The first hero skills shooting mobile game! NetEase’s “Operation Apocalypse” rolls out a new track

As the word "involution" becomes popular, the meaning of "involution" has begun to become complicated, and even in some contexts, it can also have a bit of a joke.

For example, if we say "NetEase is the veritable king of scrolling in the game market", the actual meaning should be praise: "NetEase has made achievements in all aspects of the game market, especially in self-developed games. The level is very high, which puts a lot of pressure on colleagues.”

NetEase’s strong ability to create IP in various tracks is obvious to all. For example, the evergreen "Fantasy Westward Journey" is still the turn-based leader in both PC and mobile games after more than ten years; "Nike Shui Han", a new generation of martial arts MMO, has also achieved success on both PC and mobile platforms; "Yin Yang" "Master", as the representative work of NetEase's two-dimensional mobile games, can be regarded as the benchmark for domestic two-dimensional mobile games in terms of IP operation; "Egg Boy Party" has withstood the huge competitive pressure and stabilized its position in the domestic social queue. The hottest spot in the game.

What’s even more amazing is that NetEase has a super ability: to find a new way on the track of popular games and find the right category to exert precise efforts.

For example, last year NetEase launched two new games. "All-Star Streetball Party" aims at the pain point of "high threshold" of basketball games, and creates its own style through "magic Q-print style skills to simplify operations"; "Peak Speed" takes the "hardcore racing" route, " "Realistic operation of various luxury cars" can also kill your way in highly competitive racing games.

"Gun Car Ball" is one of the "three major players" of the game, and NetEase naturally has no reason to favor one over the other. In fact, NetEase's "shooting layout" was carried out very early. As early as 2017, when the tactical competitive craze swept the country, NetEase launched "Knives Out". Later, "Knives Out" also achieved fruitful results in overseas expansion and became an important component of NetEase's overseas strategic layout. Looking closer, "Seven Days World" based on the Steam platform has taken the path of combining survival and shooting, and its ranking in the domestic game wish list is only below "Monster" and "Black Myth: Wukong".

As a pioneer in NetEase’s FPS layout in 2024, “Operation Apocalypse” appeared in the first wave of releases after the New Year of the Dragon. NetEase, which is good at deep cultivation in the vertical track, will invest a lot of time and money in the research and development of "Operation Apocalypse". What will it look like?

Professional and fair Bilateral competitive shooting gameplay

What are the differences from the previous shooting items deployed by NetEase? Judging from the current first exposure, the author feels that the characteristic of "Operation Apocalypse" is "returning to nature". Because the core gameplay of "Operation Apocalypse" returns to 5V5 bilateral competition.

The inspiration for this kind of gameplay in 5V5 bilateral competition to early domestic competitive players was undoubtedly CS, that is, "Counter-Strike". This time, "Operation Apocalypse" presents this time-honored gameplay again.

Since it is a traditional 5V5 bilateral competition, there is no doubt that "marksmanship" and "tactics" are the keynotes of "Operation Apocalypse". Not surprisingly, the gameplay shown by the official is "offensive and defensive points", which not only includes conventional tactical operations such as setting up guns, searching points, and blocking vision, but also various high-energy moments such as instant sniping and one-shot shooting. One more thing, considering the world view setting of "Operation Apocalypse", the author cannot use real-life firearms to speculate on the shooting experience after playing the game. However, judging from the gun shooting performance leaked from the demo, it is crisp, smooth, and has a strong sense of action feedback. It should be said that the gun feel that "Operation Apocalypse" can provide us is worth looking forward to.

Finally, a scene suspected to be similar to "bomb disposal" leaked. Players who are familiar with this type of game should know that when entering the endgame stage, the game confrontation will become more complicated when both sides have insufficient numbers and limited time. Many classic FPS historical shots come from such circumstances. It can be said that the elements of traditional fast-paced, strong competition, and confrontational FPS are basically complete in this demonstration.

The official also promised that there will be no additional numerical bonus for the appearance in the game, and the feel of the skin is a matter that varies from person to person. Combining "Krypton gold with unlimited value and 5V5 competitive gameplay", "Operation Apocalypse"'s ambition to achieve fair competition is self-evident.

Add hero skills to solve the pain points of traditional FPS

Of course, if everything is in line with the classic shooting competition, then "Operation Apocalypse" will definitely encounter the same problems as its predecessors: The threshold for getting started with the game is extremely high, and the player churn rate is high.

So it is not difficult to understand why "Operation Apocalypse" introduces hero skills into the 5V5 team competition. If "just gunfighting" is the biggest limitation of traditional competitive shooting in the current fast-paced game era, then introducing more game dimensions to the game is the way to break the game found by "Operation Apocalypse". As for "Hero skills increase the learning dimension of "Operation Apocalypse", will it make it more difficult for newcomers to get started?" We will discuss this issue later.

