Author|Ringing
Recently, a two-dimensional game called "Walking with the New Moon" has attracted a lot of attention through a paid test. At present, the number of reservations on the official website alone has exceeded 180W, and the number of reservations on TapTap has reached 87W. The biggest highlight of the game is its game theme, New Weird Tales.
Coincidentally, NetEase has invested a team of 300 people and nearly 1 billion resources in "Seven Days World", which will also be open beta in China on July 10, and the success of this new weird game in the Steam New Product Festival also confirms the huge potential of the new weird theme to go overseas.
Looking back, in the past two years, there have been more and more second games with the theme of new strange stories, such as "Infinite Lost", "Echo of Vision", "Chronological Aftersound" and other games have also adopted this theme. Regardless of whether the game is online or not, it is already familiar to players who are interested in the genre. "Back to the Future: 1999" is even more talked about in the occult, and finally made more than 100 million turnover in May.
Isn't the new weird game track no longer niche?
Why are second-game manufacturers eyeing new weird talks?
The rules of the previous fire were to explain a familiar and absurd world through words that seemed rational and clear, breaking people's cognition of the environment they were familiar with. The contradictions and unknowns in isolation can often awaken the most primitive fears of human beings. Since things that look like people and non-humans can bring about the uncanny valley effect, then of course, in a scene similar to real life, such as the rules and weirdos, can also create the uncanny valley atmosphere.
There is also the indescribable Cthulhu horror, or this type of pseudo-non-fiction, which aims to immerse the reader in the horror of its own experience. And if you want readers to enter this world, a game that requires players to operate by hand is obviously a suitable carrier.
And as the player's appreciation level and horror threshold increase, the horror elements in the game gradually tend to be more advanced than the superficial scare points like Jumpscare. Set against the backdrop of a modern city, the new weird tale evokes a sense of unease and abnormality in an obscure way, which can be said to be the core of creating a terrifying atmosphere. The most obvious thing to see is that in recent years, two games with the theme of new strange stories have emerged.
For the second game, a differentiated plot is crucial in the game. If you want to make a new weird story theme with your own characteristics, it seems to be a feasible way to directly pull the online authors whose works have been verified by the market into the production of the game plot. The main writer of the plot of "Walking with the New Moon" is the well-known online writer Bai Bohuan, and his representative works include novels such as "Strategic Angel" and "Heavenly Game", and "Strategic Angel" happens to be an urban supernatural novel. On the other hand, it is more necessary for copywriting planning and authors to cooperate and show the plot in the form of a game.
For players, the development of the second game has so far, many themes have basically been eaten, such as the traditional "black and deep" plot, various anthropomorphic mothers, etc., it is not easy to play differentiation. So, how do you come up with something that players are curious about and love again?
How about an adrenaline-pumping horror genre? First, the label "horror" may cause the range of users to be narrowed, and there are many core players who do not play horror games. Second, the degree of horror is not easy to grasp, too shallow to eat tasteless, and too heavy due to well-known reasons, may not be easy to put on the shelves.
As a result, in the past two years, the theme of "New Strange Stories", which can bring deeper fears and even fun, has been selected by many second tours. It can be said that this theme is not chosen because the second game is the most suitable for telling new strange stories, but the theme selection of the second game needs more breakthroughs.
However, there are not a few new strange second tours that have reached the phenomenal level recently, perhaps because they are not "new" enough, or they are not "weird" enough.
If I had to bring one out, "Back to the Future: 1999" might be able to raise the banner in a broad sense.
The "rainstorm" that peels off and dissolves the whole world, the new old era, the occultist who is not eroded by the "rainstorm...... These settings have attracted a large number of players. Relying on a genre that can be used to unlimited imagination, there is no doubt that there will always be a special character like Lucy that will make players shine.
"Back to the Future: 1999" was able to win more than 100 million turnover in May one year after its launch, which is not only related to Deep Blue's persuasion, but also reflects the importance of game theme selection.
There are many more possibilities for the genre of new weird games
In fact, from a horizontal point of view, not only have there been more secondary games with new weird themes, but some other types of games have also focused on new weird stories. Survival games also have unique advantages because of the particularity of their game backgrounds. NetEase just got the version number of "Seven Days World" in May, which shows us more possibilities for new weird themes in the game.
Recently, "Seven Days World" successfully reached the top of the Steam Next Product Festival, standing out from all the new games participating in the test around the world, and achieved a good result of cliff first. As an open-world survival game, it's set in a supernatural apocalypse.
In terms of the choice of themes, "Seven Days World" has significant differences from many games that are also in the apocalyptic survival construction genre. For example, "The Day After Tomorrow", which is also a post-apocalyptic wasteland-themed film produced by NetEase, the monsters in the game are mainly infected. And this time, with the blessing of the new strange theme, "Seven Days World" expands the richness of doomsday monsters again.
