Original link: https://markonreview.com/2022/07/17/2022-jul-upcoming-games/
GWENT: Wandering Mage / GWENT: Rogue Mage
2022.07.07 / PC, Mobile
Polish manufacturer CD Projekt Red suddenly released this buyout single-player card game derived from the “Witcher: The Witcher Cards” series in advance at the beginning of the month. The development stage is code-named “Project Golden Nekker”, the earliest official card game. The 2022 roadmap program disclosed in “The Witcher: The Witcher Card” released at the end of last year, according to the community’s previous estimates, the release window of this work should be the end of 2022, I did not expect to meet you so early.
If you’re not familiar with the game “Gwent Cards” (either embedded or standalone), here’s a succinct introduction:
- The earliest Gwent card is built in “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt”, which is a 1V1, best-of-three card game. , to activate the spell effect, only one can be played each round, the follower card on the field is marked with the combat power value, until the two sides finish playing cards in hand or give up the following cards, the side with the higher total combat power value on the field wins the round. ;Due to the high randomness of drawing cards, the scarcity of the ability to draw more cards, and the effects of spells or followers that may instantly double or zero the combat power of the entire row, the original Gwent cards have a very high level of luck and excitement. ;
- In 2016, “The Witcher’s Gwent Card” was released, and the addictive Gwent card became an independent game. In order to stand in the “forest of the world’s trading cards” for a long time, “The Witcher’s Gwent Card” started from the earliest internal game. The layout rules have been slightly extended, and changed all the way to today’s “unrecognizable” appearance: the field has changed from three rows to two rows, the card drawing mechanism is more relaxed, the strategy interest has been greatly increased, and a large number of new cards and keywords have been expanded, but “bigger than the size” The calculations and excitement are still there (only my poor spy empire is gone with the wind ?).
Previously, CDPR had launched a single-player campaign derivative work “Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales” with a buyout system. Although this work is also the main single-player experience, but the two The difference is actually quite big. “The Fall of the King” focuses on using the card mechanism to present a story and epic, while this game focuses on using the card game itself to capture people’s hearts. The overall process of “Wandering Mage” is a Roguelike design. Players start with the initial deck, choose a forward route, defeat enemies or loot loot, strengthen old cards, collect new cards, and meet the increasingly difficult multi-week challenges; The icing on the cake, this work uses Alzur, the legendary mage mentioned in the novel “The Witcher” and the creator of “The Witcher”, as the protagonist, with the process of his research and development of “The Witcher” as the background of the story (not official history). ), which is an interesting attempt to explore the worldview.
The author hasn’t touched the Gwent card for almost a year or two, but I couldn’t help but sigh “all are back” when I first started playing it. “Wandering Mage” not only inherits the strategy of “The Witcher: Gwent Card”, the strategy is interesting, and the card face design is very interesting. Eye-catching and other advantages, it has further reduced the two wins of three games to one game to determine the outcome, sacrificing the interest of the long game, and magnifying the refreshment of the short game charge. I think this may also make this game play a certain role in “The Witcher of Quint”. The role of “card” drainage. According to other feedback from the community , as a small-scale work for players to play repeatedly for many weeks, the mid-term experience of “Wandering Mage” is the most enjoyable, and the later stage may be less interesting due to the decrease in marginal challenge increments, but I guess The development team should also be very aware of such disadvantages of this game, so the release so long in advance and without saying hello will obviously prevent the community from accumulating too high expectations for the “golden ghost”.
Lost / Stray
2022.07.19 / PS4, PS5, PC
A platform jumping puzzle game from a third-person perspective. Players need to control a stray cat living in a sci-fi cyber city to start an adventure in a futuristic urban building complex with a complex longitudinal structure, appreciate the customs, meet new and old friends, and travel through Messy scenes, all the way to try to solve the ancient puzzles buried deep under the neon.
This work comes from the French studio BlueTwelve Studio, and the core development team members have worked for Ubisoft. As early as the end of 2015, BlueTwelve began to disclose the development progress of the game on the blog . The development code at that time was called “HK”. It was produced with Unreal Engine 4. The art style, the level of the real machine’s picture and the atmosphere were quite amazing── This advantage remains to this day; in 2016, Annapurna Interactive discovered and participated in this promising work, and took on the publishing work.
