This year's most anticipated new product "Delta Action" will challenge the impossible task

2024-07-31

“It may have more potential than any game Tencent has ever produced.”

Text/Yan Jinyan

This year's CJ has passed. If I were to choose the most popular new game that has not yet been launched, I would vote for "Delta Operation"One ticket.

Yesterday, we talked about the huge crowds in Tencent's N4 Pavilion. Among them, the shooting game booth of Tianmei J3 was also surrounded by three layers of people inside and outside.

From the first day of CJ, there was a long queue in the trial area of Delta Operation. On the weekend, when two big anchors and KOLs, Chen Ze and Sun Liangxuan, came to the booth, the scene was even more exaggerated. Many fans of players heard that there was an event and came to wait at 9 o'clock in the morning. In the afternoon, security guards also came to form a human wall to control the flow of people.

Online content is also popular

The layout of the exhibition area for "Operation Delta" is also quite interesting, with the focus on restoring the features of the game.

Take the cosplayers who are a must at the booth for example. Other companies either look for professional or part-time cosplayers, or some internet celebrities, but it is different. It directly invited the actors who played the two game characters to the scene.

If you are an old player of Delta Action or have seen the IP movie, you must know Black Hawk Down. And above the booth this year, they directly made a model of a Black Hawk helicopter.

At the same time, they also moved the tactical evacuation gameplay offline. After entering the interactive experience area, you will follow the coach, enter the field to shoot, search for supplies, open the safe, and finally complete the evacuation.

Sun Liangxuan, a top Douyin influencer, became an instructor for the dangerous action experience in the exhibition area, which was similar to the new version of the dryMember Uluru, and brought his signature program "Gold Brick Grabbing Challenge". This challenge also became the most popular activity at the booth. Everyone had to rely on pure "strength" to win the grand prize.

So, after all this, is Delta Action fun? I also caught two players on the scene and asked them about their feelings.

Just by looking at the tactical equipment of the guy on the left, you can feel that they are hardcore FPS players.

It is understood that they have been paying attention to "Delta Operation" for a long time and have participated in testing before. This time they came to the scene to experience the content of the new version.

One of the players said, "It seems that Delta Action has more potential than any of Tencent's previous games, and it even has the opportunity to go overseas."

I have been following Delta Operation to write reports since the first exposure. My biggest feeling before is that this product is really constantly learning and exploring, trying to challenge the upper limit of the shooting category.

First of all, if nothing unexpected happens, "Operation Delta" should be Tencent's first multi-terminal cross-platform product, available on PC, mobile phones and consoles.

This not only shows their ambition to expand their audience, but more importantly, they also want to go overseas and compete with the top FPS.

Previously, Yao Yuan, general manager of J3 Studio, said that they found during the development process that if they wanted to conquer overseas players, they still had to make PC consoles. This was like challenging others where they were good at.

The difficulty can be imagined. Not to mention that Tencent has no similar mature experience before, in the whole country, this kind of realistic style and pursuit of smooth competition multi-terminal product is also the first.

Secondly, they also want both and more when it comes to choosing gameplay.

The most intuitive point is to make a stand-alone story campaign.

Following the path of past domestic F2P shooting games, no one would care about the content, as long as they stacked up the most popular chicken-eating, team-competitive, and demolition games.

But "Operation Delta" not only bought the game IP, but also took over the film copyright. It wants to use UE5 to restore the classic characters, scenes and plots according to the movie.

The same is true for the other two modes, Tactical Evacuation and Full Battlefield. These two were not considered the most mainstream gameplay in shooting games before, and domestic manufacturers rarely set foot in this track.

The meaning of "Delta Operation" is also very simple. Before, both Tianmei and Tencent as a whole have already launched the most successful products in the mainstream gameplay. Now they just want to complete the puzzle in other fields and dig out new products that may become popular or popular in the future.

But the more things that have never been done before, the harder it is to do. Tactical evacuation involves hardcore simulation, and players play the game with a magnifying glass. The challenges faced by large battlefields are even more complicated, including technical difficulties of multiple people on the same screen, battlefield design, and offensive and defensive balance... There are too many pitfalls to go through.

Therefore, from the beginning, I felt that "Delta Operation" was very ambitious and wanted to challenge a field that no one in China had done. To some extent, this echoed the theme of the "Delta Operation" IP: "Challenging the Impossible Mission".

I also thought that with such a big ambition and being a first attempt, "Operation Delta" would likely show a lack of focus or repeated project losses.

