Chapter 450: Life Goes On, CloudPower's 3S-Level Horror Masterpiece! |
One game—Battlefield Winds!
It spectacularly kicked off the fierce competition for new game releases and intensive marketing campaigns in the gaming industry's second half.
Simultaneously, it also ignited the golden age of Huaguo's gaming industry.
Golden Wind's success no longer needed further elaboration—with perfect scores across all media outlets and 4.88 million copies sold in a single week, it was hailed by countless global media as the "June Miracle."
Simply saying it "defeated all competitors" was no longer sufficient to describe this work.
After all, looking across the entire gaming industry, you couldn't find another title that could truly compete with it.
It could be called the one true king, standing alone at the pinnacle.
And beyond that!
With the debut of this first self-developed engine, the entire Huaguo gaming scene entered a period of frequent new releases and explosive production output.
Not only was there Zhenting Game Studio's Tank Squadron, which exhibited alongside Battlefield Winds and received widespread acclaim.
Following the conclusion of the C-Expo, numerous medium-sized developers quickly followed suit.
Meiying Technology announced that their first independent first-person shooter game developed with the Golden Engine, Impact Journey, was already completed and would soon meet players.
Qunfeng Games announced they were formally adopting the Golden Engine as their mainstream development platform and had completed preparation work for their project Codename: Space War.
As July drew to a close, one particular piece of news made the dawn of this golden age shine even brighter—
[Unbelievable! Golden Wind and XunTeng Games jointly announce: Their respective studios 'Golden Experience' & 'Tianlang Game Studio' will co-develop an FPS game titled Codename: The Finals...]
[Reportedly, this work will fully leverage the Golden Engine's advantages, pushing destruction and excitement to their limits...]
[...According to Tianlang's Chief Director, with the Golden Engine's physical destruction effects incorporated, this title's pacing and satisfaction will reach unprecedented levels, destined to deliver players a completely new shooting experience...]
[Without doubt, the grand curtain of Huaguo gaming's golden age, led by Golden Wind, is slowly rising. The former dependency on overseas engines is becoming history, and Golden Wind has also stated they're further optimizing and upgrading the Golden Engine, striving to elevate its performance to even greater heights...]
Watching the overwhelming stream of gaming industry news!
At this moment.
Across the ocean, sitting in his office chair, Konik wore a deeply gloomy expression.
An unprecedented sense of crisis seemed to be gradually enveloping him.
As the mastermind behind the entire "engine blockade" incident!
CloudPower during this period no longer seemed to be parent company Vivendi's favorite child.
And truthfully, their performance had indeed been disappointing.
The failure of Apex Prime had already made Vivendi somewhat dissatisfied with them.
Unexpectedly, their subsequent Gollum project proved even more astonishingly incompetent, with the entire project entering indefinite suspension before even reaching release.
And now.
The "engine blockade" plan he had considered flawless and foolproof had completely failed with the stunning debut of the Golden Engine.
With such consecutive blows, Vivendi showing any restraint at all by not dismantling them outright was already quite generous.
Plus, with Komera joining the fray, this treatment actually made sense.
However.
Konik felt extremely uncomfortable.
Golden Wind's completely unbreakable, unstoppable resilience was something he had never encountered throughout his entire career.
Protected by the "iron bell shield" of being privately held, CloudPower fundamentally couldn't deliver any fatal blows against them, forced to rely on technical blockades and some shady tactics to slowly grind Golden Wind down.
But now!
The only method that had caused Golden Wind some trouble—the "technical blockade"—had been broken through by Golden Wind.
For the first time, Konik genuinely felt somewhat powerless.
Although currently, in terms of sheer scale, CloudPower's massive corporation still far surpassed what Golden Wind could match.
Yet the feeling of losing control grew increasingly strong.
An invisible scale seemed to be tipping in Golden Wind's direction.
After all, now that even the suppression of technical blockades proved ineffective against Golden Wind, what heights would this speeding train reach, and at what velocity?
Thinking this far!
Konik couldn't help but deeply furrow his brows and release a heavy sigh!
Sigh—!
However!
Sighing was one thing, worrying another.
Life still had to go on, and games still needed to be released.
Now, with Huaguo's C-Expo concluded, the gaming industry's booming second half had officially begun.
Although CloudPower constantly coveted the countless priceless IPs in Golden Wind's possession.
A corporation of their magnitude naturally couldn't survive solely by scheming against others.
They needed to continuously release market-appropriate works themselves.
Currently, they had essentially cut their losses to survive, barely emerging from the shadow of Gollum.
