recently, domestic shooting is really hot.

this month alone, several new products have been launched.delta operation》, "white evil battlefield", "reverse war: future"... each of them is backed by a big company. and just last week, lilith also joined the battlefield - "far light 84" launched the first test of the chinese server pc on september 20.

we have written about far light 84 many times before. at first, it was first revealed at the unreal engine offline event in 2020. it is lilith's first game made with unreal engine. if we count from the time of project establishment, it has been at least 5 years now.

previously, it was launched overseas and performed well for a while, winning the google play 2023 best multiplayer game award. it also exceeded one million dau purely by natural volume without any promotion.

of course, this achievement is not enough to make it a big success. after all, the shooting track is really competitive, and it is a winner-takes-all large dau track. if you want to stand out, you must become a leader in the niche.

before talking about the gameplay, i would like to talk about another differentiating point of "far beam 84" - content expression.

if you are familiar with lilith's other card game "party of the gods", you should be able to better perceive the art style of "far light 84". they are both the kind ofcool art with a strong sense of inclusiveness.

the most intuitive thing is their hero design. here are a few examples: the criminal wearing a pink prince's mirror, the overall dress looks like he just attended a fashion show, exaggerated and rebellious. according to the production team, they referred to the camp style + acid aesthetics when designing the criminal, so that the character conveys a crazy psychedelic feeling;

mechel is a fusion of lolita and rock, giving people a sense of vitality; while phantom is a street rap style, with an overall hip-hop style, but at the same time it is a cyborg bionic man. in short, each hero is highly recognizable.

if you look closely, you can also find that lilith has also shown its understanding of "trend" in terms of shoe culture that young people like. each character's shoes are particular, from function to appearance, whether they are sports, gorgeous, or tactical, they are all created in full accordance with the character settings.

another small detail is that, perhaps because lilith has regarded globalization as one of its corporate strategies since the past few years, many character designs have broken away from everyone's stereotypes. for example, the hairstyle design of the dark-skinned character night patrol is not the black dreadlocks that often appear in cultural works today.

moreover, the game also amplifies the personality traits of each hero through various means such as action performances and dubbing.

for example, the posture of the criminal owl is an exaggerated style similar to jojo. when he uses his ultimate move, he will shout "i will blow them all to ashes". since the ultimate move of the criminal owl can select a large area to bomb, it is a powerful output type of killing move, so this is the only skill voice that all players can hear the warning. it can be said that as long as you see the criminal owl, you can feel his madness.

yaya is the representative of funny and cute characters. since he is not a regular humanoid character, he can do a lot of more exaggerated comic performances. for example, when he uses his ultimate move, he will turn into a ball and jump into the sky. at other times, he will keep saying "quack quack" and "hit! ah da da da——". after playing a whole game, it is easy to be brainwashed.

this is also the second feature of "yuanguang 84" besides being trendy and cool: humor. according to the official description, the overall style of the game is defined as trendy comedy.

on the one hand, they designed a lot of heroes like yaya, who either look cute or have many possibilities for tricks. the addition of the pet catching system has also greatly enhanced the perception of this aspect, which we will talk about later.

on the other hand, there are also many funny scene designs in the game map, such as a landmark building designed as a big duck; the interactive device for gaining experience is also a duck head... well, the project team really has a strange obsession with ducks...

however, regardless of how users accept the content style, i think this direction is at least right. for hero shooters, content should be the focus, which is also what differentiates this category from traditional shooting games.

by using heroes as carriers, they can create a large number of derivative ip content inside and outside the game. as a result, players' discussions about the game are not limited to gameplay. they can start a series of interesting topics based on hero settings and background stories. players may even create a large number of character memes to drive the self-propagation of the game; or, through high-quality content such as music and pv, the game may also radiate to general users outside the core circle.

now "yuanguang 84" tries to show the worldview through fragmented ways such as loading interface, map introduction interface, and character voice. judging from the existing actions of the international server, they are also exploring other content forms such as comics and short stories. if the game can continue to strengthen the connection between characters in the future, such as adding dialogues between specific hero combinations in the character voice, then i think its content will be even stronger.