BlueTwelve’s love for the two elements of “cats” and “Kowloon Walled City” eventually led to the birth of “Lost”, especially in the portrayal of the protagonist cat, the development team from Murtaugh and Riggs at the founder’s home, to the on-site office in the studio The four cats, Oscar and Jun, have absorbed a lot of creative and action elements and used them in the process of “Lost”. Even in the game, the BlueTwelve members who “love cats like their lives” did not dare to neglect their masters to work The abbreviation “B12” of the chamber name named the protagonist’s companion drone.
Dusk Hour / As Dusk Falls
2022.07.19 / Xbox (Smart Distribution), PC
A new interactive film from Interior/Night, part of Xbox Game Studios, founded and led by Caroline Marchal, lead designer on Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls, and This work is also the debut work of Interior/Night. It was first released at the Xbox Games Showcase the year before last, and finally the release window was officially finalized at the Microsoft conference last month.
This work generally gives people a feeling of “old wine in a new bottle”:
- When I first came into contact with it, the special visual style of this game was very eye-catching. Although the overall art of the game is more realistic, the character images are handled a bit like “two-dimensional vertical painting”, and the brush strokes are similar to real photos. With an illustration-style filter, the character will not move freely in the three-dimensional scene, but will be transformed by a series of key frames. Personally, it feels a little weird in novelty.
- In terms of story and mechanism, judging from the publicity information that has been disclosed, if you are familiar with the Quantic Dream works listed in the first paragraph, the following description should be familiar to you: This work focuses on the American town “Two Rock” The two families living in life started with a robbery in 1999, and various anecdotes derived from the two families involved members of the two families, and this intricate relationship network is the core content of this work. In the process, Players will frequently face various options or QTEs that may affect the direction of the story and the operation of the world. All they need to do is to choose a route according to personal preference, continue to dig into the secrets of interpersonal relationships, and try different ending possibilities.
- It may not be enough to simply have too many endings. “Twilight Hour” also tossed more mechanisms around “choice”: on the one hand, the introduction of the straight ball is very similar to “Detroit: Become Human” (Detroit: Become Human) The selection tree system, including the development track of this version of the story, what other possible divergence points, and the proportion of global players’ choices at each divergence point, etc., players can visually check the latest progress of the “butterfly effect” at any time; On the one hand, this work is also in line with the current trend, and a multi-person online voting system has been established. Up to eight players can vote on options, and the minority obeys the majority.
But in the end, I want to say that although as one of the very few first-party new titles released within the year, Microsoft has inclined a lot of traffic resources to “Twilight Hour”, but if this game is really benchmarking “Heavy Rain” and “Detroit: Change” People” and other works with prominent logical loopholes in the story, then the quality of its experience may have to be questioned.
Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels
2022.07.20 / Xbox (Smart Distribution), PC
“Forza Motorsport: Horizon 5” will usher in the first large-scale DLC “Hot Wheels”, which is also the second time that the entire “Forza Motorsport: Horizon” series has launched a DLC of the same name.
“Hot Wheels” is actually a toy car IP owned by Mattel, an American toy manufacturer. The most iconic feature of the product is its bright orange, imaginative plastic track. The last DLC brings these exciting tracks to real-world scale for the first time, allowing players to go crazy from the perspective of a toy car and experience the feeling of heaven and earth. After years of technological progress, now, “Horizon Hot Wheels Park” is shining back with the blessing of new audio-visual effects, with 10 new cars, a special track of over 200KM, a large number of new activities, and can be spliced by yourself. A large number of interesting gameplay elements such as the track have come to “Forza Motorsport: Horizon 5”, injecting new vitality into this continuous operation racing simulation game.
Time Warrior / LIVE A LIVE
2022.07.22 / NS
A classic RPG remake in the same HD-2D style of “OCTOPATH TRAVELER”, the original game was produced by Square and landed on the SFC platform in 1994. At that time, the development of this work was the fifth development division of Square, which created “FINAL FANTASY”. “Final Fantasy IV” producer Takashi Tokita served as the director and was in charge of the screenwriting. Yoko Shimomura of Street Fighter II was responsible for the soundtrack, her first job after joining Square.
