Almighty Video Game Designer

In the first half of the year, it wasn't just the Assassin's Creed series that shone in the global gaming market.

Of course, Assassin's Creed: Origins and Assassin's Creed: [Book of Revelation] was undoubtedly one of the best games released in the same period, but that didn't mean it could completely crush other games of the same period.

It could only be said that the Assassin's Creed series had become a iconic game IP with its moving plot, sophisticated historical background, rich cultural heritage, and unique combat system, but it wasn't perfect in all aspects.

Because of this, tgnn gave Assassin's Creed a score of 9.3, which was one of the best works.

Before Assassin's Creed was released, a VR game called traveler got an 8.8 rating. Half a month after the "Book of Revelation" was released, a game called "The Lost Fleet" was released. It also received a high rating of 9.3 on tgnn.

The powerful appearance of this game seemed to be announcing to the world: The era of serente's rule? It was still far away!

Indeed, Thunderbolt entertainment and Chen Mo had been in the limelight for the past two years, especially the series of classic IPS that made many foreign companies feel breathless. Players were all saying that 'times have changed'.

However, the game industry wasn't a zero-sum game. When everyone could make a good game, even if you made a profit, I wouldn't let you beat me just because your game was 0.1 points higher than mine.

As long as they put in the effort to make games and adapt to the market demand, every game designer would succeed. It was just a matter of time, how much, or how little.

The Lost Fleet was an FPS game with a sci-fi background. It told the story of a small interstellar fleet in the future, where they lost contact with their mothership due to an accident and had to take risks in the dangerous space environment.

During this process, the players would experience the warmth of human nature and the cruelty of the laws of the universe. They would experience the treacherous adventures in the universe, battle with the terrifying creatures in the universe, and experience the loneliness of drifting endlessly in the universe. When they finally returned to earth, many players would be like Wanderers returning home after wandering for many years, with tears streaming down their faces.

In terms of influence and popularity, this game wasn't as good as Assassin's Creed. However, it was obviously an excellent game in terms of artistic and gaming quality, so it also got a high score of 9.3.

Moreover, due to the popularity of the game, the sales of the novel with the same name were also rising, and the shooting of the movie with the same name was already in preparation.

To the players, The Lost Fleet created a very real space environment (or rather, it appeared very real since the current technology was not enough to support human space travel). It vividly portrayed the loneliness and despair of humanity's endless drifting in space, mixed with hot-blooded spaceship piloting and gunfight scenes. In all aspects, it was not an overstatement to get a 9.3 rating.

However, everyone's discussion about The Lost Fleet was not just limited to the game itself, but had expanded to a bigger area.

For example ... The development direction of the game industry.

The main reason for this was that the two highly rated works in the first half of the year, traveler and The Lost Fleet, were both linear games.

In other words, these two games had abandoned the concept of an open world and went on the path of "movie-based games."

As for why ... It all started with Chen Mo's mysterious seas last year.

Before mysterious sea, most of the mainstream VR games were working towards the open world, and many people even thought that they would fall behind the times if they didn't make an open world.

The reason was simple. Opening up the world had an immediate effect on extending the gaming time of the players. At the same time, it could make his game appear 'rich in content' and 'worth the price'.

In fact, many open world games weren't necessarily better than linear games, and many open world games that weren't done well often had no shape. For example, adding a large number of collectible elements in the game map, repeating game playing methods, high-level props with strictly controlled values, and so on.

In this open world, players would actually feel bored after playing for a while. It was nothing more than running around the map and farming.

However, it had to be said that the effect was immediate. Players liked to collect achievements and trophies, and although the numerical stimulation of grinding was simple and rough, it was very effective.

Therefore, many international game developers were addicted to the concept of the open world.

However, the appearance of mysterious sea changed this. Through a delicate process design, high-performance art effects, and a carefully crafted game script, as a linear game,"mysterious sea" had successfully conquered a large number of players, almost instantly beating most of the open world games of the same period.

The appearance of "doomsday of the United States" had an even more encouraging effect. Obviously, a game like "doomsday of the United States" was most suitable to be made into a linear game. If it was made into an open world, it would destroy this classic.

'End of the United States' winning the Game of the Year award made many video game designers reflect on themselves. Was it really good to open the world?

And traveler and The Lost Fleet were the results of this reflection. Many designers no longer blindly believed in the concept of the open world. Instead, they switched to linear games, using beautiful stories and delicate rhythm to firmly grasp the hearts of the players.

It had to be said that although the open world was good, it was not controllable. On the other hand, for linear games, as long as there was a good script and the game company put in effort, it was almost certain that a game with a good rating could be created.

Regardless of whether it was selling well, the ratings from the game media would definitely not be bad.

If the ratings were not bad, with proper publicity and appropriate catering to the market's taste, the sales would not be bad.

The traveler and The Lost Fleet were the works that emerged at the right time under such circumstances, and the facts had also proved that linear games were indeed good.

This led to a discussion among many designers and players. The core question was: With the current level of technology, was it not enough to make the best of the open world? Was a linear game a better choice for the current stage?

Of course, there were a few decent open world games in parallel world, but they were still in the minority when compared to the total number of open world games. In other words, as long as a parallel world game was done well, it would be considered a classic, but most games were not good enough.

On the contrary, a linear game with a strict process and clear rules became a very good option.