With monthly overseas income exceeding 10 million U.S. dollars, Lilith’s “World War II SLG” once again refreshed the experience limit?

Recent articles

[GameLook special manuscript, please indicate the source for reprinting]

GameLook reports/Talking about the overseas category that domestic game companies are best at, I believe many people will blurt out: SLG.

It is undeniable that in the wave of going out to sea, SLG may be the field that domestic manufacturers try the most. According to statistics, domestic SLG has always firmly occupied 76% of the global market share of this category with absolute strength. Among the many big companies going overseas, there is one game company that cannot be ignored, and that is Lilith.

In November last year, Lilith launched a new SLG “Warpath” in overseas markets. In March of this year, this game was also officially launched on the iOS platform. Now this product has become more and more courageous in the overseas market. Stand firm and enter the stage of flowing water.

According to the latest data from SensorTower, Lilith’s war-themed SLG mobile game “Warpath” attracted more than $10 million in April, and its revenue increased by 62% from the previous month. Driven by the game, Lilith’s revenue increased by 18% month-on-month that month, returning to the top 3 of China’s mobile game publisher revenue list and ranking 8th in the global publisher revenue list.

As another masterpiece of Lilith in the SLG category, “Medal of War” is obviously different from previous games in terms of art style and gameplay. So what is the difference between “Medal of War”? How did you break through in the European and American markets?

The masterpiece, the advanced work of Lilith SLG

In fact, the success of “Medal of War” is also standing on the shoulders of giants, but this giant is Lilith herself.

Before that, Lilith had launched two SLG big hits, “Sword and Homeland” and “Awakening of Nations”, and Lilith’s exploration of differentiation at the SLG gameplay level can be seen in each of the works. For example, “The Awakening of Nations” is essentially the COK Like mode at the level of gameplay, but it introduces a lot of MMO elements and has strong PVP attributes. The differentiated experience makes the game quickly break through the market and become the white of many SLG manufacturers. moonlight.

The “Medal of War” can be said to be Lilith’s advancement in the SLG category. In the core SLG basic gameplay, many of the advantages of “The Awakening of Nations” have been mixed, and even in the eyes of some foreign media, “War of War” Many elements from “Sword and Expedition” are also incorporated into the Medal. For example, in the eyes of foreign media, the source of inspiration for the development of weapons and units in the game to some extent is actually RPG products.

Source: Russian media

Of course, the biggest advancement of “Medal of War” is the completion of the content that was not realized in “The Awakening of Nations”, RTS elements and one of the core micro-operations in this category.

At the macro level, the game inherits many of the features of “Awakening of Nations” and is still a COK Like mode SLG. The game has a huge map, and it can be seamless from the microscopic view of the city-state details to the macroscopic view of the entire map. Smooth switching.

At the same time, exploring and collecting resource points in the map, or attacking and plundering enemy materials to build your own city is still one of the core gameplay. But the biggest difference lies in the combat level. The operation logic and method of the game are more biased towards RTS games. Each player has up to 5 combat units available for deployment. Players need to operate these combat units individually or at the same time. There are more than 100 types of arms and vehicles to choose from in the game, and different combat units also have different characteristics and have a certain restraint relationship.

On the one hand, RTS games actually belong to the same strategy category as SLG in terms of major categories, and there are certain similarities between the two themselves. The integration of RTS into them will not cause abrupt gameplay, but can also bring players a certain amount of freshness. sense.

On the other hand, through innovation at the level of combat gameplay, to a certain extent, it can make up for the shortcomings of “strength value”. The design of multi-arms, restraint chain and terrain allows players to have more options in strategy, and through competition Micro-operations can also achieve the situation of “win the strong with the weak”, even small R and medium R players can compete with big R players, and the fault tolerance rate of the game has been improved.

Create a console-level gaming experience and break the core circle with a sense of substitution

If you compare Lilith’s other games, the game “Medal of War” seems to be less gregarious.

Generally speaking, most of Lilith’s games adopt a bright cartoon style to reach more user groups, but “Medal of War” is different, chooses a more hardcore realistic art style, and is dominated by dark, cold and cold colors. , The reason is also very easy to understand. The game sets the world view during World War II and highly restores some historical prototypes. You can even find some real historical figures in the game, such as Eisenhower, Churchill, etc.

Of course, “Medal of War” is more about building a convincing worldview through some historical elements. The enemy the player will fight against is not the Axis in the historical prototype, but the virtual opponent “Black Crow Legion”. Players need Play as an allied commander and fight against the brutal rule of the Black Crow Army through war, diplomacy, construction, and research technology.