These monsters are the enemies that the player will have to face - aberrations, which often come from the animals and plants that are common in daily life, and even everyday objects. A bus with muscles and limbs, a briefcase with a big tongue sticking out a humanoid monster, and a big hand that can be seen faintly in the distance......
The image of the distorted monster "Radar Head" in the game is very reminiscent of the siren head in urban legends, which is quite an urban weird story.
Of course, human distortion is also inevitable in a world that is out of control, and it seems to be easily reminiscent of Dead by Daylight.
Their distorted images form a strong contrast with their old appearances, and they have changed from the most neglected existence in life to a terrifying monster that makes people go crazy. The monsters derived from these common things in modern life bring a more realistic sense of supernatural feeling.
SCP Foundation logo
Speaking of these aberrant monsters, many people think of the SCP Foundation's containment, which aims to contain anomalous phenomena, events, individuals, etc., from all over the world, in order to protect the human world.
It's like an inexhaustible treasure trove of materials for countless games that draw inspiration from it, and "Brain Lobes" and "Control" are both based on this concept, and they have received a lot of praise in the market.
SCP-173 appears as a classic containment object for the Foundation, appearing in many horror games. Its body is made of steel and concrete, and it is also a fairly modern monster figure.
In Seven Days World, players can also contain anomalies at home. Keeping these familiar and unfamiliar beings around may sound like a risky decision, but the containment of special devices can bring a lot of convenience to the player's post-apocalyptic survival. It can be used to assist in manufacturing, providing potions, recipes, and combat-type containments to fight alongside players.
However, the effects of containing these anomalies can be said to be buffs, which weakens a lot of the terrifying atmosphere. If these anomalous containments are buffed with some side effects, they seem to be more palatable, and more strategies can be derived.
It can be seen that using new strange stories as a game theme can not only attract players' attention in terms of plot narrative, but also have a lot of gameplay content that can be discovered.
After the new weird talk, there are new new weird things
The Backrooms was born much later than the SCP Foundation, originating from a 2019 4chan forum with a hallway covered in yellow wallpaper. Later, with the continuous improvement of online collective creation, there have been more and more games related to the Backrooms in recent years.
At present, there are 310 games related to The Backrooms on Steam alone. So much so that it seems that there is an urgent need for new urban weird talk. And the most important thing to talk about is "new".
"8 Exits" is produced by Japanese indie game developer KOTAKE CREATE and released on Steam in November last year. This game is an atypical horror game, in which there are fewer jumpscare, and the protagonist is more like a subway urban weirdo.
The player needs to make their way through the No. 8 subway exit passage in a constant loop, and if they observe an anomaly, they need to return. There are all kinds of abnormalities in the seemingly familiar subway station, such as the crooked lights on the top of the head, the power distribution room door with the handle in the middle, etc., but all the unreasonable things are matched with the extremely real subway scene, which makes people's backs break out in a cold sweat. The player has to concentrate on finding them, and the source of fear is loneliness and the unknown.
Because of its game characteristics with a very live broadcast effect, it has gained great popularity around the world through the spread of anchors. "8 Exits" has received rave reviews on Steam for nearly a month, which is a step up from the previous word-of-mouth, and has not been affected by a large number of imitators who have heard about it later. And in May, the sequel "8 Platforms" was also launched, which continued to beat many borrowers and received special praise.
One of the more interesting references is Hospital 666, which uses a hospital as a game setting.
From the introduction of the game, you can feel the strong atmosphere of strange talk.
There is one of the levels, and after careful searching, I am sure that there is no abnormality in the level, and I can safely go to the next level. Passing by an NPC who was supposed to be the same as himself, he suddenly found that his height was not as tall as his thighs. The NPC is still motionless, but the player has long since fled. Like this, there are countless cases that go from a long breath of relief to a cold sweat before you know it.
A common feature of these games with a new overseas weird atmosphere is that they reduce the accumulation of a large amount of materials, especially in walking simulator games like "8 Exits". While saving development costs, it can also quickly catch popular gameplay and new weird trends.
"Localized" revitalization
epilogue
There may not be a clear definition of what is new about the "new" of new strange stories, but there will always be a steady stream of "new new strange stories" being born.
The game is a medium that allows players to experience the world of new strange stories more immersively, and in turn, games also need the blessing of the theme of new strange stories. Whether it's a second game that has gone ahead, an attempt at a survival building game, or a walking simulator game with a more intuitive representation of weird stories, it can be seen from their performances that there are more game types that can give full play to the imagination of the new weird story. As a domestic game theme, New Strange Talk may have once belonged to a niche, but its future development is not niche.
It is foreseeable that more domestic new weird games will continue to expand the game market of this theme, and phenomenal masterpieces may already be on the way. And as the concept of new weirdness moves to more fields, there will undoubtedly be more sparks.