Very sincere content update.
A year ago, I took the pre-test qualification for the action game Sifu. Before it was released, this game has already attracted the attention of many domestic players with elements such as "Chinese kung fu", "cinematic martial arts action" and "resurrection from the dead".
But after the actual experience, in addition to the above characteristics, I believe that players can feel another most intuitive keyword, which is "difficulty".
"Master" has a very high game difficulty, but this so-called "difficult" is different from the concept in soul games.
In common soul games, even if a boss is powerful, there will be a save/resurrection point around it, so that players can quickly return to the previous challenge after defeat, without going through the cumbersome clearance process.
However, in "Master", although there is a mechanism of "resurrection by consuming age", when the character loses a large number of yang shou and defeats the boss at the end of the level, you will find that the next level has to fight at the advanced age of "ancient rare years", and there are not many resurrections left, while the enemy is getting stronger and stronger, and finally have to go back to challenge the previous level to reduce the age of consumption. For most casual players, this process is actually very frustrating.
The protagonist can be revived through the Copper Coin Amulet
But it was also this impression that made me vaguely feel that the game would bring surprises in some other areas, and as everyone later learned, this surprise should refer to the "show effect".
"Master" is a game very suitable for live broadcasting, on the one hand, watching the anchor suffer is always better than his own suffering, and thanks to the unique setting of "age resurrection", it has also spawned such famous terriers as "twenty into a nightclub, seventy to return", "a septuagenarian gangster alone".
On the other hand, "Master" does have its own unique features in action and scene design, not only inviting the famous Pak Mei heir Benjamin Colussi as a martial arts instructor, making the game's combat process very ornamental, but also in many details and scenes, it can be seen that this independent studio Slocap from France has a very detailed study and understanding of Chinese traditional culture.
Because of this, in the case of less "close to the people" in difficulty, "Master" still gained a high degree of popularity and discussion after its release, and although many players failed to clear the level, they did not hesitate to praise the game on social platforms.
And its own high quality also made "Master" receive three TGA nominations for three awards last year, including Best Action Game, Best Independent Game, and Best Fighting Game, and according to the publisher Kepler Interactive's recent public financial report, as of last November, the total sales of the game has exceeded 2 million copies, which is a representative of the double harvest of sales and word-of-mouth.
One year after its release, Master finally ended its exclusive Epic and officially launched on Steam today, along with the launch of the game, a new mode that the production team has polished for quite a long time - Arena.
Regarding the new mode arena, there was already a preview back last August, when it gave the impression that it was more similar to a new mode that was more challenging and difficult, and it was actually experienced.
On the basis of retaining the basic moves and actions of the characters, the production team has updated more new levels that require different levels, such as some need to destroy as many enemies as possible in a short period of time, some need to stay as young as possible in the prescribed attack rounds, and some need to play as high a score as possible by successive segments, as long as you achieve the corresponding goals in the level, you can get tokens and unlock more new levels, for high players who are eager to show off their skills and challenges, the arena is definitely a suitable choice.
The biggest highlight of this mode is that basically all the levels and scenes can see the production team's tribute to Chinese kung fu and related film culture.
In the "Grand Master" challenge in the first level, the protagonist's appearance in a black robe and white hat is a clear tribute to the scene of Tony Leung fighting in a rainy night in the classic movie "Grandmaster of the Generation", and the challenge goal of this level is also very simple and crude - within 3 rounds of attack waves, get as high a score as possible.
In another level of "Kung Fu Empire", it can be seen from the protagonist's black trench coat and the enemy's suit sunglasses, this time paying tribute to the bridge of Neo vs. a hundred agents Smith in "The Matrix". In addition, in the English version, the name of this level is "I know kung fu", which is taken from the first sentence after Neo wakes up when he is entered into the kung fu code in the matrix.
On the basis of "keeping as young as possible", the challenge mission of this level also adds "low gravity" and "trigger bullet time when defending" and other very Matrix-flavored settings:
In addition to the scene setting, the new achievements added after landing on Steam also reflect the production team's tribute to kung fu elements. For example, there is an achievement called "The best strikes are the ones we avoid" that requires no damage at all times, which is actually a nod to Jackie Chan's famous saying "The best fights are the ones we avoid".
