Two days ago, with a pilot PV trailer released today, "Ark of Tomorrow: The End" was released today, and finally released a CG and a real machine at 11:00 a.m., indicating that the first 3D work of IP is really coming.
（CG）
(Real Machine)
With the pilot PV as a reference, the response of players is not difficult to predict. The B station video collection is less than half a day and the playback volume is approaching 2 million, the exclamation words on the full screen can be described as a wave of praise, and the number of official account fans and game reservations have also risen by more than 200,000.
After watching these two videos, my biggest feeling is that even without the appeal of IP, it can also stir up a lot of splashes in the player group. At the same time, in this game, I can also see eagle horns take a solid step forward in many aspects.
01
An aesthetic that lives up to expectations
Eagle Horn's art has always been very eye-catching, this time "Ark of Tomorrow: The End" due to the inheritance of the IP world view, the whole is still based on functional wind, but the specific effect is different. From the videos and pictures, we can clearly feel that the new work has a stronger heavy industry and science fiction attributes.
This is actually not difficult to understand, from the CG, we can see that the people of this era have moved to outer space, and players will come to the planet called Tower Ueira to explore and explore.
The "protocol core" parachuted from space and the industrial systems deployed by teleportation, heavy trucks, cables, pipelines, large booms, and strange buildings composed of spherical mirrors, triangular steel plates, and iron towers all emphasize the degree of industrial and technological development in this world.
To be honest, I still underestimated the pattern of Eagle Horn before, and while I was still speculating about whether the story of the new game would happen in the distant past or future of Terra, Ark of Tomorrow: The End of the Earth set its sights on the stars overhead, directly opening the era of interstellar pioneering.
In this setting, some designs are also more technological. For example, the UI that appears in the real machine adopts an immersive design with a sense of substitution, and the entire UI is integrated into the holographic interface projected by the character's left wrist device, the conventional functional entrance is arranged on both sides, and the circular area in the middle is the abstracted map.
This design can effectively reduce the sense of fragmentation caused by UI interference, so that players can get a better sense of substitution, but there are not many games that actually achieve this design, so it is a highlight worth mentioning in my opinion.
However, strictly speaking, "Ark of Tomorrow: The End" can only be defined as light science fiction, after all, it has been clear that the worldview is inherited from the IP itself. The known Terra is a world where science fiction and fantasy blend together, with characters featuring fantasy races such as beast ears or horns; the source stone resources that drive the development of the world do not strictly adhere to the laws of physics...
On the whole, "Ark of Tomorrow: The End" adds some new seasoning elements to the familiar cuisine of the player by changing the stage of the story, so that the artistic expression of the work will have a certain differentiation at the same time, but will not cause subversion to their existing cognition, resulting in a sense of separation in IP.
02
More mature 3D effects
Eagle Horn's aesthetic need not worry, as for the 3D effect, although "Ark of Tomorrow: The End" is the first attempt by IP to fully 3D, but fortunately the technology in this area has been tried. With the accumulation of the previous "From Stardust", the 3D effect presented by this real machine has indeed matured a lot.
In terms of character modeling, this work still adopts the PBR+NPR hybrid rendering style, and pursues the realism of the look and feel while retaining the two-dimensional painting style. It's worth noting that the movements of the characters in the video are improved compared to From Stardust, and whether they are running or climbing, they are obviously more natural and smooth.
In addition to the characters, the key to the entire real-life display actually falls on the scene, which is also one of the contents that can reflect Eagle Horn's progress in 3D technology.
Due to its experimental nature, the overall style of eagle corner test water 3D's first work is more capable and unified, so it is slightly flattering in terms of scene construction. But this time, their overall control of the complex and realistic scene is still worth affirming. In the real-life video, the Gobi desert explored by the characters is not only very rich in the elements that make up the scene, the terrain changes significantly, and the performance of materials, light and shadow effects is also closer to reality.
In addition, although the battle process was not demonstrated this time, the word "instant" was mentioned in the official introduction, which in my opinion is also a manifestation of the improvement of technology.
All in all, we can still feel Eagle Horn's determination to catch up in 3D from its third game. Improving the power of 3D technology is also a very necessary thing for manufacturers who want to maintain continuous competitiveness on the secondary track.
In recent years, the two-dimensional track, in addition to the art of rolling up in the sky, 3D is also a major trend, with a certain scale of the team, whether it is a veteran who has been groping on this track for a long time, or a new entrant, have set their sights on the 3D field. In the future two-dimensional track frontal battlefield competition, the level of 3D technology of each company is definitely one of the key elements of the competition.
In fact, Eagle Point realized the importance of 3D at the beginning of its establishment. According to their previous sharing at the Unity online technical conference, "Ark of Tomorrow" finally adopted the expression of character 2D + scene 3D due to various conditions in the early days of the team, and did not give up 3D, because they clearly had to pave the way for future contact with 3D.
Nowadays, with the accumulation of two 3D products, Eagle Horn is slowly eliminating one of its shortcomings.
03
Accelerate your move towards globalization
In addition to the breakthrough in research and development strength, the simultaneous landing of overseas official accounts and domestic accounts has also attracted my attention, which shows that the project has clearly defined the general direction of globalization at the beginning.
In my opinion, this positioning is completely reasonable. First of all, we all know that the IP of "Ark of Tomorrow" has long stepped out of the country, entered many markets around the world, has a certain influence in Japan and South Korea, Southeast Asia, and even Europe and the United States, and has accumulated a considerable number of users, who are potential players of new works, and it is worth entering the game as soon as possible to establish contact and lay a good foundation for the game.
Secondly, affected by the current domestic traffic, policies and other general environments, based on the need to find new growth points and respond to the call for "going out", overseas markets are becoming more and more concerned by manufacturers. In the future, to measure the competitive strength of a game company, globalization ability must be an important criterion.
Eagle Point also seems to realize the importance of accelerating the global layout.
From the most intuitive data, the pilot PV released on the 16th has exceeded 300,000 overseas cumulative playback, and the cumulative playback of the two videos released today is no less than 350,000, indicating that in the global publicity of this piece, we can look forward to the future development of Eagle Horn.
From research and development to global publicity, no matter what the future market performance of Ark of Tomorrow: The End can reach, for Eagle Point, it will be a milestone to commemorate its own stage of development.
04
epilogue
Finally, from the player's point of view, I believe that many people have been looking forward to seeing the 3D "Ark of Tomorrow", and now "Tomorrow's Ark: The End" can be regarded as a response to this expectation.
However, from the real play on this game, I am afraid it will take a while, because in addition to the video emphasis on "in the early stage of development", careful players also found that the official website just announced when there was no content, the recruitment channel in the upper right corner has been opened, today the official also attached a recruitment link when announcing the content, it seems that the project has just started, but it can also show eagle horn's desire for talents and the determination to make this work a boutique.
But in any case, the content of these two video demonstrations is enough to convince players to continue to wait.
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