Video Game Tycoon in Tokyo-Chapter 898: A Torturous Game

"The president has set the difficulty of this game so high. The previous games didn't feel this challenging. Will a game like this be popular?"

On the floor of the city development department, the core members of the development team were holding a seminar on the development of Sekiro.

It had been almost half a year since Takayuki gave them the game mechanics and world-building concept for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and during that time, they had built most of the game's rough framework.

However, the game's framework itself wasn't the problem.

The size of Sekiro was moderate, but the game's mechanics and other aspects of quality were top-notch.

It was a game that focused on gameplay and storyline, while being light on technology.

For the Tenth Development Department, which had always focused heavily on technical gameplay development, this was actually a relatively easy task.

They had previously worked on WarioWare, Ring Fit Adventure, Gamestar's motion-based sports games, and other projects.

They had touched on various gameplay technologies and were considered the experimental department within the company.

They were progressing smoothly with Sekiro's development.

However, after completing the framework, they encountered a more practical issue with the game.

This game... is quite difficult.

The protagonist is a samurai or ninja from ancient Japan, whose story is to find and protect his young lord.

During this journey, the protagonist must keep hunting enemies, and every time he performs what Takayuki described as "sitting Buddha" (a meditation action), all the enemies and monsters respawn, and the player must go to the next "sitting Buddha" spot to pass through the stage.

Simply put, this game doesn't have rigidly fixed levels. Instead, it uses a relatively free-form "sitting Buddha" method for progression.

This was a rather novel gameplay mechanic.

At least in this world, there was no game that used this "souls-like" mechanic yet.

Recently, there were some games trying to emulate Dead Cells and other Metroidvania-style games, but they were still quite different from Sekiro.

And the thing that made Sekiro fascinating, Takayuki had clearly pointed it out, was that it allowed players to grow through death.

That's right, it's not about the character's growth in the game.

The character's growth in the game is very limited, and leveling up only provides a very small boost to abilities.

When facing many powerful enemies, this growth merely increases the margin for error; it does not solve the fundamental weakness of the character.

To be honest, everyone in the Tenth Development Department had a hard time understanding what made this game enjoyable for players.

It seemed like a game designed to torment players.

Look at how Monster Hunter is evolving toward a more lightweight and streamlined direction. The overall difficulty of the game is even lowering.

Monster Hunter: World further reduced the difficulty, and as a result, its sales skyrocketed compared to previous versions, becoming the best-selling game in the Monster Hunter series.

But Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice? It raised the game difficulty to a whole new level.

They couldn't understand it.

The development team really couldn't understand it.

Faced with the questioning from the core team members, Kawahara Rinto actually resonated with them.

"Letting players' growth be a highlight? But wouldn't this just make players give up on the game early on? If players give up early, how can it become a rewarding experience later?"

Kawahara Rinto looked at their puzzled expressions and said, "These are the core gameplay ideas proposed by the president. I know you have many doubts, but the president has said that once the game's half-finished version is made, we will understand what makes this game fun."

"Well, honestly, I actually find the president's idea of adding more fragmented narrative in the game quite interesting. By exploring the world, players can piece together a rough picture of the game's world. For someone like me, who loves collecting things, it's like a godsend."

"Oh, and I also really like the president's idea of having a deep map design. Although it's driving our map designers crazy, I find this deep map structure really appealing."

"You don't have to say that! Just talking about the map design is driving me crazy!"

The team member in charge of the overall map design looked pained.

If there was one thing that Sekiro tortured people with, it was probably these two aspects.

One was Takayuki's exaggerated requirements for the sound and actions when swords collided, which nearly drove the motion capture team crazy.

The other was the map design team.

The whole map of Sekiro was designed like a nesting-doll structure.

This was a brand-new type of map design they had never encountered before.

Actually, this kind of map design is quite common in Metroidvania-style games.

It's simply that the areas players walk through early on can later be revisited after obtaining key items or unlocking certain mechanisms, allowing players to re-explore these areas.

Just the first small section of the game's path already hides several key plot events that the player must go through later.

This means that from the very beginning, the game's map design is deeply intertwined with the story.

In Metroidvania games, due to the 2D side-scrolling perspective, this map depth design isn't too complicated.

But when such map depth design is applied to 3D games, the difficulty of the map design increases geometrically.

No wonder the map designers were going crazy.

Takayuki had provided the overall world-building and gameplay design, but when it came to the details of the game's map, he couldn't remember everything clearly, so he had to let a dedicated design team create a new large map.

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They needed to balance the game's gameplay with the gradual, immersive process of exploring the game world.

"Sorry to bring up your painful spot, but I think if you can make breakthroughs in map design, this game's map will definitely surprise people. Perhaps this is one of the aspects that will make the game so appealing?"

After receiving some comfort, the map design team lead felt a bit better.

But his frustration with the map design wasn't completely gone.

At this moment, Kawahara Rinto asked, "Alright, I'll gather the difficulties and issues you raised and review them. Now let's summarize the progress of the game development."