Today is August 21st, the day after the release of Black Myth: Wukong.

Since it was first revealed in 2020, the story of "Black Myth: Wukong" has been serial for four years. Two years earlier, this product was born out of the whiteboard of the game's science boardroom. And what about earlier? Maybe we can go back to the founding of Game Science in 2014, or its predecessor, God of War.

But what if you go any further? Perhaps, we should turn the starting point of the story back to 2004, an era when online games were just emerging.

01

Greedy for life and afraid of death, don't enter this door

In 2004, in an Internet café near Huazhong University of Science and Technology, a recent college graduate was addicted to "World of Warcraft" day and night.

He slept in a rented house during the day and stayed up all night in an internet café at night. It doesn't matter if his savings are spent, as long as his classmates borrow money, he will plunge headlong into the continent of Azeroth. This Internet addict teenager is named Feng Ji.

According to the original world line, Feng Ji should be preparing for the graduate school entrance examination after graduation, but he is often confused about the meaning of the graduate school entrance examination and work. In comparison, the gaming world is full of temptations.

In 2005, Feng Ji submitted more than a dozen resumes, and finally joined a small game company in Shenzhen to do MMO operation planning. The first assignment he received was to write an event in three months. Later, the mission gradually changed to "small activities are non-stop, and large activities are once a month".

No one in the company has reviewed the benefits of these activities, no one has asked Feng Ji about his understanding of the game version, and no one has paid attention to the needs of players. Feng Ji's summary of the operation activities is: players cannot be idle.

At that time, the industry was keen to discuss whether Shi Yuzhu's "Journey" made a lot of money and whether it was crooked, and at the end of the discussion, the topic would always become: whether we should also learn from this.

In his planning career of more than two years, Feng Ji felt a huge gap and confusion. In 2007, with a stroke of his pen, he wrote "Who Murdered Our Game", mercilessly tearing apart the chaos of the domestic game industry, bluntly saying that "the online game industry of dog days has given birth to a bunch of dog things like me".

Excerpt from Who Murdered Our Game

Later, Feng Ji went to a bigger stage, he joined Tencent, and was responsible for the distribution and operation of the agent product "Xun Xian".

But "Looking for Immortals" is not favored internally, to put it more bluntly, the product that Feng Ji got was completely picked by others at the project meeting. At that time, the domestic MMO market was fiercely competitive, "World of Warcraft", "Fantasy Journey to the West", "Legend" and "Journey", each of which was a giant, and "Seeking Immortals" seemed destined to be unable to break through.

But Feng Ji is still full of enthusiasm. According to the author of Zhihu, WaYne recalled that he and Feng Ji's workstations were back-to-back, and whenever he picked on "Seeking Immortals" and talked about the disadvantages of gameplay, completion, and charging mode, Feng Ji would always refute and praise the unique art of the product.

In the early report, Feng Ji's judgment on "Seeking Immortals" is: oriental, traditional, mythical, with unique charm, unconventional and breakthrough.

He constantly made suggestions to developers to add plot and story, and special effects of animated movies to enhance the immersion of the game. But you know, these contents are not important in the era of online games back then.

"Seeking Immortals"

After working in "Looking for Immortals" for 18 months, the opportunity for Feng Ji finally came.

In 2008, MMOs were still the main battleground for the game industry, but Tencent had been lacking in the field for a long time, and they realized that the company needed a game that would justify its self-developed system. Coinciding with the birth of its self-developed game engine ATOMIC GAME ENGINE (also known as May Engine internally), Tencent decided to use this new engine to make a flagship product.

Soon, in the project approval stage, Feng Ji used a version of the 2.5D online game plan with the theme of Journey to the West to win the opportunity to transfer jobs for himself and became the main plan of the project.

Many years later, Wang Xinwen, the founder of Lilith, strongly recommended Feng Ji to Daniel, CEO of Hero Games, saying that in the past, Tencent had an internal three-three meeting, and would regularly find project leaders to compete for products, and as long as Feng Ji was not there, Wang Xinwen would be able to win awards, but as soon as Feng Ji appeared, the result was very unknown.

Feng Ji

At that time, Feng Ji's project was internally codenamed "W-Game", and he was the first to try cool and dazzling special effects, and also did small and fresh cartoon art, in short, it was very different from the later adult Journey to the West. Until Yang Qi and other members joined.

Yang Qi studied at the China Academy of Art, and during his college years, he often skipped classes and even graduated without a degree certificate. During his senior year, he began to run out to make online games, and later moved to a number of small game companies, and also started a business with his friends, making the MMO "Mountains and Seas".

Although these projects were not successful, they also confirmed Yang Qi's idea of making a big game. With the artistic performance of "Mountains and Seas", the team was able to join Tencent. Yang Qi summed it up as "hugging the thighs".

Before joining the company, a Tencent executive reminded Yang Qi that the water here is deep. Yang Qi did feel uncomfortable at first, and encountered many process challenges. He likened the large companies of the regular army to imperialist enterprises, and he often carried the leaders behind his back, working overtime to optimize them, just to realize his own aesthetics in the project.

A Tencent employee at the same time talked about the rumors at the time that Yang Qi only had to draw the best character settings, and after throwing them to colleagues in other functions, it didn't matter how you made the specific production. He also has a strong artistic temperament.

In a career sharing in 2012, Yang Qi admitted that he once regarded domestic game planners as enemies, believing that most of them did not understand games and were going to "die". But after meeting the team of "W-Game", he found that this is a group of people who are "worthy of respect", and it turns out that there are really people in the industry who will work together to realize their game dreams.

