Even though it has been nearly 5 years since the launch of the last blockbuster "Brawl", in these years, every new product announcement and beta of Supercell can still easily attract the attention of players around the world.
From February 6 to 16, Supercell's new "Light Sports" game "Squad Busters" underwent a small-scale closed test in Canada.
Hay Day Pop, Island Shock: Frontline, Tribal Front, Valley Story...
In the past few years, there have been countless new products under Supercell that have died in the cradle, and Supercell seems to have never been able to find an innovative direction that players recognize, so is "Burst Squad" likely to be its breaking point? What does the launch of Burst Squad mean for Supercell?
With this series of questions, although it is not eligible for closed beta, GameRes has previously used Youtube players' trial videos as a reference to "cloud experience".
Note: The material in this article is taken from the live video of the game released by Youtuber@Xiake
Familiar recipes, a little different taste
Like other Supercell games, once you enter "Burst Squad", whether it is art style, UI design, or character modeling, it can be said that there is a "Supercell flavor".
Especially the heroic characters in "Burst Squad", all from Supercell's classics, whether it is the barbarians of "Clash of Clans", the Boar Knights of "Clash Royale", or Al Primo of "Brawl", and the lumberjack of "Cartoon Farm", players can see them in "Burst Squad", for Supercell diehard fans, this presentation similar to the "Supercell universe" is obviously a huge surprise.
Focusing on the gameplay level, based on the attributes of PVP competitive gameplay, lightweight and fast-paced combat experience, focusing on single-game operations, strategic games and other characteristics, "Burst Squad" will obviously give people a feeling of "Brawl 2.0", of course, this is also the consistent feature of Supercell's competitive products.
During this closed beta, Burst Squad only opened the single-player competitive mode "Gem Hunter", where players need to choose one of their own characters as the initial hero to enter the match, develop and fight on the same map as 10 players, and finally defeat all enemies or the player with the most gems at the end of a single round will win.
In terms of the overall perception of the game, unlike "Brawl", which emphasizes operational positioning and focuses on individual combat, "Burst Squad" emphasizes "squad development" and "resource competition".
Each time a chest is opened, players can recruit a new character to join the squad, and the map is refreshed daily
Objectively speaking, the wild monster design and scene details of "Burst Squad" are still quite interesting, and they are highly consistent with the logic of "multiplayer competition".
For example, wild monsters have weak skeleton soldiers, strong goblins, and "elite monsters" such as stone men and dragon babies who can release AOE skills, ensuring that players can earn higher gold coins and experience gains by challenging stronger monsters as the squad grows, thus forming a "snowball" effect and gradually widening the gap with other players.
In terms of scene design, "Burst Squad" introduces terrain such as stepping into thorny bushes that will shed blood and wooden bridges that will break after stepping on them, to a certain extent, providing more micro-variables that can be played for the overall chase battle between players.
At the same time, there are special resource carriers such as "trees" and "wooden boxes", such as "trees" that require players to recruit specific characters such as "lumberjacks" to cut down to obtain resources, and "wooden boxes" are randomly refreshed, and players can get props with buffs such as acceleration after opening.
Group blood recovery skills
As a "light competition" game, "Burst Squad" controls the length of a single game to about 4 minutes, of which the first 3 minutes are for player operation and development, and in the last 1 minute, a large treasure chest in the center of the map that continues to spew diamonds will start, forcing all players to gather in the same area for the final duel, pushing the rhythm of confrontation to the climax.
It is not difficult to see that the player's game logic in "Burst Squad" is very clear, basically along the link of "playing wild to make money→ opening treasure chests→ expanding the squad → competing for gems", which also means that the game has a lower threshold for getting started, and sustained fun feedback, at least for a "light competition" game, the experience of "Burst Squad" looks relatively good.
In addition, after combing the various designs of the game, GameRes believes that Supercell essentially hopes to guide players to think more tactically and strategically in the dimension of "squad matching", after all, "Burst Squad" is obviously trying to create a "light operation, heavy strategy" game environment, then this means that players need to clarify their own operational ideas, such as whether to recruit more characters with strong combat ability, find people as much as possible to "fight", and strengthen themselves by cannibalizing others. Or from the beginning of the game "obscene development" and wait for the fisherman's profit.
In this way, "Burst Squad" and "Brawl", and even other similar competitors (in fact, basically gone) still form a relatively large gap in the core experience.
As for the peripheral design, "Burst Squad" basically follows Supercell's iconic Battle Pass system and character collection/development system, and no more changes have been made, so I will not repeat it.
Is Burst Squad more likely to succeed?
After combing through, the advantages of "Burst Squad" are actually not few, such as the fun of in-game collection and growth that is in the same vein as IO games; Insider strategy games involving multiple variables such as squads, skills, and operations; The tight rhythm, positive feedback and high-frequency single-game experience, etc., not to mention the character design that gathers the entire Supercell product, which obviously makes many Supercell game veterans willing to "power for love".
In fact, although most players may just have a "cloud experience" like GameRes, it is not difficult to find out after observing the discussion of players on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter after the test, perhaps because "Burst Squad" belongs to the competitive category that Supercell has been cultivating for many years and has a deep fan base, or there are gimmicks such as "Supcell All-Star Character Gathering", and the enthusiasm and attention of the majority of players to "Burst Squad", Significantly higher than previous test products such as Valley Story.
