In the financial report released by Tencent a few days ago (August 14), they focused on the excellent performance of "Burst Squad" in the overseas market, Supercell, a new work launched after 6 years, attracted $1.1 million on the first day of launch, and the number of downloads in the first week quickly exceeded 30 million, which was loved by players. According to Sensor tower statistics, the total revenue of the game has exceeded 50 million US dollars (about 360 million yuan) since its launch.

On the 19th, "Burst Squad" has just finished the first test of the national server. The fact that it did not take the version number for the first test shows that it attaches great importance to the domestic market. As a new work of Supercell, does it meet the appetite of players? What adjustments are still needed to the national server? Will it be able to meet market expectations? Let's take it one step at a time.

A new benchmark for casual battle tracks

From Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, to their last installment, Brawl Stars, Supercell has always given the impression of innovative gameplay and refined operations. Compared to 6 years ago, innovation is not an easy thing to do today, but this time "Burst Squad" has achieved its own style, combining RTS, MOBA, and strategy cards.

Tencent has positioned the game as a multiplayer real-time casual competitive game, which needs to meet the needs of players who are looking for a relaxed entertainment experience, but also need to consider the depth of the game. In the Matrix's view, Burst Squad has found a good balance.

On the casual side first, Supercell never makes it difficult for players to understand the game. First of all, "Burst Squad" continues its cartoon style that is suitable for all ages, which is very recognizable. On top of this, Supercell also features an "IP family bucket". Integrate all its IP characters into the game. Here, you can meet the royal kings and boar knights in Clash Royale; Greg and Chicken in "Cartoon Country"; "Brawl Stars' Mortis, Jesse, etc., wouldn't be wrong to interpret it as Supercell's own "All-Star Smash Bros."

The second is the extreme simplification of the operation, this time "Burst Squad" can be seen from the bottom with a little shadow of "Brawl Stars": the same fixed perspective, in the operation also uses the most basic single roulette movement + touch release skills. However, Blasts Squad doesn't need to pursue skill release accuracy like Brawl Stars, and it's no exaggeration to say that even if players play with one hand, it won't have a big impact on the operation.

Finally, there is the high sense of coolness. In a single round loop, players go through two phases: the developmental phase and the decisive phase. During the development phase, players can gradually grow their party by fighting monsters, defeating other players, or cutting down trees to collect gems and coins.

At the final "Decisive Stage", the diamond veins in the center of the map will begin to gush, attracting players to gather and compete, and the player who finally grabs the most gems will win the championship, and the top five players who survive to the end will be counted as "winning". Therefore, a game can basically be finished in 4 minutes, and the requirements for victory conditions are not too harsh.

The short and fast rhythm also amplifies the coolness of "Burst Gold Coins", when the opponent is in close contact and successfully defeats the opponent, the opponent will burst out of the "gem", if it coincides with the mine eruption, then it will be like swimming in the sea of gems, and the unique and familiar sound effects continue to come, which can only be said to be very right.

It is not difficult to see that thanks to Supercell's long-term cultivation in the casual field all year round, "Burst Squad" is natural in terms of casual design. The overall gameplay framework of the game has almost no learning threshold for players, but doing a good job of casual is not the ultimate goal of Supercll.