So, they began to look for a different theme of Journey to the West, and finally decided to name the product "Journey to the West". Later, because the name was so scary, the team was severely criticized and the name was invalidated, but they thought it was a good sign that everyone had finally found the temperament of an adult online game.

At the second round of W-Game's project review meeting, dozens of members of the team felt that it was better to go over and accept the challenge together if they were going to die sooner or later when making games. In the conference room, the crowd was crowded, and the darkness was overwhelming. At that time, they also made a puzzle, and finally spelled out 13 big characters: greedy for life and afraid of death, don't enter this door, don't be ruthless and don't play.

However, at this time, Top Gun and high-spirited people may never have thought that the research and development of the project would be far more difficult than expected, and it would take five years to do it.

02

God of War

In December 2010, at the Tencent Game Carnival, "W-Game" was officially first exposed, named "God of War". Feng Ji, as the main planner, stood on the stage with Ren Yuxin, then president of Tencent Games, who likened "God of War" to the "positive result" of the game industry.

At that time, Tencent had high hopes for "God of War". The early stage of the project is extremely confidential, and Zhang Xuan of the marketing department said that before the official release, many colleagues only knew that there was such a project, but they never knew what it was called.

Liu Dan, the producer of "God of War", once said in an interview that this product is a representative work of Tencent's next-generation self-developed online game, and its technical preparation time is the largest among Tencent's self-developed products, which is 2-3 times that of general products. It also has the largest number of R&D personnel and resource investment. The team grew from less than 30 people to nearly 200 people, not including all the support departments.

Many years later, Zhao Wenyong, the technical director of Game Science and a programmer during the "God of War" period, revealed that although "God of War" had KPI appeals, it may be a product with a fairly low weight of the company's KPI benefits. "The more important idea of the top management is to use it to justify the name of Tencent Games, and give the project team a lot of support and freedom."

A person who participated in the early work of "God of War" said that this team has a lot of energy, always wants to be the "best dick", and seems to want to leave something behind: "At that time, everyone always came to inspiration at night, and as soon as inspiration came, they went to the conference room to brainstorm, and they didn't care about overtime at all. Because you feel like you're polishing a work of art, it raises the aesthetic of the entire Chinese gaming scene. ”

In terms of the market, "God of War" has made many bold announcements that have never been seen in the industry.

For example, it has released a lot of "still films", which are more like warm-up posters from today's perspective. At that time, the promotional image of "God of War" was themed "You have played the game, but you have never been happy", which was a spicy satire of the chaos of online games.

Swipe left and right to view

After this static film-style publicity method came out, it attracted later game manufacturers to follow suit, but most of them followed suit, because it was difficult for anyone to grasp the temperament and charm that should be in it - black humor, rare down-to-earthness.

This marketing idea is thanks to the then brand manager: the cousin of Guangguang (Liu Zhipeng). Eleven Rays came home that year, and listened to his cousin talk about how good he was in the game. However, the attitude of the elders was quite disdainful: "Okay, good, you are the best, hurry up and eat vegetables." The cousin muttered, "You don't understand these at all." ”

Ray realizes that this is the helplessness of real players in real society: a gamer's aura often stays only in his game world, but in fact, they also need to be recognized and understood. Later, this insight gave birth to the climax of the static movie poster: "They see your ordinariness, we see your vastness", "My happiness, you don't understand".

This creativity is reflected in many ways. In 2011, the publicity route of domestic games was either lofty or vulgar, but "God of War" has begun to work on April Fool's Day, using a few true and false news to stir up players' emotions.

Among them, they also threatened to launch a single-player version - later, in order to attract players into the game, they released a small offline single-player version before the open beta, allowing players to quickly experience the fun of combat.

And from the perspective of products, "God of War" has also made many revolutions that seem to be deviant.

In terms of business model, Liu Dan bluntly said that it is necessary to distinguish it from traditional online games and not to charge unlimited props. He said that the happiness of players should not be based on a fee model. "The source of the joy of the game can only be the game itself, not how much money it costs to be fun."

At the content level, the first three chapters of the game are full of plot performances, and at the end of each chapter, there is an original MV. You know, that was the era when there was no such thing as a "content-based game".

"God of War" MV "What is the use of heaven and earth"

In addition, they also hired Jin Hezai, the author of "The Legend of Wukong", as the architect of the worldview; and cooperated with Avatar's special effects studio The Third Floor, as well as the domestic Force Animation, to produce high-quality CG, according to Yang Qi, CG in the thousands of monster charging scenes, none of the monster design is repeated, with a total cost of 8 million.

There are many cases of such content-focused work: working with the dubbing team of "Harry Potter", buying the music rights of the 86th version of "Journey to the West", and collaborating with Eason Chan and Lin Xi on songs......

To this day, "Ten Thousand Demons Gathering" is still the same

The CG of the highest quality in a domestic online game

In terms of gameplay, they put forward the slogan of Battle 2.0, hoping to raise the combat of domestic online games to the next-generation level, so that every time players change their profession, it is equivalent to changing a game. At the 2012 Tencent Games Annual Conference, Feng Ji also brought out a demonstration of the operation of the controller, trying to prove that "God of War" is polished in combat.

They even asked the app to change the directional archery to be missable or dodged by the player. This means that the program has to achieve FPS in an MMO. In an interview at the time, the main Cheng said that he was often forced by the plan to jump directly from the 29th floor of Tencent.

During the development process, similar ideas emerged one after another. In 2020, a colleague suggested on the intranet that a Journey to the West theme should be made into a transformation gameplay, where players can turn into birds and fly over cliffs; You can also turn into a boss of the corresponding level. Feng Ji recorded the content of this post at the time, and said that he would come up with a 72 design plan in the second quarter.