Not only that, in a player-initiated poll after the test, 75.9% of players gave Burst Squad a positive rating of more than 7, of which 39.8% was even a full score.
Although the vast majority of these players who participated in the discussion and voting may not have really experienced the game, in any case, all indications at least indicate that the infant "Burst Squad" has indeed aroused the interest of many players around the world and gained a firm foothold on the side of public opinion, which also raises the future expectations of the game, at least reducing the probability of the game becoming a Supercell "revenant under the knife".
Although it has many advantages and has been initially recognized by players, from a subjective point of view, whether "Burst Squad" can be a smooth and successful success still needs to be put in GameRes' opinion.
Therefore, from the perspective of gameplay design, "Burst Squad" actually did not achieve subversive innovation like "Clash Royale", although it is strategic but carefully scrutinized and will not feel deep enough, more only reflected in the construction of the in-game team, coupled with the game limits the micro-manipulation space such as walking A and pulling, after the initial novelty fades, whether players will choose to stay in the long term still needs to put a question mark.
In addition, the node of the birth of "Burst Squad" is not a bottleneck in the industry's technical strength, and the player's game involvement is relatively limited, advocating the era of small but beautiful creative products such as "Clash Royale" and "Clash of Clans", but the rapid acceleration of the industrialization of global mobile games in 2023.
The continuous iteration of game technology and the sudden emergence of phenomenal masterpieces such as "Genshin" are forcing manufacturers to strive to present a more immersive and imaginative virtual world, which can be seen from the spectacle of major manufacturers betting on the "open world" in 2022.
In other words, players are generally more looking forward to and yearning for 3A mobile game masterpieces, and the launch of one "open world" masterpiece after another will inevitably have a great siphon effect on the game market that has entered the stock era, and these macro factors will hinder products such as "Burst Squad" - especially the limited innovation of "Burst Squad", far from the point where everyone can "fall in love at first sight".
On this basis, as a "competitive game", there is another key point that can determine the long-term vitality of "Burst Squad", that is, whether it has the ability to breed a successful "e-sports system".
Taking the best reference of the game, Brawl Brawl, since its global release, Brawl Brawl has been trying to incubate its esports events, such as the "Brawl Stars World Finals" held in Paris at the end of 2022.
However, what is more embarrassing is that over the years, the commercial value and cross-circle influence of the events under the leadership of "Brawl" have been very limited.
Of course, the problem may not be in the product itself, GameRes believes that the biggest reason for its "e-sports" blockage may be due to the innate constraints of factors such as the intensity and ornamentation of "light sports" games, and you don't see the mighty "light sports" tide in previous years stopped abruptly in silence... This will also be a dark cloud hanging over the "esports" of "Burst Squad".
Can Supcell, whose innovative ideas seem to have been adjusted, be reborn?
In time, it is still unknown whether "Burst Squad" can become a "lifesaver" for Supercell as a "hit".
But from another point of view, GameRes believes that the release of Burst Squad has a more important significance, which is that it seems to reveal a change in Supercell's innovative philosophy.
In the past few years, observing the new works that Supercell has launched but died in the end, it can be found that they basically have certain commonalities: wearing the skin of Supercell's classic IP, along the direction of "category integration" or "new category" to do gameplay innovation.
For example, "Hay Day Pop" is "elimination + simulation management", "Tribal Front" is "elimination + RPG", "Island Shock: Battlefront" has some "RTS+MOBA" shadows, and "Royale", which is still in operation, is a proof that Supercell challenges the emerging category of "self-propelled chess".
Only "Valley Story" is somewhat different, the work is a relatively pure "simulation management", but the social bond is too heavy and the experience of the liver makes the design of "Valley Story" seem to deviate from the "leisure" essence of "simulated management", but this actually reflects Supercell's innovative consciousness of always seeking breakthroughs.
It is not difficult to find that in the past few years, Supercell's requirements for "innovation" have been high, which has also led it to explore a lot of innovation directions that it may not be so good at, but the results seem to be somewhat unsatisfactory.
But "Burst Squad" is different, because in a sense, "Burst Squad" can be said to be a "micro-innovative" game based on the framework of "Brawl", they have a highly convergent "light competition" core, just a heavy operation, heavy personal technology, the other heavy strategy, heavy operation and development.
This means that "Burst Squad" is more like a carrier of a branch gameplay system developed by Supercell following the general path of its successful products.
But because of the support of "Brawl" research and development experience, Supercell's control of "Burst Squad" values, rhythm, fun points and other elements will be more skillful, and the market acceptance will be higher, which can actually be seen from the good feedback of a large number of overseas players, although this innovative concept is relatively conservative, but the risk is lower and easier to control.
In GameRes' view, this is the change in Supercell's innovative philosophy reflected in Burst Squad.
The reason for this change, GameRes guesses, is that after a 5-year "window", Supercell needs to come up with a relatively successful blockbuster to prove itself.
Today, if you still "cross the river" in unfamiliar areas, it is easy to try out more premature products, which will bring a huge blow to team confidence and player enthusiasm.
In any case, we sincerely hope that "Burst Squad" will "live" to launch, and hope that Supercell will usher in the day of "Nirvana Rebirth" in the near future. (Text/Nanshan)