This year's summer season seems to have come a little earlier than usual.
Perhaps in order to avoid the June of the massive new product launch and warm-up, as well as the overcrowded July and August, or perhaps to avoid colliding with the "World of Warcraft" national server and the "Black Myth: Wukong" that are bound to become the focus of the industry, the May Day holiday has just ended, in addition to annual products such as "Dungeons and Warriors: Origin" and "Singing Tide", there are several key new products from large factories that will meet players one after another this month.
These new games not only gather multiple tracks and categories such as two-dimensional, action fighting, ARPG, JRPG and SLG, but also many of them have been initially verified by the market, or have mature IPs and a wide audience base, making them have considerable potential to impact the list.
Gyro has also compiled the following charts based on publicly available information:
Tencent: Dungeons & Warriors: Origins, Dawn of the Stars, Heroes of Might and Magic: Lords' War, Cartoon Farm
This month, Tencent expects to launch a wide range of new products and their types. One of the most eye-catching is "Dungeons & Warriors: Origins", which will be officially launched on May 21 after a 4-year absence, with a huge player base, DNF mobile games are bound to become the focus of players on the whole network on the day of the open beta, and the only question remains at that time, which position will this product stabilize at the top of the best-selling list.
As the first derivative mobile game of the "Honor of Kings" IP, "Glory of Kings: Dawn of the Stars", which is expected to be launched on May 24, has also been pinned on a lot of hopes from the outside world, but in addition to this label, this product is also a relatively rare "All-Star Smash Bros." type action fighting mobile game in China, and it can be expected that the composition of the user group attracted after the launch will be very complex, and how to balance the preferences and needs of various players will be crucial. Whether it is the appeal of this national IP or the acceptance of players for this type of gameplay, they are waiting for this test.
In addition to these two products, Tencent is also expected to launch "Heroes of Might and Magic: Lordlords" and "Cartoon Farm" this month. The former is an SLG product with a genuine authorized IP from Ubisoft, and the latter is a classic and popular product developed by Supercell, which has officially landed in the domestic market this time.
NetEase: Octopath Traveler: Overlord of the Continent, The Lord of the Rings: Discord
Before the launch of flagship products such as "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun", "Seven Days World" and "Naraka: Bladepoint Mobile Game", NetEase chose two products with well-known IP endorsements for transitional May. As a derivative mobile game of the IP of Octopath Traveler, the creator of HD-2D style that has been popular with players in recent years, Octopath Traveler: Overlord of the Continent strives to retain the flavor of the original game in terms of music, art and combat system, jumping out of the traditional two-game framework, and striving to bring players a single-player game experience, but this may also be a "challenge" for the game habits of domestic players. Gyro also made a more detailed review not long ago.
"The Lord of the Rings: Discord" is an earlier overseas SLG product of NetEase, which was launched overseas at the end of 2021 and once entered the top of the iOS best-selling list in many countries, but the current domestic publicity is relatively low-key. After all, for NetEase, the main event is still to come.
Kuro Games: Singing Tides
As another high-standard, large-investment open-world two-dimensional product, "Singing Tide" has been attracting high attention from the outside world since its release, and the number of pre-orders worldwide has exceeded 20 million, and now it will finally officially meet players on May 23. Previously, "Singing Tide" has undergone many rounds of testing and adjustment, and drastic changes have been made to the content of the text, plot and other aspects. In the second-game market, which has already "died once" last year, can "Singing Tide" once again ignite the enthusiasm of players and the market? Many people are waiting for the answer to this blockbuster second game of the year.
Bilibili Games: Three Kingdoms: Conquering the World
Since last year, Bilibili Games' "Three Kingdoms: Conquering the World" has always had a lot of community popularity, and the game has many features such as "career system", "burden reduction and krypton", "dynamic card surface technology", etc., and the team also hopes to get out of the shackles of traditional categories and reach more players through such measures. The SLG track with the theme of the Three Kingdoms has always been the Red Sea, but it is obvious that Station B came prepared this time, and the outside world also has great expectations for "Three Kingdoms: Conquering the World". The Apple store shows that the game is expected to be launched on May 22, and the official beta time will be officially announced this week, and Gyro will also follow up with the news at that time.