Although the development was very difficult, and many of the ideas that were considered whimsical at the time could not be fully realized, the team still overcame many difficulties. In 2011, the God of War team won the Best Technological Breakthrough Award within Tencent. At the time, there were even rumors that Riot wanted to work with the AGE engine to make an MMO product.

Thanks to all the efforts, the first few rounds of testing of "God of War" since 2011 have gained extraordinary reputation, and have repeatedly broken the records of Tencent's self-developed products: the activation rate of the first test reached 99.7%, more than 85% of users are very satisfied with the product, and nearly 50% of users will log in almost every day in the first month of retention; In the 2013 unlimited number and no deletion test, the game's PCU exceeded 600,000, achieving the best results in the unlimited number stage of MMO in the Chinese market in those years.

Needless to say, the attention it received was needless to say, and one early member recalled that every time the project sent some materials, the headlines of head game media such as 17173 and Multiplay would be vacant.

However, just when everyone thought that the game would continue to be brilliant after the open beta, the data of God of War began to fall off a cliff.

03

After the bones, there is no journey to the west

In the team's original vision, God of War was a game that allowed players to keep grinding dungeons. A 2.5D online game with a top-down view, differentiated career settings, equipment construction, and ...... Judging from the early gameplay selection, it refers to a lot of Diablo design ideas.

However, in the follow-up test, the team found that the small four-player dungeon could not precipitate the player's social relationship at all, which is very important for MMOs who pursue long-term operations. So, they bound the sect system to the dungeon, and outside the dungeon, they did a field challenge, and players needed to use the sect as a unit to grab wild resources. But in reality, players don't like the social pressure of fighting people.

This leads to an awkward situation: the content of the game is consumed too quickly, but the heavy gameplay does not eliminate the hassle of having nothing to do, but instead increases the burden on the player.

All sorts of contradictions emerged, and players began to churn. At the beginning of 2014, Feng Ji frequently appeared in the player community and answered questions in person.

His answer was still humorous and down-to-earth, but there was a hint of anxiety between the lines. Judging from the topics discussed, "God of War" has also become a product that is no different from other online games. In the face of it, there are endless problems: commercialization, career balance, drop rate, studio, plug-in, liver krypton......

In a previous interview with God of War, the team said that the game's earliest launch plan was not the current five chapters, but eight chapters. The plot of the first few chapters of the game is actually more like the prologue of the entire huge story, but in the final online version, dungeon content such as Tiangong and Difu have been put into the version in advance. Yang Qi also regretted on Weibo that the copy of Bibotan was permanently invalidated.

What are the causes of these twists and turns in research and development, we cannot verify and trace the source. But one of the factors is that, according to a number of project witnesses, "God of War" was limited by religious factors in the later stage of development, resulting in some plots not being able to unfold as originally planned.

Of course, perhaps the most difficult issue is the issue of production capacity. The first three chapters of the plot with a good reputation among players took the team more than three years, and with the gradual release of the fourth and fifth chapters, the plot has a landslide of high and low, the most obvious is that the original praised plot performance MV came to an abrupt end after the third chapter "Lady of the White Bones", and even the dubbing began to decrease.

Although the team has said several times that they will try to fill in this gap, it has actually been replaced by a lot of gameplay fills and tweaks. In the end, "After the bones, there is no Journey to the West" has become a regret for God of War players.

At the 2013 annual meeting of Quantum Studio, the "God of War" team appeared in real life and filmed a live MV of "Then Let's Do It First". One of the lyrics sings: "What have you done after five years of hard work, it's better than "Sword Spirit" for a day." ”

However, in the context of that time, "God of War" was not as good as "Sword and Soul".

Five years of research and development, the vicissitudes of life, the end game is in decline. A former Tencent employee recalled that in those days, tens of millions of dollars a year were a lot of money. But slowly in the era of mobile games, everyone found that it could be hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in revenue a day.

At an event, although Liu Dan said that Duanyou would not die, he couldn't help laughing at himself that this was a sunset industry. At that time, the Lightspeed Studio next door, working overtime for two months to make "National Aircraft War", took advantage of the east wind of WeChat to make amazing water, in comparison, "God of War" made people have mixed feelings.

Around the Spring Festival of 2014, "God of War" could not escape the dilemma of the times, began to increase the commercialization of content, and announced that it would plan to launch web games and mobile games with the same IP.

Zhao Wenyong said in his recollection, "The original intentions of Tencent's top management are good, but the failure of "God of War" is indeed a slap in the face, after experiencing the version of the city of ten thousand demons (Chapter 5) after three consecutive kneeling, it is no longer Tencent's darling, and the krypton phenomenon that everyone sees is also natural." ”

Mobile game plan

In April 2014, "God of War" launched a video column called "Love Spray Planning", allowing planners in different positions, as well as producers to appear on camera, and face the torture of users. This is also Feng Ji's most well-known out-of-the-circle video to this day.

In the video, he was slapped wildly by the player, his nose was blue and his face was swollen, and he was picked up with instant noodles and puffed on his face, full of self-deprecation. In the face of bursts of doubts, although he defended, he also looked pale and helpless.

And two months after the video was released, Feng Ji, Yang Qi and other seven core members of "God of War" left Tencent and founded Game Science. The wheel of fate finally turned again at this time.

04

cottage

Before setting up Game Science, Feng Ji already had the direction of a new project, and he planned to make a mobile game.

At that time, the only mobile game he was obsessed with was "Dota Legend", and yes, it was Wang Xinwen's phenomenal product that was a great success after he left Tencent to start his own business. In an interview with IGN China, Feng Ji said that the rise and blowout of mobile games was the biggest external driving force for him to leave Tencent.

