Text/Isaac

More than a year has passed since the first exposure, and the "unprecedented big project" in Linlang Sky was officially launched yesterday (September 26).

A year ago, I said that it was unprecedented, and I lamented that this group of people had finally launched their first global, high-specification cross-end product.

And when it was actually launched a year later, "Operation Delta" presented a situation that when Linlang Tiantian took out all his research and development skills and hard work in the field of shooting for more than ten years, then the game itself was an extraordinary existence.

It's not just about quality specifications. In the larger context of strategic decision-making, Operation Delta is even more special – it touches on many previously uncharted areas and makes many less typical choices.

After its launch yesterday, Operation Delta quickly topped the AppStore free list. On various platforms, game-related content is also taking the plunge. For example, the topic of #Delta Global FPS All-Star Game# won the top 1 on the Douyin overall list, and more than 65 million people watched it at the same time; The game was launched and other topics, and won the top 1 of the highest overall list in Kuaishou, and the hot search of station B, Weibo, and Zhihu hot list...... There are also a lot of them, so I won't repeat them here.

The picture above is the Douyin hot list, Kuaishou hot list, and Weibo hot search

It is worth mentioning that Douyin also attaches great importance to "Delta Action" this time, and specially customizes an activity page tab of "Delta Action" for it on the PC side of Douyin and the Home of selected apps. Players click on the strategy station, where they can view various teaching cheats, assessment analysis, and live challenges...... The content is so much and complete. Judging from such a resource, it also shows the influence of a high-quality masterpiece.

01

"Operation Delta".

"Self-pulling"

First of all, unlike most games on the market, Operation Delta is a product that highlights a sense of "self-pulling" from various angles. This is not the norm for a game that has been in operation for a long time.

The most obvious first point is their strict requirements for the content of the gameplay: as an F2P, it is necessary to do both Beacon Zone and full-scale battlefield - these two different long-term operation + multiplayer battle gameplay, and to launch a campaign mode in the future, but also across the console, PC and mobile three ends.

The difficulty and cost of this are too high, because the operating logic and game experience on different ends are very different. Leo (Yao Yuan, general manager of TiMi J3 Studio) said that even the team often jokes, feeling that from the perspective of industrial efficiency, "Operation Delta" seems to be developing 6 gameplay methods at the same time.

The key is not that there are many of them, but that they are both numerous and difficult. On a cross-terminal basis, "Operation Delta" did not start with the most common and hot gameplay in the shooting category, but challenged the two most complex gameplay methods of search and evacuation and large-scale immersion in the battlefield from the beginning. Not to mention that they have also designed an operator system, how to better integrate it with different models is a new topic that has never been seen before.

These complexities lead to the second point of development, which is that they are both creative and scientistic. These two points sound contradictory at first glance - they both talk about creation as an emotional thing, how can it be scientific? Leo's explanation is that if managers can't use scientific means to make decisions about content creators' creative intentions and self-expression, R&D will often get out of control.

The path they "pulled" out was to let go of some hands and feet in some art and world view expressions, and try to do what they wanted. Leo also said that in this part of the process, try to lead the way, because expressions cannot be verified by data.

However, many decisions at the design level need to be verified by data feedback, because "data does not deceive". Shadow (the producer of "Operation Delta") also said that whether it is doing a matching algorithm, game delivery, or considering whether to go on an activity or some new experience, they will pull a lot of data, "From day 10 to day 11, we will save a point, and we will think about which path it fell on and why players don't like it."

This leads to a third question: do you trust the data, but do you listen to the players? Again, their answer is to listen to the player and stick to themselves. Truth be told, due to the complexity of the design and the divergence of decisions, Operation Delta was not without a lot of suggestions from players during the beta period. Underneath these voices, if you don't find the right direction and stick to it, you can get stuck in endless tugging and make more and more mistakes.

Leo feels that many long-term games are operated from the perspective of purely serving users due to the influence of Internet thinking—for example, when a questionnaire is made, the user votes what he likes the most, and the project team does what he does. Nowadays, player feedback is definitely still important, but since it is a creative product, it is necessary to have a creative mindset and self-perseverance.

Sift through these three levels, and you'll understand how rebellious Operation Delta is. After all, a team that dares to be so "greedy" and can really make things out is really rare in the world.

02

Do the hardest shots,

But "born to be rebellious"?

From the perspective of the industry of product decision-making, Operation Delta is even more rebellious.

On the one hand, it is the matter of "seizing opportunities". Previously, the success of many large manufacturers in the game industry was inseparable from the core of "seizing opportunities", from the beginning of using a side-attack strategy to capture several gameplay categories, and then the track system + strategic reversal.

Historically, the track system has been a very normal choice. Leo said that big factories used to have a plan similar to a "strategic map" to screen out some popular tracks. But they increasingly feel that there are some limitations in the track system - "the team may choose the track first and then the IP, but the two may not be matched, and the results may not be useful".

Therefore, "Operation Delta" is neither grasping any obvious hot opportunities, nor is it doing joint research backed by big IPs, or radically doing original IP. In addition to all the more conventional options, they took a special path - buying out the IP and movie rights first, and then doing what they wanted to do.

