“The Rise of the Gods of the Gods” (later called “The Gods of the Gods”) announced three subsequent DLCs at the beginning of its release. Among them, the second DLC that attracts the most attention from Chinese players is the second DLC, “Sky Patching”. “Mending the Sky” is equivalent to using the gameplay of “Du Shen Ji” to create a completely independent world of ancient Chinese mythology, telling the story of “Nu Wa Mending the Sky” from a new perspective.
Invited by Ubisoft China Studio, Sina Games tried to play the beta version of “Matching Sky” in advance, and interviewed Tu Yang, the producer who led the development of “Matching Sky” DLC.
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Tu Yang joined Ubisoft Chengdu Studio as a game producer in 2018 and has more than 12 years of game development experience. This includes the development of the Switch version of “Assassin’s Creed” and the development of the Switch platform of “Super Hunting City” and “Wu Shen Ji”. This time, he is responsible for leading the development of the Chinese-themed expansion pack of “Wu Shen Ji”-Patching the Sky.
Sina Game: The most popular Chinese myths and legends in the world should actually be “Journey to the West”. However, “Wu Shen Ji” seems to want to break out of this creative mindset. How did the creative team choose this myth and legend to adapt and create?
Tu Yang: We actually discussed this topic at the beginning of the project. Whether it is “Journey to the West”, “Feng Shen Yan Yi” or even “Sou Shen Ji” these myths, we have all considered. In our opinion, as the origin of Chinese mythology, ancient mythology reflects how our ancestors and ancestors understood and portrayed the world at that time, and how they viewed their own existence and the origin of mankind. . They therefore created a series of myths to describe their awe of nature.
At the same time, in many ancient myths, it also tells how many people struggled in the face of their own destiny or natural disasters. For example, classic stories such as Dayu’s control of the water and Houyi’s shooting of the sun represent the optimistic, strong, and human-conquering thinking in the bones of our ancestors.
Although “Journey to the West” is indeed the most popular and common subject of Chinese mythology, it is actually because there are many excellent new works that make it more and more popular. Therefore, we hope that through our efforts, we can make more ancient Chinese myths well-known and let everyone (world players) know that we are not only “Journey to the West”. Now we have also seen a lot of actually excellent film and television works, including some other games, in fact, we are beginning to pay attention to some ancient Chinese myths. We also hope to increase the fire so that more Chinese myths can be spread. That’s why we chose “Nu Wa Patching the Sky”, which is also a very special story in Chinese mythology, as the theme of this “Mending the Sky”.
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Sina Games: Whether it is movie animation or games in the current mainstream market, there are not many such ancient mythological themes. Has the creative team ever worried about the acceptance of players?
Tu Yang: In the process of game development, it is actually a process of artistic creation, rather than simply saying that we make a product. On the one hand, we respond to the needs of users to develop, on the other hand, we will also have some artistic pursuits and expressions. So when we are choosing the game theme, we first consider whether the story itself is good enough, and secondly whether it can carry our content.
We will definitely consider the player’s acceptance, but our more consideration is how we do it well and how to make players like him. Because a good work, a good artistic creation, can finally resonate with players. The relatively excellent cultural output that has been done abroad has actually been continuing this process.
Like the stories we choose from ancient Chinese myths, there are actually many versions and contents. And we did a lot of screenings, and the final selected story came from the “Lun Heng·Tan Tian Pian” written by Wang Chong of the Eastern Han Dynasty. He linked the two myths of Gonggong failing Zhoushan and Nuwa patching the sky together, making the whole myth The story is fuller. The story itself has its ups and downs, the causes, consequences, and drama conflicts are also very rich. It is more suitable for telling the story, and it is also very suitable for the size of our DLC, so we chose it.
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Sina Games: The puzzle elements in the DLC have also been adapted to the theme of Chinese mythology compared to some parts of the main story. Can you introduce the ingenuity in designing the puzzle?
Tu Yang: In the production of puzzles, we must not only maintain some of the characteristics of the main game itself, such as the way of solving puzzles, and the basic mechanism, but also create a different experience for players in the DLC. Because most of the players who play DLC have played in the main game for a long time, if we still have the same set of things, the player experience will become too repetitive.