But Yang Qi, who came out with him, didn't think so. He still can't forget about large-scale games, and believes that only products that are comparable to stand-alone games can truly bring a sense of immersion. Mobile games? So how to convey the details of the art and how to make a sense of high quality on the narrow screen.

But Feng Ji persuaded him, "Make a product first, make money, and then survive." "They decided to make a knockoff of Dota Legends.

Also persuaded were Zhao Wenyong and Jiang Baicun. They didn't leave Tencent together, but they were both summoned by Feng Ji after Game Science was established.

Jiang Baicun was previously a planner of "God of War", and now he is the main planner of "Black Myth: Wukong". He said in an interview with IGN China that the reason why he bought PS3 back then was because Feng Ji and him Amway must play "God of War", and after hearing that Feng Ji started a business, he vaguely felt that Feng Ji would come to him.

At that time, except for Feng Ji, most members of Game Science did not have a comprehensive understanding of mobile games, and in order to make mobile games, the team began to invest a lot of energy to experience and disassemble the design of "Dota Legend", for which Jiangbai Village also made tens of thousands. Soon, in just one week, they made the prototype of the new product "Hundred Generals".

At the NetEase 520 press conference in 2015, the slogan "Action Cards, End Here" was played by NetEase's "Hundred Generals" released by NetEase. After the press conference, the former "God of War" team became the biggest halo and label of this product, and everyone was curious about what sparks would be created when the former Tencent team cooperated with NetEase.

In fact, although it is a mobile game, "Hundred Generals" still has the game aesthetic of Feng Ji and other main creators. Unrestrained and imaginative.

The theme of "Hundred Generals" is adapted from "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", which is similar to "God of War". In an interview with Game Grape that year, Feng Ji said that no matter what type of game, they will definitely pay attention to the world view and not make soulless products, and in this regard, they have accumulated a lot of experience through "God of War".

He believes that in the process of adaptation, what needs to be retained is the soul of the character, that is, the relationship and character of the general, and as for the appearance and image, it can be appropriately released. ""Romance of the Three Kingdoms" itself is Luo Guanzhong's adaptation and recreation based on the aesthetics and popular elements of the Ming Dynasty, incorporating some fantasy elements in the novels of gods and monsters, which is the part that can let go of imagination."

Therefore, they didn't want to set limits for themselves, so they directly designed Guan Yu of Yi Bo Yuntian as a dragon, and made Cao Ren, who was wearing heavy armor, into a fortress robot, and even some generals even made monsters. Yang Qi later said that since this is a mobile game, he feels that it can be handled more entertaining.

But why are you always obsessed with adaptations of famous books? Feng Ji said that they have considered making original works in the future, but there are many classics in China that are very vigorous, "There is a saying that Journey to the West is China's "Lord of the Rings", and the Three Kingdoms are China's "A Song of Ice and Fire", and we have classics that can impress users." So our biggest motivation is to make the classics explode again. This is the reason why we did Journey to the West first, and then the Three Kingdoms, and we may do it again in the future. ”

Yang Qi's attitude was more direct. He once said on Weibo, "Where is our 'lack of confidence' embodied, it is precisely reflected in a series of bizarre discussions about 'what to do, what not to do, you see others doing this' and so on." If you think about it carefully, the creator needs to analyze and prove even the subject matter, what kind of inferiority complex does this have. ”

At the time, the game's stylized content was a bit of a success, and many players were drawn to the art setting. Wang Yi, CEO of Zilong Games, once commented that in the domestic game field, "God of War" and "Hundred Generals" have rarely broken through the creative threshold in terms of theme and style selection.

But despite this, "Hundred Generals" still can't escape the copycat at the gameplay level. During the testing phase, Touch.com wrote a review article of "Hundred Generals", in which the shortcomings of the product were pointed out. Later, Feng Ji found the editor, and after communication, he submitted a developer's self-report to Touch.com, explaining the design principles and trying to fight back.

However, after the official launch of "Hundred Generals", it gained 500,000 users in the first month, but it lost rapidly, and the total number of users in the whole year was only 800,000, and the product did not last long.

It is rumored that at that time, the internal rating of "Hundred Generals" in NetEase was not high, although there was all the publicity and distribution that should have been made, and Guan Yu's virtual spokesperson image was also made, but the overall budget was not much.

After a lapse of two years, Feng Ji was interviewed by Touchle.com, and he frankly admitted that "Hundred Generals" died well: because of the original sin of copycats, the product seems indeed low.

However, for a start-up team, the income of "Hundred Generals" is enough to provide nutrients for game science. The company was able to continue, so what are they going to do with the next product?

At the end of the development of "Hundred Generals", Yang Qi put forward the idea of making a stand-alone game, and there were not many people in the interior who raised clear objections, but everyone knows that the cost performance of such a project is too low, or the investment is too high, and it is difficult for a company that has just been established for two years to afford.

Yang Qi's proposal ended in failure again.

05

Make games to impress yourself

After "Hundred Generals", Game Science held a review meeting, and everyone came to the conclusion that they should not blindly cater to the market, but make what they like. It was also around the same time that Game Science opened its official website, and they introduced their product philosophy as follows: First of all, to impress themselves.

In 2016, Feng Ji took a few pieces of paper full of questions and traveled to Wuhan to meet a mod author named "Mengsk the Great".

He is the author of the map of "Desert Storm" in "StarCraft 2", and for a long time, this was Feng Ji's most obsessed self-created map. Over the course of a few hours of talking to the Great, he asked questions about the problems that Desert Storm might have, and drew inspiration from them for many optimizations, and Art of War: Red Tide was born out of this.

Desert Storm

To put it simply, although Art of War: Red Tides highlights the keyword RTS through the game's English name, it has made a lot of operational simplifications in terms of specific design, combined with the mobile experience.