But as a result, the product has given people the feeling that it has been progressing steadily and has a clear direction from last year to now.

In the first test, they first brought out the tactical evacuation mode to verify the basic quality and micro-innovation of the evacuation gameplay.

By introducing operator skills and core resource Mandelbricks, the rhythm and strategy of tactical evacuation become more diverse. Compared with similar evacuation products, it encourages PvP more and solves the problem that players cannot afford to fight.

In the second test, it opened up a full battlefield mode to satisfy players who like fast-paced shooting.

In this mode, although the game's graphics and material performance have not yet reached top levels, multiple people on the same screen, land, sea and air vehicles, and large maps have taken shape, and can at least meet players' expectations for the atmosphere of a large battlefield.

In the recent twin tests, "Operation Delta" also launched simultaneous testing of the terminal and mobile games, testing data interoperability, commercialization and other content.

Currently, the mobile version has 90 frames available, and 120 and 140 frames are reserved, as well as ray tracing and ultimate picture quality options. Although the game has not yet reached the most perfect level, you can still feel its light and shadow performance at the ultimate picture quality.

In addition, this test also extended the testing cycle, and made timely adjustments to the pass and season tasks in response to the liver issues raised by players.

During the testing cycle, they also began to add new operators and new maps in different versions. For example, the character David Ferrier, who was launched today, and the new large battlefield map critical point, the former broadened the tactical nature of the game, and the latter tried a map with a greater height difference.

Moreover, adjustments were made in this test to address issues exposed in previous tests, such as the balance of the battlefield and the single gameplay.

From this, you can feel that "Operation Delta" is getting closer to the ideal goal little by little. In fact, they have already regarded the product as entering the long-term operation stage in advance and communicated with players face to face, which should require the project team to have enough confidence.

However, the difficulties and challenges faced by "Operation Delta" are still enormous.

It will enter the global market and land on PC and consoles, which also means that players will put it on the same level as the top FPS games.

At the CJ, some players said that they are not used to the TTK of Delta Action. It is shorter than that of APEX Heroes and shorter than that ofcall of Duty》It is neither good nor bad and needs improvement.

But then he added that in terms of the general direction, the game has done everything that needs to be done, the feel of the guns is like that of "Call of Duty", and the atmosphere of the battlefield is like that of "Battlefield", so overall he still has expectations.

Come to think of it, Yao Yuan once said in an interview that they do not seek to make a perfect product right away, because the further back in time a product is, the harder it is to improve, and it requires cost and R&D accumulation to add up, but they can first become an 85-point product.

However, does this mean that "Delta Operation" has no characteristics of its own?

Not really. From the first test, they showed their understanding of the product's tone - Operator tactical shooting.

Special operations operators with various professional positioning and skills, when added to the tactical evacuation and comprehensive battlefield gameplay, have brought about some different chemical reactions.

In the tactical evacuation gameplay, different maps have their own gameplay tendencies. For example, some large maps emphasize field battles, while some small maps are filled with indoor scenes. Different operator skills will have different coordination and performance in the corresponding scenes.

After entering the big battlefield, the operators have further strengthened the tactical coordination of multiplayer cooperation. For example, the bee doctor can directly pull up a healing smoke to directly treat dozens of teammates.

For example, as mentioned above, in tactical evacuation, the introduction of high-rarity supplies such as Mandel Bricks can effectively bring players together and intensify the competitive game of a single game.

These micro-innovations in competitive areas have always been Tencent's strengths.

It is also worth mentioning that as the game test content increases, you can also find that each map seems to be connected by a complete world view. The bosses in each map stronghold are also designed with matching settings and fragmented narrative content.

This may also explain that although "Delta Operation" is a gameplay-driven product, it has not neglected the content level.

I think that "Delta Operation" will be a relatively important symbol for both Tencent and the entire domestic game industry.

It has taken a path that no one in China has challenged in the past, and it is impacting the FPS field that overseas manufacturers are best at.

If it can be done well, it will become a benchmark, proving that domestic shooting games can compete with overseas manufacturers. For J3 Studio and Linlang Tianshang team, this is a milestone, and a proof of their research and development capabilities in the field of gunfights. More importantly, it may build a barrier that no one dares to approach, further consolidating Tencent's position in the shooting field.

At present, the official has repeatedly stated that the game will be launched this year, and in the coming August, they will also start global testing on Steam. Whether Delta Operation can stand the test of global players, it will soon be revealed.

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This year's most anticipated new product "Delta Action" will challenge the impossible task

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