of course, no matter how good the content is, the shooting genre still relies on gameplay. whether it is fun and new is the key to how far it can go.

at present, the differentiation of "yuanguang 84" in terms of gameplay is also clearly thought out, that is, to maximize the gameplay characteristics of hero shooting. this is actually consistent with their idea of ​​strengthening content based on hero shooting.

on the one hand, the game allows hero growth within a single game. each hero has two basic skills and a big move. after players upgrade through survival, resource collection, and killing, they can freely add points to strengthen their skill set.

on the other hand, a completely unexpected pet-catching gameplay was added.

simply put, there are various pets "badi" distributed on the map. compared with traditional pet catching games, badi will not move, but stay in the corner of the map, waiting for players to capture it with badi balls.

essentially, the pa di is a collectible one-time skill that expands the dimension of the skill. some pa di can detect nearby enemies in a large area, some can act as smoke bombs and grenades, and some can even customize the next safety circle.

after playing the game for a whole day, i feel more and more that the person who came up with this design is a genius. it really enhances the gameplay fun of hero tactics competition on many levels.

first, it allows hero skills to have more room for expansion. hero skills and badi can be combined to create many combos, which can make people's eyes light up or darken.

for example, although the ultimate move of sin owl is very lethal, it has a long lead time and it is difficult to determine the enemy's position. at this time, you can let badi detect the enemy's position first, or create a wind field to compress the enemy's movement, or even control the opponent, so as to achieve precise guidance.

"mouth cannon mouse" can launch the character out

for example, maggie is a highly mobile character. she can use a jetpack to jump around on the battlefield. at this time, she can use the wind field created by "wind guss" to go with the wind, which can further increase the character's speed and advance distance. if you release the wind gust facing the enemy, you can achieve the effect of "i speed up, you slow down, which is equivalent to you being imprisoned." this is a magical tool for players who are good at physical movement.

it is conceivable that with the influx of subsequent players, more and more gameplay routines will be developed. i can already foresee that by then there will definitely be all kinds of brain-opening and cool operations that will be cut into materials and spread in the community.

second, the battlefield situation is more suspenseful and the strategy of the game is greatly improved.

at present, most of the beeps can affect the battlefield situation to a certain extent. for example, when a teammate is killed by a box, you can use "easy to move" to directly transfer the box to the front, revive the teammate in a safe area, and regain the advantage in numbers.

for example, when i was in the final round of a game, the opponent summoned the imperial-type "storm queen", which directly blew up a tornado on the map. i had nowhere to escape and was directly controlled for several seconds.

my favorite is the "dragon" that can transform into a mushroom or a wall panel. it is a bit like the hide-and-seek in some shooting games, running to the right position to disguise and become a sixth person.

during this week of game testing, i have seen many anchors become victims. while running and mapping, they were suddenly blocked by the "street lights" next to them.you can imagine how much of a show effect it would have if it were put in the finals.

in addition to capturing badi, badi ball can also store vehicles, weapon depots, and buildings such as ramps and baffles. when you come to an unfavorable terrain, flipping the badi ball in your backpack may change your fate.

after reading this, i think you can better understand why the official defines the game as a "comedy". the addition of badi does make the game change rapidly.the entire battlefield also has some more "nonsense"the feeling,but if you think about it carefully, there is a lot of room for tactical games.

third, the surprise feedback players get from looting resources will be stronger.

through the introduction just now, you should be able to feel that badi is an extremely core resource, and the distribution of different badi is also random like other materials. if you can find some key badi, you may be happier than finding airdrops. this is also an important point that makes people addicted to eating chicken.

after adding the pet-catching gameplay, you can also see that the project team has thought very clearly. in the past, the tedious looting and equipment matching in the chicken-eating game can be automatically operated by the system. you only need to think about how to fight and how to use the darts to win the game. the focus of the player's game will be more on the tactical level.