It is worth mentioning that "Hundred Generals" and "The Art of War: Red Tide"

are insisting on doing CG

Players only need to arrange their troops in 12 seconds of preparation time for each turn, and then release the commander's skills according to the situation on the battlefield. The time of a single game is controlled to about 10 minutes.

Of course, this does not mean that "Art of War: Red Tide" is a simple cool game, it still retains the brain-burning strategy game, such as the variety and complexity of the troops, which requires players to have a deep understanding of values and attributes; Another example is that most of the player's actions are difficult to get instant feedback, just like playing chess, which requires delayed gratification.

However, although its gameplay is hardcore, once you get familiar with it, those who like it will be very popular.

Daniel first went to Game Science because of Wang Xinwen's recommendation, and although he was quickly impressed by Feng Ji's ability and persuaded the latter to accept the investment in Hero Games, he didn't actually understand Art of War: Red Tide. But after he went back, he unknowingly invested more than 300 hours in the game.

In 2017, when "Art of War: Red Tide" was first released on iOS, it achieved amazing results: App Store recommendations in 154 countries and regions, and 9 App Store Home recommendations; Ranked third on the free iOS game list, second only to "Honor of Kings" and "Happy Landlord ·Tencent".

At the end of the year, "Art of War: Red Tide", as the only domestic game, was selected into Apple's annual recommended game list, and became the best iPad game of the year in China. At the same time, Cook also visited Hero Games on a trip to China and got his hands on this product. It can be said that since "Art of War: Red Tide", game science has really made a sound.

At the same time, it's not just a mobile game. In fact, Art of War: Red Tide landed on Steam earlier.

As early as the first beta stage, "Art of War: Red Tide" received 87% special praise without promotion, with as many as 400,000 users, and once topped the Steam free list.

You must know that Steam still had an approval mechanism for the light of favor back then, and not all games could be put on the shelves at will, which once made Feng Ji feel unreal - it turned out that there were so many people in the world who had the same preferences as him, and this group of people was still the most difficult to please on the market at that time.

The development of PC products also gave the team a little comfort. Lan Weiyi, the director of operations of Game Science, once said that from the regret of "Hundred Generals", he can clearly perceive that everyone has a strong obsession with making game-like pictures on mobile phones, and he has heard Feng Ji say more than once that if it is done with Unreal or 3D, the product should be very different.

Sometimes, obsessions are more explicit.

Maybe it's deliberate, or maybe it's subtle, "The Art of War: Red Tide" is not related to the theme of Journey to the West, but you can still see a lot of shadows of "God of War".

For example, the base in the game is called "Lingyun", which was first set in the core setting of "God of War"; Another example is that there is a class called Lady Bones; Not to mention the design of the demon clan's troops, which is full of the flavor of the Journey to the West theme, and even after releasing the "Huaguo Mountain" skill, the troops will turn into monkeys.

Lan Weiyi recalled that at the end of the development of "Art of War: Red Tide", a sound began to reappear in the team, and everyone felt that it should be an immersive "single-player game". But to be precise, what everyone thinks can be done is more of a mobile game, but at least it may be able to "bite" like a terminal game.

Only Yang Qi couldn't hold back his restlessness. That year, he was diagnosed with pharyngitis and couldn't help but re-examine his condition. He found that he didn't seem to be overly emotionally invested in "Art of War: Red Tide", and many of the designs were purely to complete the task, and the company's slogan "only make games that impress you" didn't seem to have really been realized.

Since the beginning of "God of War", he has always said that the golden age of human creation may only be more than ten years, and it is likely to take five years to make a large-scale game, and there is no time to miss it. So, he found Feng Ji again.

As a result, Yang Qi failed for the third time, and he was persuaded by Feng Ji to make another mobile game. According to the plan, they are going to make an RPG+SLG project that can make money quickly. But it wasn't long before things took a turn for the worse.

06

Black Myth: Wukong

On the tenth day of the first month of 2018, it is advisable to start the foundation. That evening, after Feng Ji returned to Shenzhen, he held a temporary meeting of partners.

At the meeting, they chose the company's development direction in the next few years in three paths: retaining the mobile game team and dispatching a few people to prepare for the pre-research of a stand-alone action game. It's a middle way.

Each one came up with their own subject matter. What Yang Qi wanted to do most was in the era of Beiyang warlords, and he envied Jiang Wen's picture expression. "On one side is the black ship cannon, on the other side is the sword, gun and halberd, all kinds of great love and righteousness, and there are delicate and touching stories in the gaps. When the plot is monotonous, take two puffs of smoke, and with a bang, all kinds of fantasy scenes come. ”

But in the end, maybe everyone couldn't pass the level in their hearts, and in the end, it was the monkey who didn't reach Lingshan who finally reached an agreement. "Black Myth: Wukong" was established, the project code name is B1, and the full name is "Black Myth One", that is, the first product of the "Black Myth" series.

What drove Feng Ji to suddenly change his mind? Maybe even he can't tell.

In interviews with Touch and other media, Feng Ji said multiple versions of the answer. For example, it was Yang Qi's persistence that made him feel shaken. During a meal, Yang Qi said seriously, "You can always find a reason not to start this matter, but if you wait like this, you may never start...... Even the company is becoming less attractive to me. For another example, Feng Ji said that in the process of doing new projects, he couldn't stand it anymore. Of course, these reasons do not conflict.

Later, after the first exposure of "Black Myth: Wukong", Lan Weiyi recalled the project approval process. He said that when preparing data for the 2017 annual meeting, they suddenly realized that the number of Steam users in the country had surpassed United States to become the first, and China's single-player game market, like the Chinese film market in 2002, was waiting for a "Hero" to start the blockbuster era. At this time, it may no longer be a laborious and thankless thing to do a stand-alone machine.