Let's talk about the competitive side. The game's high strategy relies on its own mineable depth, which is actually derived from the random elements in the game. For the purposes of this test, there are 4 maps, 27 characters, 26 events, 16 spells in the game. When these elements collide with each other and have a chemical reaction, the gameplay routine in the game is not simply the addition of dimensions, but multiplication. Taking the core character as an example, in the game, the character can be opened in the treasure chest, and then the three of them are combined to upgrade, and different heroes have differentiated skills. Some characters can be linked to spells, such as the Mage allowing the player to bring two spells at once; Some can interact with the terrain of the map, such as Mavis can farm and Greg can cut down trees; Others are good at "combat cool", which is very compatible with some events that often farm monsters. Under the organic combination of a variety of units, the depth of the team and the number of genres will also increase exponentially: farming flow, merchant flow, resource flow, battle gem flow, kite stealing chicken flow......In addition, in addition to the hero team, the game will also randomly farm super units, which can provide powerful combat power in the game and further raise the ceiling of game construction. At this year's ChinaJoy, Ma Shiyao, the producer of the national server distribution, made a good summary: "Players don't need to spend too much brainpower, and the flash of inspiration in the chaos may make a drastic change in the game situation." "However, the actual experience is not as pure as it seems. Since the role of the player in the game depends on the face of the dealer, it does not mean that you can go to any school you want. In most cases, the player's team is actually more mixed, and the team is more mixed, which leads to the weakening of the restraint relationship, and the size model of the characters is crowded together, it is difficult for players to assess the strength of the opponent's team, and the illusion of "I can fight back" often appears when fighting. In the end, everyone's playing style tends to be "obscene and developed". For players who are accustomed to "cool combat", they may not be able to adapt to it at the first time. So, can the 5V5 mode first introduced by the national server solve this problem?

The national uniform has released a big killer move, but it still needs to be continuously polished

In order to better adapt to the Chinese market, the national server of "Burst Squad" will be consistent with the global version, and at the same time, it will also create the first 5v5 battle mode. The 5v5 mode is still played within the Brawl gameplay framework, and the victory conditions are changed from individual to team: the team with more gems wins. The biggest difference from Brawl is that players will not be eliminated directly after their squad is wiped out, but will return to the battlefield and keep a certain percentage of gems. This undoubtedly gives players a higher margin for error and more room for the team to play. In practice, it is true that the squad building of teammates can be biased towards development, quickly accumulating gems to lay the foundation for victory, while you can choose a more combat-ready team to escort your teammates, and you don't have to worry about being eliminated due to defeat. It's a pity that the current 5V5 of the national server does not open single-player matchmaking, and players need to create a room first and invite at least one "partner" to participate in matchmaking. This mode of having to bind with friends to play does not necessarily meet the expectations of national players. However, it is also understandable that the current national server is only the first test, only showing the core gameplay, and the construction of the social system has not yet been perfected, such as "public screen chat", "guild (team)" and other functions may need to wait for subsequent updates. In addition, there is also the question of the operation and development of the game. In the current national server version, the gems collected in the "Burst Squad" can be taken out of the game and used to unlock rich rewards such as gold coins and treasure chests in the theme season. Gold can also be used to purchase backpack items, which can be used as consumables in the game. For example, refreshing dice allows players to refresh the character when opening the box in the game, the Epic Key can open a higher-quality character, and the Merge Key can directly add a "fierce general" to the player's squad....These consumables can often play a role in turning the tide of battle, and it is easy to cause a rift between civilian players and Krypton players. The good news is that the backpack key has been canceled on the international server, narrowing the gap between Kryptonians and civilian players. In addition, the refresh dice are built into the game, and players have 3 chances to replay the character in each game, which is more stable when choosing the style of play... For a game with competitive attributes, I personally think that these changes are relatively healthy, and I believe that the national server will soon follow up. All in all, Burst Squad has a pretty good foundation, creating a kaleidoscopic single-game experience through randomness, which can be enjoyed by both hardcore and casual players. At the same time, "Burst Squad" has also been pinned on Supercell's high hopes for IP expansion, and the team has also revealed that the characters of other IPs will also be introduced into "Burst Squad" to expand the influence of IP. So no matter how you look at it, "Burst Squad" has the potential to become the next casual battle game hit.

epilogue

On a previous CJ episode, Ma Shiyao once mentioned, "Casual battles are a new blue ocean, and short single games and products with short, flat and fast gameplay as the core have not appeared for a long time. In other words, this game is expected to fill the gap in the domestic casual battle category market, provide players with more diversified game choices, and bring a new casual competitive experience. So, even though it's been nearly six years since the launch of the new product, Supercell still proves that the search for innovation is the industry's eternal standard. In the future, it will be interesting to see if Exploding Squad can continue the success of Supercell games.

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