The skill effects we can see from the first exposure include vision blocking, vision provision, control deceleration, creation of clones, and an effect similar to "assisted aiming". One of the heroes that appeared showed a relatively complete skill UI, and two of her three skills were labeled "Occlusion". It seems that this hero is a character who focuses on "vision" and "information" and is more focused on team support rather than individual kills. Players who have experience in similar games will definitely realize that a player who seals the smoke accurately and at the right time will play no less role than a player who just shoots.

Back to the question just raised: Some readers may feel that "it's not easy to aim the gun accurately and understand the path. Doesn't adding hero skills now mean that there are more things to learn?" "The author feels that this sentence is not entirely correct.

If it is a classic FPS, a newbie will not only use gun tactics, but even throw objects will have team effects. At this time, if you are pursuing victory, what is the biggest contribution of a newbie to the team? Ninety-nine percent of it is to shoot guns for teammates or pull the gun line to report points, hugging the thigh of the boss and acting as a pendant for teammates, right? To be honest, this kind of Does the newbie in this environment have a sense of participation in the game?

In "Operation Apocalypse", for new FPS players, they can also make up for the gap in their operational level by choosing some characters with stronger team attributes and more functionality, "releasing skills" itself It can also provide newcomers with a sense of operational experience, avoid the embarrassment of "there is no difference whether I am in this game or not", and increase the sense of participation as a team member. Compared with fighting against others and being taken away by a big boss, assisting teammates through various means, contributing to the team, and thereby improving one's operating level and game understanding, this is indeed more in line with the newbie's physique. growth route.

At the same time, the existence of heroes will greatly increase the competitive intensity and enjoyment of "Operation Apocalypse".

For FPS masters, they have marksmanship, operation, and tactical literacy as the foundation. Naturally, they can come up with characters who have stronger personal abilities and are better positioned to take on battles or go solo. High-end "Operation Apocalypse" players can achieve more exciting and exaggerated performances by combining their own skills and the advantages of choosing heroes. Imagine that in the "Operation Apocalypse" e-sports arena in the future, a certain genius boy performed a famous scene that shocked everyone with his skills, such as "the end game relied on perfect skill release and divinely assisted marksmanship to complete a 1VN comeback." The cheers and barrage cheers...are they pretty cool?

At the same time, the existence of hero skills also increases the strategic options for both parties. We just mentioned that a certain hero in the demo showed skills mainly focused on "occlusion". In fact, there is another hero who reveals a complete skill UI, and her skill set includes two skills with the "Reconnaissance" label. What kind of interaction will there be between the "Reconnaissance" skill and the "Cover" skill? In the competitive arena, both sides choose the lineup based on the mutual complementarity between the heroes, and "Tai Chi" against the opponent, the excitement will be no less than the "Tai Chi" in the game. Head-to-head."

Mobile terminal optimization pursues the ultimate e-sports experience

According to the official statement, "Operation Apocalypse" has made a lot of efforts to optimize the characteristics of the mobile terminal. For example, if performance permits, "Operation Apocalypse" can enable an e-sports game refresh rate of up to 90FPS to give players a better shooting experience; and for machines with low performance, the optimization of memory and CPU also makes "Apocalypse" "Operation" can stably maintain a smooth 60 frames in complex battle situations on the premise of running hardware.

While ensuring performance, "Operation Apocalypse" does not sacrifice effects. Optimization for mainstream models in recent years ensures high-definition adaptation to most mobile phones. The game uses the UE4 engine to create top-quality graphics. It also uses PBR materials for scenes and characters, and customizes the rendering of characters and skills, which not only ensures exquisite visual effects, but also provides a smooth and precise shooting experience.

Another example is "Operation Apocalypse", which is unique in the design of hero skills and uses one-click release to simplify operations. As for how far the shooting part will be optimized for the mobile platform, we need to wait until we actually play it before we can judge.

In addition, the art style of the game is also worthy of our attention. Against the background of the domestic mainstream trend of "military realism" and "sci-fi near future", "Operation Apocalypse" boldly introduces a large number of oriental aesthetic elements. This kind of "going upstream" demonstrates NetEase's confidence in the artistic capabilities of "Operation Apocalypse" on the one hand, and on the other hand it is also "Operation Apocalypse"'s understanding and attempt at domestic FPS innovation.

Conclusion: NetEase sounds the first wave of charge in 2024

According to the official statement of NetEase Games, in addition to "Operation Apocalypse", NetEase has three other shooting games that have been laid out in 2024. With such intensive new product launches, it can be seen that NetEase still attaches great importance to the shooting track. Talking about the three major items of "guns, cars and balls", now that NetEase has achieved success in the two major items of "cars" and "balls" last year, it is reasonable to release another popular model in "guns" to win the Grand Slam this year. expect.

Compared with other products, "Operation Apocalypse", which has already received a version number, has a valuable first-mover advantage. In terms of gameplay, "Operation Apocalypse" has the two most obvious distinguishing points from other domestic FPS games on the market: "strong competition" and "hero skills". If "Operation Apocalypse" really becomes "NetEase's first hit in 2024", it will have strong strategic significance for NetEase's vertical cultivation in the FPS field.

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