Feng Ji also believes that there is no contradiction between doing terminal games and mobile games at the same time, and to some extent, this is a more sustainable development. Although Yang Qi said that the decision to do a single machine expanded the company's death from 99 to 100, it is undeniable that he should be the most enthusiastic in the team. After setting aside a special project area in the Shenzhen office, he moved his workstation the next day, and later designed the decoration of the new office in Hangzhou, and traveled to various parts of the country to collect style for the project.

However, after the official start of the process, a large number of problems followed.

In terms of gameplay selection, everyone had a consensus on the general direction at the beginning, to make an action game with a strong sense of enemy oppression, exquisite level structure, and mysterious style narrative, but what should the style be? Is it like Monster Hunter, or Dark Souls, or God of War?

Note that this is not a specific genre, but rather what it wants to convey to the player, for example, God of War focuses on action performance, and Dark Souls focuses on more clever level design and character development.

Maybe it was because of the experience of the first two projects, and after discussion, the team thought clearly. They gave up the idea of directly benchmarking a specific product and began to consciously differentiate themselves from those giants who came before them. Internally, they summarized one of their R&D concepts as "A Hero", which is an abbreviation for a series of keywords, such as Addictive Gameplay, which corresponds to Chinese as an excellent growth experience, rather than pure numerical growth.

They prefer to create a design language for Black Myth: Wukong, such as replacing weapon blocks with copper-headed iron arms; Instead of leaning down and touching the grass, you can become a golden cicada and a plant. For another example, instead of forcing the level structure of the soul-based game that Feng Ji is keen on, he chose the chapter-based level as the game process, so as to reflect the long journey of "Journey to the West".

Outside of the design level, technical challenges will take longer to overcome. In order to present a higher quality graphics and a coherent large map, Black Myth: Wukong was made with the UE4 engine (later UE5) at the beginning, which was a completely new field for the team, and everyone needed to start from scratch to get familiar with the features.

In the early demos, the characters' expressions were not natural enough, and the clipping occurred from time to time during the performance. Feng Ji has expressed his desire for technical art talents more than once, and he is extremely envious of the real-time animation details in The Last of Us 2 - no matter what angle the character runs to the table from and picks up a cup, it is a completely coherent and smooth character movement. However, for them, it took about two or three months to adjust such an action to be smooth and pleasing to the eye.

In the initial pre-research, they formed a team of seven or eight people and began to make the level of Huaguo Mountain, which is the vast scene of soaring all the way up from Huaguo Mountain to the clouds, and finally fighting the heavenly soldiers and generals in the clouds.

However, until the end of 2018, this pre-research level can only be regarded as made, but it is far from meeting the standard. Yang Qi felt that relying on his own experience and accumulation at that time, it was impossible to achieve a level comparable to "God of War" in any case.

So, in 2019, after the group size increased to 20 people, they decided to skip Huaguo Mountain first and make a simpler level called "Black Wind Mountain" that could convey the final quality of the game. Later, Feng Ji said in an interview with Xinhua News Agency that after being the fire knife wolf of "Black Wind Mountain", they felt that they had finally figured out a little bit of the law of doing roles.

However, the production specifications of large-scale single-player games still pose objective challenges in terms of production capacity. Yang Qi once said at an event that in the past, mobile games required 2 characters to be submitted a week, but in "Black Myth: Wukong", only 1 character can be submitted in two months, and there are more than 160 such characters.

In order to make high-quality models, Yang Qi wanted to borrow the power of outsourcing. He introduced that in "Black Myth: Wukong", the price of making a flower pot and a rockery exceeds that of a real podocarpus; It costs more than 100,000 yuan to make a large building, and you can almost build a building in a township. This shows their attention to detail. "One time we asked me to carve a window, and they said don't make it for us. As a result, I sent it over and saw that there was a chart of the Eight Immortals crossing the sea on the window. ”

Therefore, for game science, if "Black Myth: Wukong" wants to finally land, it cannot be completed by just relying on the strength of a small team of dozens of people. In 2020, in order to recruit more outstanding talents, they decided to release a real machine trailer first to attract those like-minded friends. It is also this decision that the entire Chinese game industry will look forward to on August 20 in the next four years.

07

After the bones, go back to the west

The entire trailer was edited by Feng Ji and the lines were designed. Since April 2020, every two weeks, he has called everyone into the conference room to watch the new version of the trailer. In the end, the video was frozen at 13 minutes, a physical length that few games will release at the first exposure.

After the finished film was released, Feng Ji sent it to Yang Qi, and Yang Qi replied that the best trailer for Chinese games is finally no longer the CG of "God of War". He bets that the trailer should have 3 million views. Feng Ji was a little stunned, he felt that maybe 500,000 would be good.

The results exceeded all expectations. As the final subtitles of "After the White Bones, Re-Journey to the West" lit up, Game Science and "Black Myth: Wukong" exploded: Yang Qi's Weibo received more than 100,000 retweets; Alibaba Cloud customer service called Feng Ji and said that the official website traffic had run out, and Feng Ji had recharged twice in one day; Friends at station B told them that the growth momentum of the trailer broadcast volume is even more exaggerated than the "Hou Lang" that was pushed by the resources of the whole site in the first half of the year.

Everyone should know what happened after that. On that day, all the Chinese gamers shouted that their long-held dreams had been realized by others; On the Internet, everyone celebrated with the crown and discussed whether the spring of domestic 3A games has arrived; The big factories began to follow up, and invitations for investment, issuance, and business cooperation came one after another, and even the headhunters of various companies were ready to go; More enthusiastic players went directly to the office of Game Science and visited the Holy Land.

