Spring has arrived.
It has been a year since Studio Rewind ca to Pangyo, and roughly the sa amount of ti has been invested in the developnt of Hellic 3.
Despite seemingly having focused solely on developnt during this ti, there have been quite a few changes when you look back.
There were small things like Jo Ayoon becoming a college student, Yang Gilsang’s receding hairline retreating by about 2 cm, and Myungkyu gaining a nickna like “Collarbone asuring Device”. On a larger scale, there were milestones such as the success of Hellic 2’s console version and the completion of the demo version of Hellic 3.
During this process, there was even an incident where a mike stole my first kiss, but it was all for the sake of the ga’s quality.
In any case, the Hellic 3’s demo was completed with a quality that exceeded expectations.
And today was the day.
“It’s been a long ti since we’ve seen each other.”
“Yes, you’ve been quite busy during this ti.”
Ayado Goro, ca to visit Studio Rewind after nearly a year.
***
Ayado Goro had been in the gaming industry for over 20 years.
With that much experience, he had visited every major ga company, and when he looked at Rewind, one evaluation ca to mind.
“It’s quite universal.”
In other words, it had a more open and welcoming structure compared to a typical corporate office. It was unavoidable, really. Regardless of it being an IT company, the unique subculture sll of gaming was bound to perate when there were references for gas, the company’s products, and related rchandise like figures and posters scattered around, serving as part of the interior design.
Nothing to be concerned about.
In fact, Ayado didn’t co to tour their office in the first place.
His purpose was to inspect Hellic 3, a ga that had garnered global expectations and could potentially beco a flagship title for the PS4 in the future.
“It’s been a year already. Ti certainly flies.”
“Yes, we’ve been working non-stop, and it’s already been a year of developnt.”
“Can we have high expectations for it?”
“I don’t want to say and make it a burden… it’s not the right ti to make such statents.”
Ayado responded to Yeonho’s answer with a small smile.
“It ans he’s confident.”
What was rising was his curiosity.
Despite the fact that it was not an event that warranted his personal visit, he still ca all the way for areason.
Well, perhaps it’s because it’s a ga that has caught the attention of one Aldred Russo.
Ayado had the opportunity to play the next title from Russo, which was scheduled for release in 14 years. The ga was so extraordinary that it made one wonder if 14 years would pass quickly like a breeze.
Even though he had created such a ga, Russo said, “That guy, Cheon Yeonho is
formidable. I have a feeling. He won’t create anything diocre.”
Ayado wanted to know whether Russo’s feeling was right or wrong. That’s why he chose this visit.
“So, shall we start?”
Ayado asked, and Yeonho nodded in agreent.
Although Ayado didn’t know much about Yeonho yet, one thing that struck him was Yeonho’s casual deanour.
The two of them entered a room with a massive monitor, a computer, and a PS ga controller. They had already received docunts regarding the developnt progress and the ga’s concept. Today, Ayado’s task was to play the actual ga in the director’s seat.
Ayado asked, “I rember the playti was around 4 to 6 hours.”
“Yes, that’s the usual playti.”
“The usual?”
Ayado’s eyes glead.
Yeonho replied with his characteristic nonchalant expression, “I don’t like gas that force you into one way.”
“Is that so?”
Given that Hellic 1 and 2 seed to have followed a fairly consistent narrative direction, Ayado was slightly puzzled.
Yeonho explained, “It’s a matter of money. Always.”
Could it be understood as taking a different approach to AAA gas?
A smile crossed Ayado’s lips. “That’s good. My playstyle is quite unconventional.”
“I hope you can find it.”
“The hidden route?”
“Sub-routes or shortcuts. That’s about it.”
“Hmm…”
Would the final product truly reflect his confidence? Ayado had already received written material related to the ga, but having been in the ga industry for 20 years, he knew that you couldn’t understand a completed ga from docunts alone. He understood that all the elents in the design were rely components to get closer to the ultimate goal of “fun.”
To put it in food terms, no matter how many fun ingredients you mix, whether it’s a combination of ran and mint chocolate or tsuyu (soy sauce) and tamago (egg), you won’t know until you try it. Ayado intended to examine this closely.
He wanted to understand what elents this ga chose to achieve comrcial success, what it excluded, what it emphasized, and what systems it had in place. He also wanted to understand how the balance of each elent was adjusted to maintain the ga’s equilibrium.
“If even one thing is off…”
The ga won’t sell.
