For humans affected by gravity, space may be an area that most people can't set foot in this lifetime, but this blank space also gives human imagination free space, and it is precisely because of space, which humans are gradually exploring, but at the same time unreachable, "space opera" and other features have always been a popular category of science fiction.
From the recent hit "Dune" to "Star Trek" and "Star Wars", these works set in space have been loved by generations of audiences. As a form of entertainment that allows players to interact with various "fantasies", games naturally do not miss the space of "space", which is full of infinite possibilities.
In addition to the classic game series, such as Eve or Mass Effect, Star Wars, over the past nine years, through channels such as Kickstarter, star citizen has crowdfunded more than $350 million in the absence of game products, which may be more representative of the "space mania" of this game industry.
Recently, a game concept design called "Stars of Blood" has regained the attention of netizens, and this is a "space pirate" game that V Society had intentionally developed more than 10 years ago. However, in 2012, when several netizens from the overseas forum 4chan went to valve headquarters to celebrate G Fat's birthday, when talking about the origin engine 2 and the new game that was still under development at that time, G Fat personally pronounced the death penalty of "Stars of Blood", saying that V Society "will no longer develop it".
Time has passed, and now under these conceptual designs, we can still see many players lamenting the eventual cancellation of the game. After all, although the production capacity of V Society is not comparable to that of large manufacturers such as Ubisoft, it is undeniable that whether it is "Half-Life: Alyx", or "Portal" and "Survival Road", it has been widely recognized by players in the quality of the game.
Space games with rich potential
Although V Society has long abandoned the development of the project, but looking at the game concept design of "Stars of Blood", we can also simply understand the V Society's expectations for this game, and Gamelook has seen a lot of familiar shadows from it.
The simplest, such as the costume of the female character on the left in the picture above, is inspired by the world war-I pilot costume, which can be inferred from her role positioning in the game.
The concept diagram below, in which the device from the ear to the nostrils, is reminiscent of the Freyman water circulation device in Dune. Although the blue eyes of the Freymans are difficult to distinguish in the black and white pictures, the Freymans in the original book have leather-like skin due to exposure to the sun, and there are similar leather elements in this setting diagram.
Of course, in addition to this obvious homage, we can also see various aliens inspired by human tribes, classic film and television works, and even "Voldemort as the prototype".
Combined with the concept setting map, cyber city, desert hinterland, river valley plains and other environmental settings, as well as the different development progress of different civilizations shown in it, it is not difficult to speculate that the V Society in "Stars of Blood" prefers multiple planets to the coexistence of multiple civilizations on the same planet.
Of course, in Stars of Blood, the use of multiple stars can also confirm this.
When multiple planets are involved, whether it is interstellar travel or space warfare, one of the indispensable is the spaceship. From the game concept design, we can also see that except for a few spaceships with obvious combat elements that adopt a "bionic" design, and like almost all space science fiction works, spacecraft with concentrated settings are really "ships".
A spaceship shaped like a human eyeball
Although the above analysis is only a simple extension of the author's conceptual design of the game, we can also find from the setting map that has been exposed that before the entire project was canceled, the v society actually had a set of relatively complex but complete settings from the environment to the characters. These setting diagrams have even been "sexy" by some netizens.
However, the higher the quality of the atlas, many netizens have more regrets about the cancellation of the game project by the v society, believing that the potential of the game shown in these settings has been wasted. "I want Valve to do more 'real' games than to sell my own VR kits with games."
A science fiction masterpiece that was not born at the right time
However, such a large-scale new original IP game was cancelled by the v society around 2012, which is also expected in gamelook.
The first is the game engine. In 2012, when the game was cancelled, it has been 8 years since the release of half-life 2, the first game of the first generation of the V Society's Origin Engine, and it will take another three years before the V Society officially released the Origin Engine 2. At the time of the upgrading of V-society game technology, "Stars of Blood" was established.
At this time, the first generation of the origin engine can no longer support the development of such a large project, and the second generation of the engine, and it is not stable enough to support the entire game development pipeline.
In a 2012 4chan video, G Fat also revealed that V Society was actually "preparing a game to launch with the Origin 2 engine". The first game to use the Origin 2 engine in 2015 was "Dota2", which can also be seen that the development of new projects such as "Stars of Blood" was not smooth for the V Society at that time.
This leads to the second reason why "Stars of Blood" is not timely, that is, the transformation of the V-society business.
In fact, looking back at the schedule of the v society game, it is not difficult for us to find that from 1998 to 2011, although the v society is not a "year change", it is also quite amazing in the production capacity of the game. In 2004, for example, within half a year, the V Society released Half-Life: Origins and Half-Life 2.
But after launching "cs:go" in 2012 and "dota2" in 2013, V Society began to invest in the future.
One of the directions is vr mentioned by netizens above. In addition to "Half-Life: Alyx", which was launched in 2020, as early as 2015, V Society cooperated with HTC to develop HTC VIVE, which was launched in 2016; in the same year, V Society also released the VR mini-game collection "The Lab".
The other is the hardware platform that runs steamos, represented by steam decks. Similarly, in 2015, in addition to VR hardware, V also released a small game console steam machine running steam, but unlike the hot steam deck after its launch, steam machine sold less than 500,000 units seven months after its official release.
Although these products were born before and after 2015, it is not difficult to imagine that as early as 2012, the business focus of the v society shifted, and the "three magic weapons" of dota2, cs:go, and steam also gave the v society the strength to make money lying down. "Stars of Blood", an original IP that could not see the prospect at that time, naturally became an indispensable foil.
The next "eve" abandoned by the V Society
But even if the cancellation of stars of blood is not an accident, the author, like many netizens, still can't help but imagine the various possibilities of this game in parallel time and space. Some netizens said, "I hope I have the opportunity to work in the v society, I can know what kind of game this is."
However, some netizens, like the author, after looking at these concept maps, made a simple inference that "stars of blood will be a combination of the half-life series of nuclear radiation series in space", or as described in the rumors, it is "a hybrid of unmanned deep space, interstellar citizen, eve, free lancer and Kambara".
Some netizens even began to assume, "If the v society goes out of business, including "stars of blood" a series of cancelled or no sequels, which studio do you want to take over."
Of course, for me, if Stars of Blood and Origin 2 Engine go live in 2015, it means it will collide with ea's Star Wars: Frontline. Perhaps ea will also restrain in microtransactions and other aspects, so as not to let "Star Wars" such an IP fall into the trough of the reputation of "Star Wars: Frontline 2" that year.
Stars of Blood may even become the V Society's own "Star Wars" or "eve", adding a new product to the list of games.
But it's all just a possibility.