In the face of the situation beyond expectations, Feng Ji and Yang Qi's movements did not seem to be inflated, but full of anxiety and worry.

In the afternoon of the same day, Feng Ji held an all-staff meeting, and he first affirmed the achievements of the trailer, and then suddenly came up with dozens of negative comments. He wants to cool everyone down in this way. Yang Qi asked everyone at the meeting to keep the previous day's work and not be affected by the trailer, whether it is to become lazy or hard, this is not a good thing.

In later public speeches, Feng Ji used the word luck every time he talked about the first exposure trailer. He believes that the team has reaped the dividends of technology and met the emotional needs of players at the right time.

But when it comes to game science, flattery often comes with extreme pressure. With increasing attention, a lot of lace and rhythm around "Black Myth: Wukong" and the team are flying all over the sky.

Feng Ji's historical speeches are constantly revealed, Huang Tyrant's recruitment advertisements, and offensive expressions from a male perspective...... Quite a few people have labeled him and Game Science as sexist.

Since then, the rhythm of diversity and inclusion has continued until the launch of Black Myth: Wukong, and even this has caused a lot of discussion around the world. A number of well-known overseas media have criticized game science on this topic in public manuscripts.

In addition, every once in a while, there will be voices singing about "Black Myth: Wukong". In the first year after the game was first revealed, there were rumors of battle planning and 3D art leaving, and there were comments that Game Science was experiencing infighting. Although, at the end of these topics, they all ended with the parties refuting the rumors, but from it you can feel that "Black Myth: Wukong" has become the focus of the domestic game industry.

It's even very out-of-the-loop attribute. In the online debate competition held by the Chinese Debate Network in 2023, it said, "At present, the Chinese game industry needs "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" or "Black Myth: Wukong"? As a debate topic.

From a small team in obscurity to suddenly standing in the center of the spotlight, game science should be scary.

In the following years, except for the annual 820 and the Spring Festival, they would stand up and report the progress of the project, and at other times they reduced the number of voices, and Feng Ji also set Weibo to be visible for half a year. You can feel that they are trying to control the player's expectations and prevent the game from spiraling out of control.

On the day of 820 in 2021, "Black Myth: Wukong" released a high-quality trailer for the UE5 demo, in which the control of UE5's characteristics, the physics of the snow, and the movement simulation of the Chinese dragon are all remarkable. But Feng Ji said, "Video highlights, don't be cronies." Meng Jun lowered his eyes and forged ahead. ”

Feng Ji recalled that in the year after the first exposure of the game, his sleep quality deteriorated, and then used 16 words to describe his state: trembling, walking on thin ice, not matching, and pretending to be calm.

Even after a year, he still has an unreal sense of "why so many people are paying attention" from time to time. He knows that "Black Myth: Wukong" still has many shortcomings, and even released a few bug videos on the teaser station, saying that these helpless dilemmas are the norm in daily development work.

Although full of self-deprecation, the production of "Black Myth: Wukong" should be considered a steady progress in the past few years. In 2021, Game Science accepted a 5% stake from Tencent, and Feng Ji said that he has no grudge against Tencent and that by working together, they can better master the UE5 engine. In mid-2021, they recruited a lot of technical talents, and the team size was close to 90 people. Later, they cooperated with NVIDIA to further improve the visual expression.

At the same time, game science is also pragmatic. After many understandings, Tencent's investment money was actually made at one time, but game science spent money and was still cautious, and they even cut a mobile game project with verified core gameplay, just to invest as much energy as possible in "Black Myth: Wukong".

Pragmatism pervades the R&D process. When preparing for the production of motion capture, the team once bought a data connection cable from Xianyu, bought an industrial lens from Taobao, dismantled the HTC Vive's locator, plugged in a power bank, and put together a pole, and finally used a cost of more than 10,000 yuan to achieve the effect of a professional solution of hundreds of thousands of yuan for camera positioning.

What's even more outrageous is that another machine used to shoot and scan the vegetation on the surface simply uses a 3D printer for more than 1,500 yuan to generate parts and then assemble them on its own. In an interview with Xinhua News Agency, Feng Ji said that they are trying to become a group of pragmatic idealists.

On August 20, 2022, "Black Myth: Wukong" released a real-life demonstration of a literary drama. The video was controversial, with some arguing that the difference in quality compared to the previous two years may have exposed the project's problems. Some people also think that the actual machine demonstration in the first two years is too good, and this literary drama makes people feel that the project really has the possibility of landing.

But in any case, Yang Qi said that this literary drama is something they are trying to be unfamiliar with, some themes that they were not good at nine years ago and are still not good at now.

He should be referring to "Lady Bones" in "God of War". Many years ago, Yang Qi once chased after his colleagues and complained: The theme of gods and demons should be talked about magnificently, but it turned out that he had to have some petty love, and he was not ashamed, he really didn't like the romance routine like Tanmei. But now, he feels that after the passage of time, he seems to understand whether he understands or not, and he can also figure out a thing or two.

As Yang Qi said, fate is like a chance line, madly intertwined.

When WaYne saw the first trailer of "Black Myth: Wukong", what moved him the most was not the moment when the Ruyi Golden Hoop Rod appeared, but the moment when the land lord came out of the ground. He said that in the second half of 2007, Feng Ji told him more than once that he wanted to add this section to "Looking for Immortals", and even pointed to the hairline on his head and danced like a similar action.

Similarly, in the same vein as "God of War", there is also its static movie-style publicity, but "Black Myth: Wukong" has changed from a satire of online games to a more emotional and Journey to the West theme expression.

