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The domestic future tactical stealth game "Evotinction", which was selected by Sony's "China Star Project" and developed after seven years, recently announced its release date. The game will be officially launched on Steam and PS platforms on September 13, and the price on Steam in China is 98 yuan.

GamerSky was invited to play the first 90 minutes of the game. You can click here to read the details. We also interviewed Spikewave Games, the production team of "Era of Destruction", and exchanged many questions with him about the background setting of this game, his views on the development of AI, and the design of the game play. The following are the details of the interview:

Q: Stealth games are relatively unpopular, and few major companies have invested in making stealth games in recent years. What was the reason why the team chose to make a stealth game like "Era: Destruction"?

A: The Spikewave Games team is very small. When we started the project, we only had 4 people. But we all wanted to make a third-person behind-the-scenes game, which was related to our preferences and our development considerations. Under this premise, we thought that making popular shooting and action games would make our development very difficult, because the threshold of these popular categories is already very high and the competition is very fierce. So we chose a relatively niche but stealth-themed game that we all like to develop. Of course, friends who know me online also know that I was a heavy fan of "Metal Gear Solid" before I started my own business, so from this aspect, it is also natural.

Q: As a work selected by Sony as "China Star", what was the biggest difficulty the team encountered during the development of "Eternal"? What kind of help did Sony provide during the development process?

A: Actually, our development in the first two years went quite smoothly. The four of us built all the systems and levels, and the game was basically completed. Then in 2019, we announced it as a China Star project and received investment. After many tests that year, the feedback we received was that the game should be less hardcore, and we also wanted to take this opportunity to improve the graphics.

These two modifications were very difficult in themselves, and the timing was also very unfortunate. After we finished the publicity and testing in 2019, we decided to make system modifications and roll out art upgrades around November 2019. Two months later, we were locked up at home by the epidemic. The epidemic made it extremely difficult for us to carry out our work. I still remember that in winter, I was sitting in front of a small computer at home, holding my baby while designing and implementing boss battles. The work was very difficult. The newly recruited employees at that time did not play a sufficient role due to insufficient running-in time, which led to an unusually slow progress of the project. By 2021, our development money had almost been spent. We recruited a few people at that time, and the team was about 7 or 8 people. In order to keep the team going, I spent almost a year looking for investment. Although the team's speed was higher than during the epidemic, it could not be said to be the normal development speed. It was not until the end of 2021 that we found new capital, and we started full-speed development again in 2022. Everyone in the middle of these years was very difficult.

Sony has always been a very good "friend" and helped introduce various resources to help us solve problems, including but not limited to capital, distribution, and testing and publicity opportunities. It provides us with many options and opportunities to solve problems.

Q: Level design is of utmost importance in stealth games. Is the level process of "Yanmo" a linear level system or does it have certain wide linear elements? Will there be additional challenge goals as rewards? For example, never being discovered by the enemy, passing the level without defeating the enemy, etc.?

A: We have some branching routes for players to make their own choices, so that players can make some of their own choices in the game. This is also reflected in the later stages of the game. The number of levels and unlocked content will also be slightly different depending on the player's choice. Our infiltration levels themselves include a rating system. Players with stronger abilities can try to challenge high scores and will also receive corresponding rewards. On the other hand, we also have challenge levels. Simple challenge levels can help players understand the system, and slightly more difficult challenge levels also provide some pure decryption and extreme operation game fun.

Q: The protagonist in the game has no combat training and can only sneak in and use items and skills to get through. Can you introduce the various abilities available in the game?

A: Yes, the player's active skills mainly include hacking, throwing and equipment. There are rich branches under the hacking category. For example, the "shutdown" category is a skill that makes a certain module of the enemy invalid, such as vision or movement ability; hacking category also has virus and control skills. Virus is a shutdown virus hidden in the enemy that can be spread. If the conditions are met, it can be spread to multiple enemies. With clever arrangements, the entire level can be infected at one time. In this case, the player can shut down all the infected enemy modules with one click.

Throwing skills include a phonograph that attracts the enemy's attention, a magnetic chip that can be attached to the enemy to short-circuit the enemy, a hacking skill that broadcasts to destroy multiple synchronization chips at once, and a holographic projection wall that blocks the enemy's line of sight, etc. Throwing skills often work well when combined with creative gameplay.

