Open-world mobile games are ushering in a "big year of products".
Top manufacturers, top IPs, senior teams, the latest technology, product plans and actual PVs released one after another continue to confirm the degree of horror of the open world mobile game track. It is not difficult to understand that with the completion of the education of category users by the head product, the market plate has expanded significantly, waiting for the arrival of the next explosive model, any ambitious company wants to seize this opportunity.
Looking at this year's situation, the first fairy open world game "Fairy Sword World", developed by Mantianxing Studio, a subsidiary of CMGE, and expected to be launched in 2023, may be one of the products with the best chance of becoming a frontrunner:
First, the market size of Xian Xia games (previously gamma data is estimated to reach 25 billion in 2021, and the latest data given by CMGE is 30-50 billion) carries market opportunities. On the one hand, the 28-year-old fairy sword is recognized as the "first national fairy IP", so "Xian Jian World" will come with a huge user pool; On the other hand, most of the fairy mobile games are not of high quality and are mostly a wave of flow, user loyalty is low, and there are no "dominant" products, giving "Xian Jian World" the opportunity to take the top.
Second, the competition of open-world mobile games is currently concentrated in the direction of two-dimensional and martial arts themes, and there are currently no other products other than "Xian Jian World" to do Xian Xia Open World, which means that "Xian Jian World" can seize the opportunity and use the label advantage of "open world" to attract the attention and try the game by Xian Xia game fans.
Third, Xiao Jian, CEO of CMGE, also revealed during the conference call that it is expected that this year is also a big year for fairy sword IP content, and many film and television dramas and animations have made relevant progress, which will also bring more traffic support to "fairy sword world".
In this context, the only thing that "Immortal Sword World" is uncertain about is "how is the product power"... Just on April 27, CMGE released the "official first real PV of "Sword World", from which we can analyze some results.
A total of 3 minutes and 38 seconds, dismantling the "visible" game design in the official real PV
CMGE first exposed "Sword World" in August 2021, revealing key information including "Mantianxing Studio and Softstar Shanghai Development", "Open World RPG", "Cross-platform" and "Expected to be launched in 2023". At that time, there was no lack of doubts from the outside world: Can CMGE make an open world? Can it really go live in 2023?
However, after the official PV was released, there were significantly fewer doubts. The PV only took a few hours to appear on the Weibo hot search and the popular list of the whole site of station B, and as of press time, the number of views of station B was close to one million, and "World of Immortal Sword" on the TapTap reservation list also rushed to the first place. From the discussion of users, we can see "more in line with expectations, continue to cheer", "good attitude, looking forward to subsequent plot performance", "good scenery, modeling and polishing" and other supporting voices or sincere suggestions.
Station B comprehensive hot list, TapTap reservation list
The first exposure of the real PV entry rushed to Weibo hot search
So what's on display in the PV? We can take it down frame by frame (for ease of understanding, here is a classification description):
1. The game scene, the fragments involved in the PV mainly include three parts:
First of all, the whole picture of the Jiangnan city at the beginning, the terraced fields full of tea leaves, the water lake where fishermen boat, the fairy mountain where jacaranda trees grow, and the corner of the bamboo forest outside the remote countryside, these are most likely the scenery that can actually be seen in the game. From the perspective of visual presentation, the game uses real-time lighting, more advanced water rendering technology, of course, the final effect depends on the actual hand performance.
Urban change
The second is the "I" (who substitutes the player into the character) who diligently "exercises the sword" every day, crossing mountains, villages where demon spirits gather, and lakes around the city into the city of Gangnam. From this process, it can be inferred that the game has a certain advantage in the area of the seamless large map (the official previously revealed data is 384 square kilometers), allowing players to fly with the sword more freely.
Royal Sword Flight
Finally, there is the scene of "Cultivating Immortals Outside the World", the overall appearance time is less, and you can only see that there seem to be some buildings and teleportation points on the mountains around "I" when I unseal the trial seal, and the trial is an independent style scene.
2. Explore the gameplay, mainly displayed in the city scene and the wild scene:
There seem to be some unique "spirits" in the city that require "me" to awaken with special skills, and then it will follow along (it may be a BUFF or a quest, which is not explicitly shown in PV). In addition, "I" can use the immortal spell "Thousand Illusions" to fuse spirits and achieve their own goals, such as melting spirit brooms to sweep fallen leaves, and may find rewards from them.
In the wild, using the power of water spirits can make dead wood spring, and you can also see that there is fixed interactive content in the game, such as using the "spirit" of specific attributes to open the Tibetan pearl grass, and you can find more spirit beads. In the PV, you can also see that "I" summons a spirit object to walk on water, which is presumably a new way to explore the map.
3. In terms of combat, the main body includes himself and his support partner:
There are two types of "monsters" presented in PV, one is the wild "thief" and the other is the "giant sword with intelligence" in the trial scene. Looking at PV alone, the skill control will have a certain sense of rhythm, but it is not too hardcore.
Combat performance
Battles against Greatswords show more detail, such as the Greatsword can summon both Sword Slave mobs and range skill damage, but "I" is not an individual combat and can summon a partner to help. Lin Yueru and Li Xiaoyao, two assistant partners appeared in the PV, and it is speculated that the player can operate it manually according to the "ability to move and avoid skills".
It is worth noting that Lin Yue has an obvious "thunder attribute", so the battle is expected to have a five-spirit design.
Lin Yueru battle scene
4. World view, focusing on animism:
Although "Immortal Sword World" mentioned that the background was "the seal of the earth robbery began to loosen, unknown spiritual forces invaded the earth, and the demon calamity continued to chaos", what can be seen in this PV is more friendly monsters/spirits.