It is worth mentioning that Guangguang, the first brand manager of "God of War", has now become the general manager of the content ecology department of Tencent Interactive Entertainment. In the 2022 Spring Festival short film "Phased Results", he played a role in friendship. Xingtong, a virtual anchor under the Content Ecology Department of Tencent Interactive Entertainment, also won thousands of copies of "Black Myth: Wukong" in the recent live broadcast and dynamics.

After more than ten years of tossing, some people and some things still seem to be there.

Last year, after the announcement of the scheduled time of "Black Myth: Wukong", Feng Ji posted a Weibo. He said that he has been living in overexposure and unworthy self-doubt for the past few years, and he is lucky to receive so much attention.

But I think he should have experienced a similar feeling a long time ago. In Feng Ji's words on Weibo, what "Black Myth: Wukong" can do this time is to face the expectations of users, which is their destiny.

08

Face the destiny of heaven and finally arrive at Lingshan

Yesterday, "Black Myth: Wukong" landed smoothly. It lived up to everyone's expectations, with 96% rave reviews, and the number of simultaneous online users on Steam exceeded 2.2 million, and the mainstream media rushed to report it...... It's safe to say that it has made a new history in China's gaming industry.

At the time of writing this article, I tried to reach out to people who had been involved with game science in the past, but mostly were rejected. Some people say that the reason why everyone avoids talking about it often has a simple desire, that is, they want to protect it, for fear that they will accidentally break it because of their own expression.

However, if you look through the circle of friends, you will find that countless gamers have already lamented that game science is the craziest dreamer. There are not only dreamers who also insist on the field of indie and stand-alone games, but also leaders in the field of commercial games, and of course, many of their old colleagues.

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Before the game was released, Daniel posted a circle of friends: "Many people have come to ask me how to vote for "Black Myth: Wukong", but I can't actually answer, because the methodology is so simple that there is nothing to say: things are done by people...... It's just the right person."

Yes, when combing through the materials of Feng Ji, Yang Qi and others, I found that many things have been planted as early as when they were young, just entering the industry or even before entering the industry: a group of young people get together just to realize the game dream in their hearts. This simple idea, even after more than ten years, has not changed.

But after more than ten years of suffering, some things have changed. In an interview with Xinhua News Agency, Feng Ji said that he was not as angry as when he wrote the article, and that many things were only understood after he experienced them personally.

Similarly, Feng Ji was not so sad. In the past, he was keen on collecting poisonous chicken soup, and liked to write his QQ signature as "Don't work hard, because once you work hard, everyone will find out that your real ability is nothing more than that".

But now he's more fond of retweeting positive content. He said that doing something with dedication and effort is not just to pursue a good result, but the act of "exerting force" itself will bring people a sense of reality and the joy of immersion.

When reviewing "God of War", Feng Ji once complained that he was not brave enough. But now, I think he and the entire game science team are the bravest people in the Chinese game industry.

I believe that after playing the game, you should have found that the seventy-two changes and abrupt cutscenes that "God of War" failed to do back then were all made up for in "Black Myth: Wukong".

If you've watched The Shepherd's Boy's Fantasy Journey, you might also believe that each of us has our own destiny, but not everyone can find it.

Like many people, game science has been confused, failed, and has done copycats and mobile games during the "God of War" period, but perhaps it is these seemingly painful and helpless experiences that have made them firm in their hearts.

The so-called destiny is not a numerology theory that is sometimes necessary in life, and cannot be forced in life at all times. It's not an unthinking desire, a fantasy that can't be landed, but something you're willing to reject all excuses, rack your brains, and exhaust your blood and tears, just to get closer to it. You always believe that destiny will be fulfilled – and if it hasn't been fulfilled, it must be that you haven't done your best.

Looking back on the development process of "Black Myth: Wukong", Feng Ji summed it up with three words: "Try it":

Try a feature that someone else did flawlessly ten years ago, but we never got the hang of.

Try to talk to everyone in the dark and excited, but the quality of the actual machine is embarrassing to the sky.

Try to use the demo in the promo video to brag about the awesome, really bad performance or quite boring gameplay.

Try everything that looks beautiful because of overconfidence or whim, investing a lot of time in trial and error, but repeatedly hitting the south wall and breaking the blood.

The black monkey may be too lucky, it has been full of challenges since its launch, and naturally there is no lack of regrets about not being able to catch it.

When I finished writing the script for my first promo, I didn't know how to make this video a playable level.

When the first level was completed that could be tested internally, I didn't know how costly it would be to turn the whole story into one like this.

Even if I already have a seemingly complete story, I still don't know what it means to make it stable, smooth, adaptable to different hardware and software platforms and more than a dozen languages, and then redistribute the physical version and CD.

I don't know, it's good.

Now that you have chosen to jump in a no-man's land, you should embrace the fear and anxiety brought about by uncertainty. Because behind the fear and anxiety, there is also the surprise of satisfying curiosity and the pleasure of recognizing oneself.

In this unknown fog, our only guide is to ask more questions of ourselves and everyone in the team.

What we are doing now is something that we understand, recognize, and love as users?

The challenges we face now, have anyone else in the world done that? Can we do it even if no one has done it?

If the above answers are yes, then of course it is worth trying.

Fortunately, they finally stepped on the bumpy road and achieved success.

This long road of learning scriptures proves to the world that as long as you are willing to embark on the westward road for what you want in your heart, subdue demons and eliminate demons, you will definitely be able to obtain the true scriptures in the end. Maybe that's what makes all gamers so moved and inspired – even if it sounds too idealistic or even naïve, we want to believe it, and we have to believe it.

When we go through the ninety-nine eighty-one difficulties, I hope we can all have the courage to face our destiny until we finally arrive at Lingshan.

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