“Custors don’t tolerate imperfections in the product,”
The sa applied to what Yeonho called hidden routes or shortcuts.
If it disrupted the gaplay, Aya would boldly request their removal.
He subtly hinted at this fact.
“I believe I didn’t co here just for a simple demonstration.”
“An evaluation, indeed. I’ve heard quite a bit about stories related to the director.”
“You’re talking about ?”
“Rumors have been circulating. They say you overturned a nearly finished ga.”
Ayado concealed his surprise and chuckled softly.
“That’s an old story.”
In his younger days, he was more energetic.
During the early days of Sony,he was more vigorous and had his fair share of conflicts.
The gas he got involved with now held a significant position as flagship titles for Sony.
Though he currently managed them as the head of the business departnt, Ayado was originally involved in developnt.
Especially when dealing with it from a business perspective.
“In that case, I won’t hold back.”
It would be more comfortable if he knew.
Ayado suddenly felt a sense of longing and picked up the pad.
It had been about seven years.
Back when he was active in the field, Ayado Goro was a na that resonated among developers in the industry.
“Please don’t mind my blunt language. I tend to have difficulty choosing words when my blood starts boiling.”
Ayado Goro the language assassin.
He was transported back to the past for a mont.
It took him about ten minutes.
Tick-tock!
For Ayado to operate the pad absentmindedly.
***
I quietly stepped outside when the conversation ceased.
Inside the booth, Ayado was playing a ga, and the key mbers of Rewind crowded around as I stepped outside.
First to ask with greater sensitivity to evaluations than anyone else was Han Seorim.
“Sunbae, is everything okay?I’m a bit anxious…”
“What’s wrong?”
“Look at that director; his expression is too blank.”
“Isn’t he usually like that? When playing gas, everyone has blank faces. You’re no different…”
“Quiet.”
“…”
Suddenly, Han Seorim tried to bite her fingernails, but I stopped her.
But there was chaos from another direction this ti.
“Ah, if you go in there by mistake, there might be a bug…”
Myungkyu was trembling nervously.
Indeed, the demo version of Hellic 3 was an unfinished product with bugs popping up here and there. If there were any gaplay variables, problems would start leaking from there.
But that wasn’t a significant issue to consider.
“It’s not the custor, so don’t worry. Besides, the ga is still three months away from public release, so bugs won’t be a major factor for scoring.”
Ayado’s main focus for this evaluation was the ga’s marketability, assuming that the ga ran smoothly. In other words, he was wassessing how fun the ga was and how well it would sell.
From that perspective, Ayado’s reaction was sowhat positive.
The prologue chapter, demonstrating each character’s weapons and cinematic scenes right now, was combining the characters into a single body, wielding various weapons in the air, clearly showing an interest in the ga system.
The reason for his confidence was one thing.
It was an email from Ruso that had arrived a while ago.
“One of the famous rumours about that guy is that he threw away a ga the developnt team had been working on for two years, calling it garbage in just ten minutes. I hope sothing like that doesn’t happen to you.”
It was a decisive mont that led to investigating Ayado Goro.
“The language assassin, Ayado Goro…”
I didn’t know who gave him that na, but it was quite eerie.
That person was now absorbed in the ga on the other side of the booth.
At least, it seed that he hadn’t received a 10-minute trash ga judgnt, right?
It was at that mont.
“Yeonho, Yeonho! Director, Exchange parts tab!”
“Joan of Arc!”
It was a noisy duo.
They spoke to but hit Myunggyu’s arm.
Myunggyu’s arm trembled.
Ignoring that spectacle, I looked at Ayado Goro.
For the first ti, he stopped playing.
What he was looking at was the part exchange tab.
Suddenly, my heart started beating.
“Is the system confusing?”
Such a thought ca to mind.
It wasn’t that it wasn’t clear; it was just that Ayado, who had been playing smoothly so far, had been staring at that tab for over two minutes and had it opened. It wasn’t just looking; his brows were furrowed.
That mont.
The ga comprehension of the creator and the consur was naturally different.
He had paid attention to it, but since the parts exchange system was being introduced for the first ti in the Hellic series, it might be unfamiliar.
“Is it a mistake?” He thought with suspicion.
Click.
Ayado moved his hand.
At that mont, Jo Ayoon said, “Oh, it’s a transgender…”
Silence hung in the air.
Click, click.
A smile was playing on Ayado’s lips as he tapped the pad.