When displaying the bamboo forest outside the village, you can see the five poisonous beasts (spirit beasts under the fairy sword world view) crossing the bridge with bamboo shoot demons; The scenery of various places is also painted by the "pen spirit", and the "pen spirit" seems to be very versatile, and also has the ability to open important sealed spaces; When "I" practiced flying the imperial sword, I could see that the village where the demons gathered was disturbed, and the water spirit and the fire spirit would team up to "boil hot water"...
This part may be to show the big world where "demons, spirits, people, and immortal cultivators" coexist.
Of course, there is another important point to note at the end of the PV, that is, the moment when Ling'er and Lin Yueru look back, combined with the situation mentioned in the previous battle, Game Daily expects that "World of Immortal Sword" will involve exploring the plot of these fairy sword series character stories.
Is the "fairy tale" + "open world" experience made by "Sword World" taste enough?
After dismantling the specific details of the official real PV, we can basically understand why players have a high degree of recognition, whether it is gameplay or details, it gives everyone more confidence. However, whether "Xian Xia World" can debut and become king, it is necessary to focus on two points: "whether it is enough Xian Xia" and "whether it is enough to open the world", which is also what players pay the most attention to.
Let's take a look at the taste of fairy first, which is not difficult for "Immortal Sword World". As the content recognized as the most fairy for generations, "World of Sword and Sword" only needs to make the "reduction" and "combination" of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" to meet players' expectations to a large extent. We can also evaluate based on the official PV:
In terms of scenes, the game chose Jiangnan as the main scene, and the stories of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" basically took place in Jiangnan, but the scene was not completely limited to Jiangnan, and expanded to Fujian and other areas (jacaranda does not grow in Jiangnan), and "The Legend of Sword and Fairy III" involves Anxi, Fujian, and old fans can experience a full sense of familiarity.
In addition, the key settings shown by PV that "demons really exist in the world and are around ordinary people, but they are not well known", "demons are good or bad, and some can get along with humans", "immortal cultivators are not isolated from the world, but must experience in red dust and descend demons and eliminate demons", which are the core principles of the unity of the stories of the "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" series.
Bamboo forest five poisonous beasts
Of course, you can't ignore the intimacy brought by being familiar with "people", "things" and "rules", "Immortal Sword World" PV has highly recognizable "five poisonous beasts", Li Xiaoyao, Zhao Linger and Lin Yueru, exploring their stories and fighting side by side with them will also strengthen the experience of "fairy tales", not to mention the most classic original five spirits restraint rules.
Li Xiaoyao "Sword God"
Players are willing to recognize that "Fairy Sword World" is a fairy sword series, which is enough to show that it has made a "fairy" taste.
What is the level of "open world" designed by Sword World? The core experience of the open world is immersion + free exploration. Among them, immersion requires a good plot story and a logically consistent world operation ecology, which we can't touch for the time being, but the world view construction We can basically understand the idea of "Sword World".
In "Immortal Sword World", the setting of the five spirits (wind, thunder, water, fire and earth) is the rule of operation, and the immortal cultivator is also the five spirits of cultivation; All things have animism as the foundation, they may have spiritual intelligence or in the process of enlightenment, the masses of the world originally got along with all things that have been enlightened, and various legends have appeared; Then the appearance of unknown spiritual power disturbed the original balance, resulting in the emergence of "demon troubles and chaos"; In turn, there are people who cultivate immortals and seek the Dao, and some immortals go down the mountain to descend demons and save the earth.
(It is worth noting that the setting of the Five Spirits not only serves the worldview, but is also used in world exploration and combat experience.) For example, in PV, there is a fire spirit to open the mechanism to solve the puzzle, and the reason why "I" summoned Lin Yueru to help should also borrow the relationship of Leiketu [blindly guessing that "Immortal Sword World" chose the five spirits setting of Immortal Sword II]. ）
Therefore, the story of "Immortal Sword World" is a story of learning the Tao, cultivating immortals, and finding the root and revealing the truth, this setting unfolds little by little, giving the player (that is, "me") a very clear and unambiguous position, and will not let the player find their own sense of existence.
In terms of free exploration, as mentioned earlier, what can be seen in PV, based on the animism setting, the space that can be mined in the game is large enough (every grass and tree around can do interactive gameplay).
Scene interaction
Game Daily noticed that the producer had revealed that there would be some random spaces in the wild, and it was possible to enter an ordinary stone arch to enter a strange cave. Moreover, "World of Sword of Immortals" does not plan to do forced socialization, and will use a single-player + multiplayer combination mode to divide the map into areas, which can not only ensure the player's immersive exploration, but also give players who like to socialize the experience of breaking through together.
In addition, CMGE has said that it will use the functions of Wen Xin Yiyan for game production to make more realistic NPC interactions, so we can also expect a deep experience brought by AI technology.
On the whole, whether it is "fairy tales" or "open world", "fairy sword world" has a reason for players to look forward to,
Epilogue:
As mentioned at the beginning, the key to the uncertainty of the market prospect of "Sword World" is product power, from the official PV effect released by this CMGE, "Sword World" still maintains the good character architecture performance of Sword IP, and continues to increase in technical strength, when these fall on the open world track, the chemical reaction is worth looking forward to.
In the field of open-world mobile games crowded with two-dimensional and martial arts, how much surprise "Xian Sword World" will bring to players and what kind of touch it will bring to the market, and the first test in June will further give the answer.