World War II can be said to be a common theme in the game industry. For example, the “Call of Duty” series, “Allied Expendables”, “World of Tanks”, “World of Warships”, etc. are all popular classics, and these games have basically shaped The basic image of the World War II theme game.

However, it can be clearly found that most of the above are mostly PC and console games. Relatively speaking, there are very few World War II games on the mobile platform. Obviously, the core players of World War II games are more military fans, and they have a certain degree of research on the authenticity of history, weapons, and equipment, which undoubtedly increases the difficulty of game design.

At the same time, for the products of the SLG category, the strategy is gameplay throughout, which makes the core experience of SLG not as simple and direct as FPS games such as “Call of Duty”, and it is difficult to attract users widely. The expansion of the inherent military core circle to pan-user groups has become the biggest difficulty.

In the European and American markets, SLG is a very mainstream category, and SLG with the theme of World War II is not very common in the mobile game market. If it can overcome the disadvantages of the player circle, this will be a blue ocean market with great potential.

Although FPS and SLG have little in common in gameplay, they are similar in terms of world view construction. Because of this, Lilith’s goal is very clear, that is, to create a 3A game experience comparable to that of the console and bring high-quality games to players. , By enhancing the sense of substitution of the world view and creating an immersive experience to enhance the stickiness of players.

Different from ordinary SLG products, “Medal of War” is interspersed with a large number of high-quality cutscenes and plots, enriching the world view background of the game, and placing the core of the game on the experience, rather than just the growth of strategy and value. Through the audio-visual effects to impact the player’s sensory experience, the player will be brought into the chaotic world of war.

In addition, Lilith not only impacts the player’s sensory experience in the game, but when “Medal of War” was officially launched on the iOS platform, Lilith released a brand promotion film “Showdown” globally, including in China.

In the short 5-minute video, no matter in terms of graphics, music, montage and mirroring, it did not lose any professional film. Because of this high-quality brand promotion film, the game quickly broke the circle, which caused global netizens’ comments. Follow and discuss.

Up to now, this video has more than 55 million views on YouTube. It is worth mentioning that although the game has not been launched in China, this video still received enthusiastic response in the country, leading to discussion and forwarding by many players.

After this set of combination punches, the game has already gained a good volume in the early stage of operation. If you compare it, you can find that this set of models actually has some similarities with domestic two-dimensional products, building a grand world view, a complete story line, and PV will be launched before the game goes online to warm up the game.

It can be seen that fine-quality products are not only the main theme of the domestic theme, but also apply to the global game market. Through the demand for the quality of the game, “Medal of War” also successfully brought players a strong sense of substitution through themes, pictures, story plots, etc., thus breaking through the barriers of the user circle, and successfully outputting the game to pan-users. In the group, it also brings a brand new gaming experience to the core players of SLG.

Create a new global route and develop products specifically for overseas markets

As mentioned above, the theme of World War II is very common in the game industry, especially in the FPS category. However, it is cold in the SLG, not only in the European and American markets, but also in the domestic mobile game market. The last mobile game with the theme of World War II that got the version number may have to be traced back to 2017.

As the largest war in human history, many legendary stories were indeed born during World War II, which are high-quality materials and blueprints for creation. But at the same time, because it involves a large number of historical prototypes and even political patterns, many detailed settings are very complicated. Whether it is research and development or obtaining a version number for subsequent review, the workload of modifying the game will be very large.

In theory, Lilith’s “Medal of War” can basically be said to be developed specifically for overseas markets. Because of the complexity of the subject matter, it will inevitably have a long way for this game to enter the domestic market. .

However, in overseas markets, this product is expected to maintain stable operations. Although this should not be done intentionally by Lilith, because globalization is the most important part of Lilith’s strategy, and almost every product will be released overseas. But unintentionally, it has indeed brought new ideas to the industry. Domestic game companies can also develop games specifically for overseas markets, thereby breaking through the restrictions on themes and gameplay.

In fact, this model is already more common in the console and PC markets, especially in the SLG field. For example, “Total War: Three Kingdoms” was not actually developed by the Chinese. In addition, many game companies that specialize in going abroad also do the same, such as FunPlus Zombie. The theme of SLG “State of Survival”, the Youta gang theme of “Ji Dao Fengyun” and so on.

At a time when the competition in the domestic game industry is becoming more and more competitive, by digging out different themes and categories, we can find new blue ocean markets in overseas markets, avoiding the tip of the tip, and at the same time digging out the value of the product. As “Medal of War” begins to increase its volume, perhaps this game can continue to bring surprises to the industry, and it has also become a highlight of Lilith’s overseas transcript.

This Article is curated from Source and we only provide the English version of the Story.

Leave a Reply