Equipment is about controlling equipment, such as creating smoke to block vision or spraying water to short-circuit enemies, etc. There are also advanced equipment skills that allow players to obtain useful hacker information and other skills through the server.

In addition to active skills, we also have various passive skills that help players observe or hack faster. In general, there is a wide variety of skills.

Q: The game uses full voice acting, and there is also a professional Chinese dubbing team. Will the plot of the game play a large role? Will the story go in different directions depending on the player's actions? Are there multiple endings?

A: The plot of the game is indeed very important. We have set up a very detailed world view, but because we are a small team, we still present the most critical main plot content that our protagonist is exposed to in a cinematic way. However, for many interesting settings and background settings, we have set up small stories and put them in the collections. If you want to understand the story of the HERE facility while playing, players can try to listen to these collections. On the other hand, we also put these settings in the scene. Many events that happened in HERE will leave traces in the environment, and the game world that players see will reflect these clues. Sometimes you can even infer what happened here based on the traces in the environment like a detective.

Q: The background of the game "Yanmie" is AI rebellion. Coincidentally, generative AI and various AI-generated content have emerged recently. What do you think about the current development of AI technology and its future?

A: When we were developing, we talked most about AlphaGo. We thought AI would soon become a daily topic. We didn’t expect that this change would come earlier than our game.

I think there are many angles to talk about AI. For example, from the tool perspective, we can talk about convenience, copyright and regulatory issues. Our game chose to talk about AI from an evolutionary perspective, which is a more detached and conceptual approach. Since Richard Dawkins proposed the concept of meme in "The Selfish Gene" in 1976, information has been a concept that can be compared to genes. The development, change and retention of information conform to the laws of genetic evolution. Then artificial intelligence may not be a product of pure information evolution. With such assumptions and assumptions, we established the theme of "Evolution and Destruction" and set an evolutionary rival for humans. This pure information intelligent body has now been seen in our real life. It will also adapt and change according to the environment. Whether it will eventually lead to "destruction" is the thinking we hope to bring.

Q: The design of "Scan code to shut down" is very interesting, and it feels like another form of "backstab". However, because it requires aiming, it is sometimes quite difficult. How was this mechanism initially considered?

A: The code-scanning shutdown occurred after we made design changes to increase the user base. Our 2019 version of the game has a slower pace and requires more thinking. It can be said to be a strategy game in an action game. The first change we made to get closer to an action game was to design a gun that fits our system. Of course, we don’t want the game to become a third-person shooter. We hope that players can try our stealth system more, so we gave this gun very limited ammunition. Once the ammunition was set, we encountered a problem of "how can players eliminate enemies if the ammunition is used up?" This operation should be difficult but repeatable. We took this opportunity to create a design like the "shutdown code." Players responded very well, and we were very happy.

Q: How long is the main storyline of the game? Are there multiple rounds or some collection elements?

A: Our first round of the game is about ten hours, and there is a lot of collection content, some of which can be unlocked through multiple rounds. In addition, the game has nearly thirty challenge levels, and some levels in the game can be played repeatedly to challenge high scores. So if you want to complete the game perfectly, it is estimated to take about thirty hours. If players like it, we will also consider continuing to update and add challenge levels.

Q: I noticed that the first combination lock in the game is the classic 0451, which is very thoughtful! What is your favorite stealth game? What do you think is the core fun of stealth games?

A: Thank you. We are all players who love games very much, so we also hope that players who like games as much as we do can have fun in the game. This is the original intention of our decision to develop "Yanmie".

My favorite stealth game for a long time was Metal Gear Solid on PS1, until Metal Gear Solid V came out and it started to waver. I think the biggest charm of stealth games is that both operation and intelligence are very important. Players need to arrange tactics quickly and reasonably, and have accurate operations and quick instant reactions to deal with various situations. I sincerely hope that "Era: Destruction" can bring such an experience to players who also love stealth games. In addition, we have encountered non-stealth players who said after the test, "I didn't play stealth games before, but after playing your game, I think I can try it too", so we also welcome non-stealth players to try it, and we have also made a lot of efforts to help non-stealth game players get started.