Text/Nine Lotus Treasure Lantern & Thomas's Skull

If there is only one new game in the domestic mobile game market this year, it must be Dungeons & Warriors: Origins (DNF mobile game). Since its launch in May, the product has not only never fallen out of the top 10 of the App Store's best-selling game list, but has even firmly occupied the top 3 most of the time.

In line with the grand occasion of the "DNF" mobile game, the "DNF" side of the mobile game also recently announced that it will update the level 115 version next year, redo the equipment system, and the main plot line will also return to the battle against the apostle "Diregi".

Tencent is obviously satisfied with the current state of DNF's two products. But equally happy is Neople, the South Korean developer behind the "DNF" mobile game.

The subsidiary of the South Korean giant Nexon is also a bit magical. Their most important asset over the years is the IP of DNF. You say they're not capable? The success of DNF and DNF mobile games is there; But you say they're strong? In the eyes of many people, they only have DNF for so many years.

At this year's Gamescom in Germany and G-STAR in South Korea, DNF IP-derived single-player action game "Kazan" and 3D online game "Project: Overkill" were unveiled one after another. And last week, they also traveled to China to participate in the DNF carnival held at Sea World Art in Shenzhen, and brought a demo of Kazan.

Is it worth doing this for DNF IP? Can they really do a good job? In a small tea room next to Sea World Art Center, we chatted for nearly two hours with Kang Dae-hyun, CEO of Nexon Korea, and Yoon Myung-jin, CEO of Neople. These two managers who came out of the grassroots level of the "DNF" project said that even if it takes 10 years or more, they will make this IP.

"In terms of business prospects, DNF may still have 10 to 20 times more room for development than it is now." Kang Dae-hyun thinks so.

On the left is Kang Daxian, and on the right is Yin Mingzhen

01

Why do they dare to make such judgments?

First of all, of course, is the current results. Needless to say, DNF has been a long-lasting game, and DNF has exceeded their expectations in the Chinese market, with Jiang Daxian even saying that it can be considered one of the most successful products in the company's history.

Although the step is not a big step, in any case, the mobile game can still be regarded as the first step in the outward development of this IP. From another point of view, this IP has just begun, and it can reach today's results, so DNF is facing a vast space for development, and I don't know how many gold mines there are.

Second, they have found the core value of DNF IP. In their opinion, DNF has been emphasizing the word "action" for a long time. There are a lot of good things about this game, but all of them are based on the action of the game, which is why players have loved this game for a long time.

Therefore, they want to bring "action" to every IP work. For example, the "DNF" mobile game, and the new stand-alone work "Kazan". Yoon Myung-jin believes that when facing other competitors, this will be an advantage that "Kazan" can be proud to come up with.

This conclusion was also reached after they experienced setbacks. Kazan was produced by the previous Project BBQ team, who wanted to develop a cross-platform, open-world game, but found it out of reach. At the last moment, they had to think, what would it be if only one could be kept, so many things they wanted? In the end, the answer points to action.

So they decided to put aside the open world and cross-platform they wanted to try for a while, and focus on an action-focused console game.

And for a longer line and a broader IP field, they are also ready to plan. In the future, they plan to form a platform for IP-based games to retain and flow with each other, and they also plan to develop additional services such as multimedia content.

"Through this path, we can let players feel the charm of DNF in a variety of forms, and let these players who share the same love of DNF enjoy the game and multimedia cycle."

Jiang Daxian said that he didn't expect Baby Xuxu's popularity to be so high

02

"Kazan" and the non-anxious Neople

And how is "Kazan" actually performing? We also had a trial of the game at the venue.

"Kazan" tells the story of an important eponymous character in the DNF worldview, who is closely related to the origin of the ghost swordsman and berserker in the main work. In the main work, Berserker is also known as Kazan Syndrome, and he becomes a mad ghost when he has a nervous breakdown. And what "Kazan" wants to tell is the experience of this ghost.

As Yin Mingzhen himself said, at first glance, "Kazan" is indeed a bit like a souls game. It has basic elements such as box garden exploration, equipment collection and cultivation, skill points that drop when you die, and difficult boss battles.

But after a long-term experience, you will find that it still has its own relatively unique temperament.

First of all, the graphics, the game uses a cartoon rendering style that is somewhat similar to the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse series, but with a relatively more realistic level.