So what do they want to do? Shadow said that their most direct feeling at that time was that they were "tired" of the conventional shooting gameplay on the market, but under the IP of Delta, there are actually many things that can be "reversed". That's why they jumped out of the most popular tactical competitions, demolitions, and team competitions, and did search and withdrawal, gun change, big battlefield, operators, and mandel bricks...... The integration and innovation of these multi-play methods.

On the other hand, there is the matter of "tonality". In the early days of the industry, the pursuit of tonality was a very luxurious thing, and it was enough for most teams to do a good job of gameplay driving and overall framework - this is not a high or low, it is purely a natural trend under the development of the times.

But in recent years, the industry has also changed a lot. In addition to the basic gameplay drive, many teams are increasingly emphasizing the filling of content and keywords that highlight product features, such as action shooting not only to do a good job of rules, but also to pay more attention to characteristics such as immersion and freedom.

When it comes to the project "Delta Action", Linlang Tianshang will also emphasize some pursuit of personal expression and tonality. Just like when you defeat the hotel boss in the game, you can search for music boxes, music scores, and discover the background of his love for music, each map boss has a matching setting and fragmented narrative content. This kind of detail, which doesn't necessarily go unnoticed in high-intensity PVP, is actually an important part of the game.

As mentioned earlier, there are different choices in different eras, and this may be a natural choice in the present. After all, as a game that wants to compete with global blockbusters in one of the world's most volatile categories, "Operation Delta" may have only two paths: either make extreme quality enough to kill the top titles on the market, or achieve "Best & Unique" - first-class quality and unique tonality.

"Operation Delta" hopes to be the best in China and unique in the world. In terms of quality, Leo thinks that "let's do a good job of Mr. 85 first, and strive to be the best in the second gear"; In terms of tonality, he believes that games that do not have their own unique tonality are difficult to kill in the current market, so "if the tonality is not unique, simply don't do it".

03

"Operation Delta" groped for the answer

After understanding this, the question arises: why is "Operation Delta" so rebellious and self-pulling?

From the point of view of Linlang Heaven, what they are asking for is a breakthrough. It is necessary not to be insatiable, nor to make a platform-based product as soon as it comes up, but to be based on more than ten years of research and development accumulation, aiming at the current most opportunity to do deep and expanding gameplay, with the highest specifications and repeated verification, to try to raise the upper limit of the entire shooting gameplay.

From a longer-term R&D perspective, this is a process of exploring from traditional conservatism to innovation and breakthrough. Because large factories want to balance industrialization efficiency and innovation, sometimes what is lacking may be "I prefer to be reluctant". It's a difficult process, and if there's an overdone part of the road, you may have to turn back. But in the end, they have to find a balance between repeated pulls and find a new solution for research and development.

And in this balanced control, "Operation Delta" already has a lot of practical experience.

For example, in the decision-making of gameplay design, small questions such as "should the slide be used as a general-purpose skill" also need to be balanced. In CODM, the sliding shovel is for everyone, so why did Operation Delta make it a separate operator skill?

Shadow's explanation is that there has been a lot of debate within the team, but the specific scenarios of Operation Delta are different from CODM, and if you abuse the shovel, there will be some differences between the high and low hands, which will also make the operation more complicated. And their original intention is to create "popular high-burning moments", and they don't want these moments to be only provided to high-tech toys to play with the new.

So when the data feedback was fine, they persisted in their decisions under pressure and controversy, and felt that they had done the right thing to "have their own great Confucianism to defend me", and later some players did stand up and seriously discuss the approach of "Operation Delta".

Of course, insisting on decision-making does not mean a bad attitude, and judging from the test results of this year, their service attitude has actually achieved a level beyond the norm. Shadow said that their control of bugs is measured in hours, and when they are found, they are directly hot, and the demand is even more than 200 a day. After the end of the twin tests, they made a special long picture report, adjusted more than 20 angles of problems in response to the feedback, and fixed 12,800 problems......

It is in this kind of self-pulling that Linlang Heaven may gradually find a new solution. As the first shooter game of this kind to be combined, Operation Delta may even create a blueprint for the next generation of products when this attempt hits.

04

How important is this to Linlang Heaven?

From these perspectives, "Operation Delta" has a lot more far-reaching significance than a product with a conventional layout.

For example, on the premise that it is neither backed by super IP nor chartered marketing, "Operation Delta" still uses quality and high-intensity communication to pile up enough potential energy in the time from testing to launch. Before its launch, it had more than 50 million appointments on the whole platform, and its popularity overseas was also high; After its launch, it quickly rose to the first place in the overall free list of the AppStore, which is enough to explain some problems.

This may mean that Linlang Tianshang has verified a new solution in research and development, and instead of betting on the next explosive new gameplay, it can rely on its own understanding and solid iteration to have a greater possibility to achieve more like FromSoftware - from "Demon's Souls", "Dark Souls", "Wolves", step by step to "Elden Ring".

Of course, this does not mean that they will give up on taking the opportunity and become evergreen. It's just that in the past, most teams could only take into account the latter two in "works, products, and products". But now, some of their project thinking and strategic choices have changed, and they will try to make works more and more first, and less and less set the formula of big IP + popular tracks, and will also require some personal expression and tonality of works.

Perhaps many people still feel that it is difficult for the industry to change dramatically. But I think a lot of the changes are subtle. 20 years ago, this group of Linlang people changed the industry; In 20 years, the industry has changed them; Twenty years later, they have changed the industry and shocked the world in a new way.

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