in general, after adding badi, the differentiation of yuanguang 84 has become very obvious. moreover, the flexibility and expansibility of the badi system may really make the tactical competitive category take another step forward.

in the past, if you want to add more creativity to competitive games, you will inevitably face many problems. previously, a producer of a hero tactical competitive category told grape jun that as the game is updated, they will inevitably launch stronger, newer or easier-to-use heroes, which may force players to adapt to the current version environment, but obviously, not all players like the so-called version children.

but for the badi, it is a more flexible map prop. even if the planner lets go and adds all kinds of magical badi, he can quickly balance the game by adjusting the distribution and frequency of the badi. in other words, it allows better control of creativity.

on the basis of controllability, the creation of the idea of ​​badi is in line with the intuition of emergent design. after all, it is essentially a small skill, and anyone can come up with some interesting ideas. for example, there is still a lack of healing characters, so can there be an auxiliary badi that helps players automatically apply armor? for example, when facing powerful badi like storm queen, can i also have some counter-attack badi? observing the current game community, a large number of players have begun to spontaneously propose ideas, and there may be the possibility of players co-creating badi in the future.

after several years of adjustments, i think the current "yuanguang 84" is already a distinctive and recognizable product. but do you think it is enough to conquer all shooting players? or does it have the strength to challenge the top products? there is definitely a lot of room for improvement.

for example, in terms of gunplay, from my experience so far, although the game is cartoon-style, i can feel that it pays great attention to the feel of guns. take the sound effects for example, the shooting sounds of different guns in different environments are different. now i can roughly distinguish guns by the sound of gunfire. and the sound effects of reloading and loading are also pretty good. in a non-realistic shooting game, its performance is already excellent.

however, if you really want to compare it with the top batch of shooting games, "far beam 84" has its own unique insights. different from the "blood-spurting" reality of realistic games, they are also trying to provide a "cool feeling" feedback for shooting that suits their art style.

for example, the overall design of the game may still raise the entry threshold for players.

although the badi gameplay allows ordinary players to use powerful skills to change the situation at a lower cost, and also increases the upper limit of the operation of expert players to a certain extent. however, due to the small size of the current map, the circle shrinks quickly, and the frequent exchanges of fire between players, for players who have just opened the game, it is very likely that even after playing several games, they still have not figured out the skills of the hero and badi, let alone how to cooperate with each other. in other words, players may be persuaded to quit before they have realized the fun of the game.

of course, these problems are not impossible to fix. in previous overseas operations, "yuanguang 84" has undergone several updates, and several times it was like a new game. for example, the game's current differentiated features, such as trendy art, humorous content expression, and gameplay centered on pet-catching hero tactical competition, were finally finalized after several iterations. this period even included the redo of hero skills and a comprehensive overhaul of firearms.

in the game review section, many old players said that the game has been getting better and better over the years.

this is also in line with what zhang zilong, the head of lilith's distribution, mentioned earlier, that one of the company's key words is design-driven. in order to achieve this, each of their projects must go through careful tuning and lengthy testing. at the same time, if you know lilith, you should also know that they have always emphasized the word "fun" since their establishment, and they are very persistent in this regard.

the more critical point is that in this project, you can see that lilith has taken a die-hard attitude. after several years of research and development and many major changes, they still haven't given up on "yuanguang 84" and are even constantly innovating. few people can show such courage when they first enter the field of shooting competition. this may also explain lilith's determination to step out of the card comfort zone and move towards the large dau track.

another interesting point is that lilith's overseas brand is called farlight, which has the same name as farlight 84. it is not difficult to see that lilith should have placed more hope on this project.

as a newcomer to the shooting field, it is difficult for us to expect yuanguang 84 to reach a particularly high position right from the start. but in any case, they have finally found a more thoughtful and differentiated path, which has certain potential and possibilities. for lilith, who is about to step out of its comfort zone, this may be a good signal.