And this kind of setting that makes kung fu fans smile can be seen almost everywhere in the new arena mode, which reflects the innovation that the production team brings to the game with the core gameplay and framework in place.
In fact, in the year of the release of "Master", almost every few months, the official will release new patch updates, and most of the content is in line with the actual needs of players. For example, in response to the evaluation of the game "too difficult", three different difficulty options have been introduced; New optional skins have been added, as well as "Modifier Mode" and "Playback Editor" to expand post-play.
In the "Playback Editor", players can freely record game clips, and use the editor to edit and adjust the effects by themselves, whether it is the basic focal length, depth of field, filters, or camera movement angle, playback speed, transition effects, you can change it according to their own ideas.
Combined with the excellent action design and scene performance of "Master" itself, after adding the editor, players can edit their own battle shots more conveniently, so as to provide more excellent secondary creations for the community.
You can find that whether it is the latest addition of the arena, or the previous playback editor and modifier mode, it is basically more inclined to serve core players and content creators such as streamers and UP masters, and as early as the middle of last year, Romain Trésarrieu, the designer of "Master", said when talking about the update plan:
"We want to give back to the community of players who have high expectations for the game, who have fully experienced the existing content, but we want to inspire them to come back into the game."
The game then updated the "Modifier Mode", which is equivalent to the official console, which allows you to freely adjust various parameters of enemies and protagonists, and even allow you to modify gravity and time flow rate:
This mode not only broadens the game's Endgame gameplay, but also allows streamers and video authors to have a new "whole life material", thereby gaining greater popularity in the player community.
The reason why the official attaches so much importance to the content of the player community is because thanks to the reasons mentioned earlier, the content of "Master" and related culture have a lot of attention and popularity, on the B station, there are endless videos about various fancy operations, one-life clearance, and the fastest clearance of the game, and all kinds of brain-opening mods also have a high number of hits.
In the foreign player community, there are also many highly creative "whole content". For example, the manual expert @Rudeism on Twitter before, which successfully realized the game's somatosensory operation method by connecting the action sensor and the joystick button in series, which can control the character through the direction and strength of the player's punch in reality:
In addition to the entertainment content, as a game that meticulously restores the culture and spirit of kung fu, "Master" is also worth promoting to more players outside the circle in many details and settings, such as after the game fire, domestic game media UCG found Liu Weixin, the Chinese master of Benjamin, the game action director, and asked him to personally comment on the Bai Mei fist moves that appeared in the game:
Video from @UCG practical technology of game consoles
Such a "dream linkage" is inseparable from the meticulous research of the production team and the exploration of Chinese traditional culture.
Sloclap was a fan of kung fu and kung fu movies before making "Master", based on the design experience of action games in the group, Sloclap said that in this update, the primary goal has become to reconstruct the classic scenes of kung fu movies, allowing players to have an immersive feeling by operating more flexible characters.
Players who have cleared "Master" should understand that there are two endings in the game: "revenge" and "forgiveness", the latter is more difficult to achieve, but it is also more in line with the Chinese people's deep understanding of the concept of "kung fu" - it is martial virtue, it is to stop fighting for martial arts.
As a game studio from France, Sloclap wanted to reflect this spirit early in the game's making, and through research and consulting with experts like Benjamin, they eventually came to understand that martial arts is a means of self-defense, a moral code and a life credo.
In addition to the visual and sensory stimulation on the surface of the game, they also try to transmit this spiritual core to the player, making the player responsible for their own choices. According to Sloclap's own words, "Mastering Kung Fu means mastering one's emotions and mind, and finding the source of true peace." ”
In the continuous update after the release, Sloclap also sought to improve the kung fu world restored by "Master" on other more nuanced clues, such as adding Cantonese dubbing to the game this time, as a production team deeply influenced by Hong Kong kung fu films in the 80s, they believe that this choice can also enhance the immersion of other players.
As a work that has been released for more than a year, the production team continues to bring content updates and improve design details that cater to players, so that the player community of "Master" has always maintained a good popularity, and this popularity will eventually feed back to the game itself - so that more and more players who are interested in kung fu and kung fu culture can understand and try this game, I think this is what everyone involved in the production of the game really wants to see.