“Time and Space Warrior” contains eight story lines with a huge span of time and space, from the primitive society where language communication is impossible, all the way to the distant future where intelligent robots play the leading role. After completing the seven lines from ancient times to the future, the game will be unlocked. The eighth line connecting all stories, condensing various elements spanning time and space into one place; in order to amplify this feature of this work, the development team also invited seven Shogakukan cartoonists – Kobayashi Yoshiki and Minagawa Ryoji , Ishitoji, Fujiwara Yoshihide, Aoyama Gosho, Shimamoto Kazuhiko, Tamura Yumi—created the protagonist images of each timeline separately, and the eighth line is in charge of Miyamoto Yuka from Square.
For this IP that is a household name in Japan, Square Enix did not dare to neglect the remake, and still invited Tokita Takaji as the producer, Shimomura Yoko in charge of the music renovation, and did a lot of transformation and upgrades to meet the changes of the times, such as , The designer Ikushima Naoki who participated in “Octopian Traveler” co-ordinated the creation of new illustrations, and the luxurious seiyuu lineup filled the regret that the original version did not have dubbing (including Ogata Emi, Otsuka Akio, Ishimaru Hiroya, Hashizuki Tomohisa, Guan Zhiyi, Akabane Kenji, Nakamura Yuichi, Wakamoto, etc.), of course, there are more reflections and improvements on the operating experience. In short, players who have played the original game or not have the opportunity to get fun and freshness.
Finally, the serial number of the trial version is provided, and interested friends can go to the eShop to download: D3GM33048JWB798B.
Digimon Survive / Digimon Survive
2022.07.28 / PS4, X1, NS, PC
A visual novel that has made many Digimon fans wait for years, led by the core team members of the RPG series “Digimon Story”, the story of this work will have a rather retro look. Opening: A group of children accidentally came to a different world and came into contact with all kinds of Digimon. Players will play as one of the children and explore the different aspects of this world while establishing bonds between people and between people and Digimon. .
According to the information that has been disclosed, this work focuses on the story side of the experience, with only 113 Digimon included, which is the same as that of Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth Hacker’s Memory. There is quite a gap between more than 300 games, but this game is better in the length, complexity and branch difference of the story line. Seventy percent is the text adventure content, and thirty percent is the turn-based war chess mechanism in the closed battlefield. It is said that it takes more than 80 hours. to fully experience everything. In addition, what may be more exciting for “Digimon” fans is that producer Hanyu Kazuo mentioned in an interview with game media Noisy Pixel at Anime Expo 2022 that he hopes to explore the “Digimon” IP more deeply in this work, retrospectively. “What is a Digimon” and other underlying issues, and strengthen the character resonance between the Digimon and the tamer, so that the player’s choice can profoundly affect the growth and combat performance of the Digimon Taiyi influences the evolution of a similar situation of the zombie tyrannosaurus), so the overall tone of “Desperate Survival” will be darker, and there may be more challenging feedback for the player’s route selection. Judging from how Digimon Story made me feel, I think they are capable of delivering what they promised.
Bandai Namco’s recent “Digimon” games are all models in which the internal team points the way and external developers work hard. For example, the developer of “Digimon Story” has produced “Valkyria Chronicles 4”. 4)” Media.Vision, and “Desperate Survival” chose the visual novel type and the earliest expected production scale was too small, so it first chose to cooperate with WITCHCRAFT , which has limited independent development experience, but according to Hanyu Kazuo revealed in relevant interviews, The results of this cooperation were very unsatisfactory, and eventually led to the replacement of the outer castle developer with HYDE , which had produced √Letter. A large number of completed content were overturned and reworked. Fortunately, although the game was ill-fated, the game finally It was still spit out, and it also illuminated a future for other “Digimon” games in the future.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 / Xenoblade Chronicles 3
2022.07.29 / NS
The NS-only open world ARPG masterpiece from Monolith Soft was first revealed at the Nintendo Direct meeting in February this year. It is scheduled to be released in September at the earliest, and then moved forward to the end of this month. It is still produced by the original team of the series. The final chapter of the True Sword trilogy.
“Xenoblade Chronicles 3” tells a brand new story that happened on the continent of “Ionion” after the events of the first two films. Players can feel the changes of the world through the familiar landscapes and characters, and connect their own leaps and bounds. An epic adventure in time. In terms of game mechanics, on the basis of following the tradition of the series, this work has added new elements such as role switching in battle, free job transfer, and integration, which is quite innovative and worthy of this work’s status as a masterpiece in the series.
(The picture in the text comes from the Internet)
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