Although the final outcome of the engine blockade remained rather bleak, at least it hadn't caused CloudPower any direct losses.
They naturally had to regroup and focus their efforts during the second half to release some of their own titles.
For this purpose.
Konik ultimately chose to play it safe, mobilizing their most accomplished and undisputed top-tier studio—Flamebird Studio.
And Flamebird Studio didn't disappoint.
Within just two weeks, they produced a game proposal—
Alien: Endless Dark Tide
You had to admit, the strength of such established studios remained quite impressive.
This time, Flamebird precisely targeted the currently explosively popular FPS genre.
FPS itself was an evergreen major category for motion-sensing pods.
Plus, with Battlefield Winds driving the trend.
Looking across the global gaming industry now, exaggerating slightly, eight out of ten developers were creating FPS games, with the other two attempting to transition into FPS exploration.
Extremely hot.
Although theoretically, this trend's duration wouldn't be too long—at most about six months.
After all, massive repetition of such games would inevitably cause player fatigue, after which FPS popularity would naturally decline.
But six months.
Was already completely sufficient for CloudPower.
"Story-driven FPS games have much less stable sales fluctuation curves compared to multiplayer online competitive games,"
Explained Flamebird's Chief Game Director:
"Six months is enough for us to catch this global FPS wave,"
"And by the time this wave passes, our game should enter its stable sales period, even allowing appropriate discount promotions without being affected."
Beyond that!
Flamebird seemed inspired by the Resident Evil series, setting their sights on the Alien IP—a horror franchise that had remained globally popular since its debut over forty years ago.
Shooting plus horror.
The Resident Evil series had already proven this combination could succeed.
Now, they just needed to follow those successful footsteps, steadily developing step-by-step, and they couldn't go wrong.
A blazing hot game genre.
A proven successful model.
Plus an established studio team.
Such a combination indeed carried almost no risk of failure.
Moreover, the Alien copyright had always been held by Vivendi, so no licensing difficulties existed.
After brief consideration, Konik nodded and approved this game proposal.
However!
Just as Konik was about to finalize the project approval!
Flamebird suddenly made an additional request:
"Regarding the game engine... we hope to adopt the Phoenix Engine for its superior visual presentation, rather than the Illusion Engine."
Although unexpected, Flamebird's request made perfect sense.
Because as everyone knew, among current engines, while the Illusion Engine was undoubtedly the comprehensive performance leader.
But purely in terms of visual presentation, the Phoenix Engine's expressiveness surpassed the Illusion Engine.
Furthermore.
Ever since Golden Wind first used the Phoenix Engine in Silent Hill PT, it had seemingly become the dedicated engine for the horror game genre.
Komera's Silent Hill used it, FoxForce's Midnight Shadows used it, Aurora Games' Pupil used it too.
You could say that for horror games, the Phoenix Engine with its superior visual quality presentation was absolutely the ideal choice.
And now.
The upcoming Alien: Endless Dark Tide from Flamebird happened to be a horror shooter.
In the game, due to spacecraft malfunction, the protagonist's exploration team crash-lands on an alien planet, where they discover a massive, dilapidated mysterious ship.
To return home, the exploration team must enter this enormous ship hidden in the jungle, filled with unknowns.
What the exploration team doesn't know is that this ship has long been occupied by terrifying aliens—everyone who enters will experience the endless dark tide, becoming targets for alien incubation vessels.
Dark, cramped, eerie, horrifying.
Such an artistic style was absolutely perfect for presentation through the Phoenix Engine.
"Well... this..."
Hearing this.
Konik felt troubled.
After all, they were currently in bed with the Illusion Engine.
It wasn't exaggeration to say that since the engine blockade implementation, Illusion Engine 5 had essentially become CloudPower's exclusive designated development engine.
But now.
Just as CloudPower emerged from the Gollum shadow, their first 3S-level masterpiece's engine would be the Phoenix Engine, with whom they didn't have particularly close relations?
What kind of signal would this send to the gaming market?
What implication would this suggest to the Illusion Engine developers?
What would the market think? How would partners view this?
"Can't we use the Illusion Engine?"
After repeated consideration, Konik asked.
Flamebird's director simply shrugged:
"It's not impossible—the Illusion Engine isn't bad either—but in terms of final presentation effects... the Illusion Engine definitely can't match the Phoenix Engine."
After all, Phoenix was the true specialist for horror games, the undisputed champion of visuals!
Therefore!
After careful deliberation!
Finally, Konik nodded:
"Alright, I'll have Betang contact Phoenix then..."