When we design new puzzles, we mainly consider two parts: the first is to find an interesting mythical story that fits the theme before the process of designing each puzzle, and then we go to refine it. Some elements inside. Finally, come find a suitable gameplay to match it. Using this kind of production logic, we have derived gameplay such as “mural puzzles” and chasing “three-legged golden crow”. Through such puzzles, our goal is to hope that while solving them, players can also learn more about the stories in ancient myths.
Another big change we made is that we put many of the puzzles in the ontology game that may only appear in the secret realm challenge into the outer main world. Because we hope that players will feel more of this combination of puzzles and game progress throughout the game. Not just to solve the mystery, go to the secret realm, and then take charge of the process of fighting outside. We hope to break such a simple loop and give players a change in the rhythm of the entire game experience.
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Sina Games: However, many players who participated in the trial said that the proportion of puzzles in DLC is very high, and the joyful impression has been reduced. Want to know how the production team will balance these two aspects in the official version?
Tu Yang: We also found some similar problems in our internal tests. In the official version, we will better balance the content ratio and experience of combat and puzzle solving. At the same time, we have improved the combat system to enhance the DLC combat experience, including some new functional improvements to the entire combo system. We also hope to give players a better combat experience. In the final version, I hope to meet the expectations of players, allowing everyone to “jump back and forth” between puzzles and actions.
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Sina Games: During the trial play, DLC’s new Chinese style soundtrack was very ear-catching and enhanced the sense of immersion during the game. Can teachers introduce our soundtrack?
Tu Yang: We actually encountered a lot of problems when we first made the soundtrack. After some discussions, we set two big goals. The first is the arrangement of the entire DLC, especially the theme song, to echo the theme song of the main game. You can feel the familiar feeling in some sections. Just listening to music can feel the connection between the two games. Then the second is that we hope that the timbre and orchestration of the music can match the background of our myth. In the choice of musical instruments, I want to highlight the “ancient sense” of music. So when communicating with the arranger team, we discussed a lot about how to reduce the use of modern instruments. And the arranger team did a great job. They used a lot of ancient Chinese traditional musical instruments to complete the task very well, which greatly improved the mythical and epic sense of DLC.
Sina Games: Ubisoft Chengdu Studio has been making visible efforts and contributions to the development of Chinese cultural games in recent years. Can the producer teacher talk about how to treat this fusion of Chinese and Western cultures in the game?
Tu Yang: As a Chinese studio under Ubisoft, our main goal is to provide Chinese players with a better 3A gaming experience. On the other hand, it is to export more content with Chinese elements to global players including Chinese users. In fact, before, everyone has seen that Chengdu Studio has participated in the Chinese version of “Fire March” such as “For Honor”, and “Crazy Rabbit Adventure Party”, which are also Chinese cultural game content we are constantly trying.
In the process of making these content, we actually found that many players will be very excited when they see Chinese element game content in 3A games. Many social platforms can see players give very positive reviews. This is a very good trend. To a certain extent, it indicates that the output of Chinese culture is getting better and better, and the cultural acceptance and confidence are getting higher and higher. Because Chinese culture itself is very profound and attractive, we are honored to participate in it and promote it to the world.
Regardless of the current Chinese mythology, there may be martial arts and other Chinese elements in the future. We hope that through our efforts, more players around the world can truly understand and fall in love with our Chinese culture. This is the ultimate The goal.
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Sina Games: Is there any last thing you want to say to the players of “Wu Shen Ji”?
Tu Yang: I am very grateful to all the players, not only for the project of “Walking the Gods”, but also for your continuous support to Ubisoft Chengdu Studio. We will definitely continue to work hard to respond to everyone’s expectations, and hope that everyone can support our “Wu Shen Ji” DLC. For us, being able to get affirmation and feedback from the majority of players means that our attempt to export content in China is correct. I hope that the DLC of Crossing the Gods can become a starting point for us to expand Chinese elements in 3A games in the future. Thank you for your comments and feedback on social platforms. Please keep looking forward to it. Maybe someday we will bring you a new surprise.
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