Heartbeat: "Let's Go Muffin"
"Let's Go, Muffin" is a vertical version of the RPG that XD has returned from overseas gilding, the game focuses on cute Q printmaking style and casual placement gameplay, and also incorporates lightweight social elements, which was launched in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in December last year and at the end of January this year, and is still stable in the iOS best-selling list of about 10 positions, the national server online XD also pays attention to it, and the market performance of the game is worth looking forward to.
In addition to the above products, many new products such as "Journey to the West: Pen Painting Westbound" and "Yongyue Fengya" will be launched in May. Its Chinese-style placement card product "Yongyue Fengya" was developed by Suhe Mao'an Studio and will be launched on May 15; "Journey to the West: Drawing West" was launched on May 16, and it is a Journey to the West-themed national style card RPG published by Changyou.
"Singing Tide" and DNF mobile games took the lead, and the high-end bureau started in advance in May
Last year, popular mobile games such as "Back to the Future: 1999", "Against the Cold", "Valorant", "Crystal Nucleus", "Azure Files", "Calabichu" and other popular mobile games embraced the summer file with "abundant traffic", and from the products such as "Need for Speed: Assemble", "Delta Action", "Yanyun Sixteen Voices", "Seven Days World", "Jeopardy Zero" and other products that have been scheduled this year, the summer file is still lively.
But what is different this year is that the launch of two annual products such as "Singing Tide" and "Dungeons & Warriors: Origins" in May is a signal to start this year's "high-end game" round battle in the game industry a month in advance.
This year's super topic game "Black Myth: Wukong" is set for August, and the original marketing and publicity costs have been ridiculously high for mobile game newborns, and there are only a few important marketing "nodes" in a year, and now the heat fermentation period reserved for doing at this node has shrunk.
Judging by the length of development and the desire to prove themselves in the market as soon as possible, "Naruto" and "Dungeons & Warriors: Origins" should be the most urgent.
- "Ming Dynasty": "I've seen how the two-dimensional volume of last year's summer file was made! ”
- Dungeons & Warriors: Origins: "The World of Warcraft national servers are back!" ”
"Singing Tide" and "Dungeons & Warriors: Origins" are mainly for the two-dimensional fan group, and the other is mainly for the basic audience of DNF terminal games, and there may not be much intersection in terms of audience portraits, but there is no doubt that both will become the center of conversation in the game industry this month. Because there are new variables in the market: it is foreseeable that although the mobile game manufacturers will soon concentrate on the mobile market again, it cannot be ignored that many game companies are now mainly focusing on small games, and more and more small games, the results and effects are even better than the popular mobile games.
Category upgrading, IP endorsement, and marketing rush, what kind of tricks will each company move?
Last year's summer file taught everyone that everyone will still be afraid, that is, the products on the pile, even if the quality is fine, but there are very few that can really stand out from the market. The "new marketing" of the mobile game "Against the Cold" has been continuously reused by NetEase to leave a deep impression on the industry, and the explosion of the "stitching game" and "Phantom Beast Palu" has also made practitioners fall into contemplation.
It's like a virgin boyfriend and girlfriend, keenly discovering that Ta's new demands satisfy Ta, but this is easier said than done. Therefore, we may not be too optimistic about some of the new mobile games that have come out this year. Especially now there is still competition in mini games, since last year, there have been mobile games packaged into mini games on the mobile APP side, this year is only a lot more.
Under the multiple variables, it can also be regarded as a side explanation that the attraction of well-known IP to large manufacturers has not diminished in the slightest, from classic game film and television works IP, emotional IP to national-level IP, all of which escort these new products, and a number of original IPs to break through from them undoubtedly need more traffic support and community topic fermentation.
Of course, those who have their own advantages will make more use of it, for example, bilibili's "Three Kingdoms: Plot the World" game has not yet been launched, and it has already relied on the advantage of relying on the B station platform and relying on a large number of second-creation Up masters to gather a richer content ecology in the community.
For example, some products will also have some "strange tricks" to grab volume in advance, and the good performance of "Let's Go Muffin" when it was launched in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan is inseparable from the closely linked "linkage-endorsement-KOL promotion-advertising" marketing chain.
In general, even though the new products in May have been "masters", but this is only the outpost of the summer melee, this summer, SOC, MMO, FPS, SLG and ACG and other tracks will be crowded with "god-level" contestants from large manufacturers, not only that, Blizzard NetEase's "World of Warcraft" returned after "compounding", and "Black Myth: Wukong" in the field of stand-alone buyout will also meet players soon.
What kind of industry changes will be ushered in after this storm? We'll see in a few months!