and factions may be different, but from "Dota Legend", "Sword and Home" to "Sword and Expedition" and "Awakening of Nations" and "Party of Gods", there is no doubt that they are all cartoon art styles. And "Medal of War" is their first game that is artistically more realistic. You can also see traces of external style adjustment from the development process of the product. At first, when testing in some overseas regions, the characters in the game were still between cartoon and realism, and the art details were relatively simple:
During the open beta in overseas regions, the game was adjusted to a significantly more realistic style, the character image was more three-dimensional, and the quality of details was intuitively improved. Judging from the version tested in China, it is also on this road that has been further refined. At the same time, the current version of "Medal of War" has also been changed from vertical to horizontal.
From the information of some third-party websites, it can be seen that "Medal of War" has been tested in some overseas regions as early as 2018, and by 2021, the product has been officially tested in overseas markets for more than two years. Now more than two years have passed, it has been a long time since the first overseas test, and the game has some iterations in terms of gameplay content. First of all, the most intuitive may be the "messy" sniper gameplay of the teaching part.
In the first part of the game, players are introduced to the background of the game through several mini-version of Sniper Elite-like levels: the evil Black Raven Army tears up the peace agreement and makes a comeback, and the player takes on the role of a commander who must organize a living force to resist. After several levels of sniper gameplay, a somewhat dramatic novice process for SLG, Medal of War has come to a more conventional range in the category. The gameplay loop of mainstream SLGs will gradually unfold with the tutorial.
Compared with similar products, the feature of "Medal of Fire" is that in addition to the content in the typical SLG framework, the game also has some obvious RTS elements. "Awakening of Nations" leads the design trend of seamless zooming of large maps and free marching, which is also reflected in "Order of War". On top of this, the game has some further operations such as unit selection, "dividing" and "gathering fire".
In addition to the large map battles, as the guide progresses, players will unlock the main campaign levels in subsequent chapters, and RTS elements are more typical of these miniatures. In recent years, some SLGs have gradually increased the proportion of early PVE content, and the early part of "Order of Fire" has also chosen a similar style, and many of the previous guide chapters are guiding players to familiarize themselves with various modules of the game. The sniper gameplay at the beginning is also integrated into the "covert operation" mission in the follow-up process, which is a relatively rich side line gameplay in the game. Overall, "Medal of Fire" is not subversive compared to similar changes, and the main differences are concentrated in the sniper levels similar to "side gameplay" in the early step-up link, as well as the introduction of some RTS elements.
02
The second self-developed SLG, what to rely on to establish advantages
So, without making obvious disruptive innovations, what does "Medal of War" rely on to build competitiveness in a market where the SLG category has been saturated to this extent?
Judging from the user reviews of previous overseas tests and the current limited experience, I think it is reflected in two aspects: first, the characteristics of the external theme; First, the theme combines background settings and RTS details and other feedback, and the comprehensive sense of substitution. SLG has never lacked modern military war themes, but in recent years, such themes have been absent in the head product lineup. SLG, which has been ranked in the top 10 in many countries in Europe and the United States for many years, whether it is the Q version of "Island Raider" or the realistic style of "Mobile Strike", these representative games have gradually entered the middle and late stages of operation in recent years, and generally slipped outside the top 200 best-selling lists in the European and American markets. In addition to the traditional ancient themes such as the Three Kingdoms, the SLG products of domestic manufacturers have emerged in recent years with a multi-civilization background; Overseas releases are mostly magical, fantasy or post-apocalyptic themes. The appearance of "Medal of Fire" has quite made up for the gap in related themes in SLG's head lineup. The advantage of the subject matter is also the direct motivation for the game to attract players. For example, when it was launched overseas before, some players left messages mentioning that at first they saw the promotional materials of the game and thought that it was an advertisement with the wrong goods. But after downloading it, I found that the game is a modern warfare content that matches the propaganda theme.
"I didn't like the advertisement for this game at first, but when I downloaded it, I found that it was good" In addition to the affirmation of military players in terms of theme, many players' praise focused on the way the story unfolded during previous overseas tests. Some players are very positive about the game's "story in the context of war". The early trailers and other materials focus on military themes, and players see gameplay content that matches the tonality of the materials after entering the game. This is how the early overseas core audience precipitated.
In addition, the restoration of various realistic armaments and equipment can also leave a good first impression on the audience of related themes. "Medal of War" provides arms, military weapons and military industry systems, the game restores infantry, light/medium/heavy tanks, rocket artillery, anti-tank guns, howitzers and other more than a dozen arms of the military, more than 200 modern military weapons, as well as a series of military and industrial technologies such as internal combustion engines, petroleum, metallurgy, etc.
This kind of theme, coupled with RTS elements inside and outside the game level, together create a sense of control that can be substituted.
The large map in the game and the terrain in the level will be specific to the concept of "plot", and the player's different battle unit formations can be selected at the same time, and instructions can be issued separately, which can realize operations such as dividing troops and gathering fire targets in RTS games. This is somewhat reminiscent of the RTS experience of the PC era.
The official obviously attaches great importance to this, and the slogan on the official website is "manipulating a modern war". The experience feedback that can be controlled, and the difference between the theme of "modern warfare" should be the most outerly feature of the game in Lilith's opinion.
03
Make a "less innovative" new product
Mainly differentiated in the RTS-style combat experience, it is the result of the "three innovative points cut two" in "Medal of War". Previously, on Lilith's official public account, Yuan Shuai, the former producer of the game and co-founder of Lilith, also shared his views before: "We formed a brand new team to do SLG, SLG is characterized by its own product form is very complex, many things are very eating the operation experience of existing products... The team had bumps when working on the first SLG, especially since we made a strategic mistake early in the project. Our early strategic direction is actually a very innovative direction, and we proposed three major innovation points to the product when the project was established. But later, after several directional adjustments, two of the last three were cut off, and only one remained, which is RTS-style large map free battle. Regarding the question of the extent of innovation in the development of new products, he also shared his mental journey when he did "Sword and Home" before, calling it "a very big turning point". "In the four years since I made Sword and Home, the entire market has changed dramatically. Previously, we thought that we could do a better job in this product for the aesthetics of our games and the design of innovative gameplay, but the entire industry's requirements for quality and design have reached a higher level. So "Sword and Home" is actually a project that breaks our illusions, and it is also after this product that the company's entire product strategy has been adjusted to category evolution. We no longer feel like we are omnipotent superhumans, and it's not just that if we innovate, players will accept it. It is that we recognize that each category has its own difficulties and its own depth, which requires us to spend time to accumulate and explore. Throughout the overseas pre-test, overseas public test, and then domestic testing of "Order of War", we can directly see that the form of the game has undergone several major adjustments. From the perspective of Yuan Shuai's sharing, the current version of the game may be a result of reconciliation with reality and himself in the process of repeatedly trying and seeking new ways to play. This is probably the only way to pursue innovation. And this time, what about a new product that looks "not so innovative"?
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