Furthermore, the character he was controlling had Joan of Arc’s body and Napoleon’s head (double chin) and the furry arms and legs of a barbarian.
A thought passed through my mind.
“It’s good. My playing style is quite unusual.”
Could it be?
***
Ayado did not forget the purpose.
This is not leisure but work, and playing the ga is for evaluation.
As such, for the first round of play, a basic playstyle without tricks was chosen.
In other words, most common way to approach this ga.
For example, it was like this.
I didn’t skip the cinematics.
If there were a main road and a side road in front of , I took the main road, and I hunted monsters head-on.
While playing like that, there was an assessnt made.
“It’s intuitive.”
The system, story, and gaplay were quite intuitive.
The brief cinematic at the beginning of the ga showed the characteristics of the four pilgrims, and the tutorial battles afterward hamred their characteristics, gaplay chanics, and how to use each weapon into the player’s body in the form of combat.
In other words, it didn’t require a forced understanding of the ga’s systems.
It continued like that.
Combining four characters into one body was achieved through quickslot-style stance switching.
Information about their goals and backgrounds was conveyed through voice subtitles rather than cinematic sequences.
“They minimized the ti allocated to the narrative. They lted it into the gaplay.”
All these elents were integrated into the “play.”
At this point, Ayado realized one thing.
The idea of combining four individuals into one body was, in fact, an explanation of the world through natural dialogue insertion.
Explanations through item tooltips and in-ga objects were seamlessly connected.
This was what Russo had praised.
“Very skilful.”
Cheon Yeonho, at a young age, was an unusually calculated and skilful creator.
Sowhere within that, an obsession with perfection that could be felt as almost pathological was present.
From the perspective of a player who didn’t analyse the elents, this would lead to imrsion.
However, Ayado’s admiration was short-lived as he began looting Joan of Arc’s corpse.
It was at that mont.
Ayado beca a gar, not an evaluator.
“…It’s big.”
It was too explicit to say what was big, so he just said it was big.
And with that, sothing ca to mind.
It was a past favourite comic character.
“Hey, life isn’t supposed to be that easy, you know.”
“So, wouldn’t that make it more fun?”
What is strength?
Not bowing to any worldly values and following your own path is what makes one strong.
In that sense, that comic character was a perfect match for what Ayado thought of as a “really strong character.”
Ayado also had romance.
His young romanticism was directed at a pair of neutral characters.
It was about fragrance, and he had forgotten to move the pad because of the emotions.
It didn’t take long.
Ayado quickly regained his reason and checked the options for the parts.
“Where…”
『The Body of Joan of Arc
The chosen heart of God burns with faith and justice.
Special Trait: Gains faith.
Faith: Converts attacks into magic damage.』
The mont he saw it, the build was naturally created.
“Napoleon’s head was a critical hit adjustnt.”
Among the things he had obtained earlier, Napoleon’s head was a part that adjusted the critical hit probability for each weapon. By combining it with this body, he could go in the direction of “long-range magic shooting” when using a gun. In Ayado’s view, it was an imdiate efficient choice.
He imdiately ran with that build, holding a gun.
He didn’t bother to change the appearance of the parts.
Ayado liked this state, so he didn’t need to change it.
That was the mont he left the swamp of Chapter 1.
BGM started.
A low orchestra with a sticky kiss sound setting the beat.
Ayado felt a chill down his spine.
What was drawn next was the background.
Under a dark blue sky, blue candles shone.
The ground was covered with skulls, and tombstones sparsely protruded above them.
“Hehehe…”
Laughter could be heard.
What was revealed was the enchanting silhouette of brides guarded by skeleton soldiers.
They shone their pale skin and danced alone quietly on top of the tomb where darkness had descended.
It was that mont.
“Wow!”
Ayado admired sothing outside the ga system for the first ti.
It was as if he had co to the streets of the old tis.
The bride were eductive woman, and the kiss sounds mixed with the BGM were their seduction.
And with laughter mixed in, Ayado felt a shiver.
What stimulated him was his imagination.
“If I had those legs, arms, and torso…”
Wouldn’t Napoleon’s double chin stand out even more?
I want to defeat monsters.
In other words, Ayado’s interest in customization was boiling.
That’s when it happened.
“Brother!”
Ayado Goro (53 years old, married for 21 years).
He felt the presence of his dormant doppelgänger within him all along.
It was a reunion after 10 years.
/RomanceMTL
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