In terms of combat details, the main reason why the game looks like Souls-based is actually that it tends to embody a sense of blows back and forth.

For example, in the levels experienced so far, it is clearly more recommended that the player defend against enemy attacks rather than roll. For example, a deer boss "Volbayno" provided in the demo is like a blacksmith. In the process of fighting it, as long as the player masters its attack rhythm and defends in time, he can enjoy the refreshing feeling of striking iron.

In the demo version of the game, we can experience 3 bosses and a number of elite monsters, although their design patterns are different, but the overall difficulty control is more reasonable - compared to the kind of monsters that make people completely confused and unwilling to challenge at all, the bosses in "Kazan" often give people the feeling that "the eyes can see it, but the hands just can't keep up", which makes people more willing to challenge and learn again and again through practice.

And in the middle and late stages of the game, it is also more different from the Souls-based game, showing more characteristics that DNF players are more familiar with:

In terms of skills, the game will provide 6 key slots, and players can freely choose skills, so as to achieve a combination of knives, more flashy combos, or higher damage output.

In terms of weapons, although the demo has not yet been opened, it is clear that the game currently has 3 weapon genres to choose from: Greatsword, Spear, and Knife Axe, which not only have different experiences, but also have their own skill trees and growth lines.

What's more, the game will have a base-like design, and players can return to the city at any time to carry out various enhancements. At the same time, the game also encourages players to farm equipment and develop numerical and mechanical skills to a certain extent.

"In fact, what Kazan wants to embody is the initial action pleasure of DNF's terminal game." Yoon Myung-jin explained.

After experiencing this game, I thought about it and found that some of the actions of Neople may be of reference significance to Chinese game companies:

After witnessing the success of Black Myth: Wukong, some teams are hesitating, should they also set up a single-player game? For companies with successful old products, it is so difficult to open up new markets, is the IP in their hands worth expanding? And a group of second-game players are now breaking their heads in action gameplay, but is this the favorite direction of the user group?

Neople seems less anxious, and the consensus between Kang Dae-hyun and Yoon Myung-jin is that since the market is changing so fast, it is better to lead the way than to go with the trend. The reason why they are stuck with action gameplay is not because the action gameplay is popular, but because they are good at it. Being good at enabling them to see more open markets can lead to change and shape the success of DNF.

So, to what extent do you have to be able to lead the market? How can we find what the team is good at? Here's what the conversation has been edited:

03

What makes DNF successful?

Q: What do you think of the results of DNF mobile games in China?

Jiang Daxian: The results of the mobile game have definitely exceeded expectations, and it has become one of the most successful products in the company's history.

I think this mobile game did a good job in the early stage, coupled with Tencent's operation, as well as the IP popularity and user base that we have accumulated for a long time, these are the reasons for the success of this product. This product has also improved the awareness of DNF IP to a certain extent, and we have reached some users with IP feelings.

Of course, there is still a lot to do, in addition to the in-game operation, but also the carnival like this preparation, which we co-organized with mobile games, in order to make the IP of DNF more recognized, and more such activities will be prepared in the future.

Question: Do you have any regrets about DNF mobile games?

Yin Mingzhen: We definitely want to do our best with Tencent, we have been working together for a long time, and in fact, there are a lot of tacit understandings. Our expectation for this mobile game is that its quality must not be inferior to that of the mobile game.

It's hard to get the action fun on mobile, and there's a lot to consider. For example, we have adjusted at least 40 versions of the player's combat operation and interaction, and have been overturning and redoing it, and invested a lot of manpower and resources to polish it. So far, these parts have done well, but more work needs to be done in the future.

We still have some deficiencies or regrets, such as some fatigue when players experience it for a long time, or insufficient content experience, these places are indeed a relatively negative experience for players, and we are also communicating and optimizing to try not to make this game feel like completing homework.

The overall direction is to reduce the number of things that look like "clocking in" as much as possible, while increasing the amount of content that brings variety and fun. Including the recently prepared version has also implemented a lot of small optimizations, we will try to eliminate things that make players feel uncomfortable later, hoping that our game can become an evergreen, the best mobile game in the field of action.

Question: DNF will launch the 115-level version in early 2025, and the mobile game national server just reached the 65-level version last month, what is your future version plan? Will there be a stronger difference between mobile games?

Yin Mingzhen: The current mobile game may look more like the initial mobile game, but in the future, the difference between the two will become more and more obvious. We're considering adding new and original content to the mobile game, and we'll also have some unique storylines.

We hope that mobile games can provide players with a different operation and action experience from PC games, not only for those who have not played PC games to experience fun, but also for players who have played PC games in the past. These two products will be in different directions of development in the future.

Question: Are you worried about mobile games competing with each other to seize the market?

Yin Mingzhen: There are overlapping users for terminal games and mobile games, but there are not many of them. On the whole, players who like to operate are more concentrated in terminal games, while players who like to play games anytime and anywhere are more concentrated in mobile games.

In fact, even if the users overlap, it doesn't matter much, because we think more from the overall market, and what we want to pursue is to provide players with more diverse products under DNF IP.

Q: What do you think is the most attractive aspect of DNF?

Yin Mingzhen: I started as a producer for the PC game from the "Antun" version, and then I went through several changes to the mobile game, and then I came back to be in charge of the PC game. I think DNF has been emphasizing the word "action" for a long time. This game has a lot of advantages, such as the coolness of farming equipment and level up, and an excellent story, but all of them are based on excellent action.

That's why players have loved the game for a long time, so we're mainly for the players. We do a lot of testing to polish the fun of the game, and adjust it based on the player experience, not just do what you want as a developer.

DNF starts out as a very difficult action game, with a lot of emphasis on operation, and with long-term operation, the game will have a certain amount of numerical expansion, but we don't want it to become a lawn mowing game without challenging fun.

At the moment, our overall direction is that if there is a new way to play, it will be as challenging as possible when it first comes up, and then in the process of increasing the player's stats, the dungeon will become relatively simple, so that the player will be more willing to replay. I also found that Chinese players have a group culture, and the big guy will bring newbies to play dungeons together, and we will also fully consider these fun points.

In summary, the fun value of action itself is important, but the most important thing is the player experience.

Question: I heard that Mr. Yin has always been a DNF fanatic, what is it about this game that fascinates you?

Yin Mingzhen: I prefer to understand a monster mechanic in depth and use the different actions of various characters to attack these monsters.

At the beginning, I cultivated all classes, up to 40 characters, but when the number of characters increased to 60, the time and energy were a bit out of time. But I still consider DNF to be my spiritual home.

04

The last thing DNF can give up

Question: What is the background of Kazan based on the project? Is there a story in it?

Yin Mingzhen: This development team used to work on "Project BBQ", and now they are working on "Kazan". I'm a producer myself, and I'm responsible for envisioning the big picture and letting the development team implement it.

When I was doing BBQ before, I wanted to make it a cross-platform open world product, and it also included experimenting with art styles based on 3D and cartoon rendering. There were a lot of technical challenges, and we went through a lot of new development processes.

Project BBQ

But in the follow-up R&D process, we refocused on what are the most important core values that cannot be given up as a new DNF product? The final result is action.

This requires some trade-offs in other areas. Because of the network environment and various technical issues, I don't think there are any online games on the market that are 100% perfect in terms of action judgment and experience. The same is true for the "DNF" terminal game, as an MMORPG, in fact, there are still many technical constraints that cannot perfectly reflect some action elements.

So we decided to put aside the elements of online games, open world, and cross-platform that we wanted to try for the time being, and focus on making a console game that focuses on action, which is "Kazan".

Question: What are the difficulties in developing a stand-alone game compared to developing an online game?

Yin Mingzhen: Actually, making an online game is more like making a feature-length TV series. TV dramas will listen to the audience's feedback during the narrative process, and may adjust the plot for this purpose, and the same is true for online games, we will listen more to the voices of players, see what they like, and then make some adjustments and efforts.

Whereas a single-player game is more like making a movie. The ending has already been decided, so the most important thing to make a single-player game is completion, and you need to think of a very complete narrative when you first make this game.

Question: What are the core strengths of Kazan against its competitors?

Yin Mingzhen: I think it's action. Because at first glance, you may think that "Kazan" is a souls game like "Black Souls", but in fact, it wants to reflect the initial action pleasure of DNF.

If you just think about making a 3D action game difficult, there are many different ways, such as making the attack gap very unstable, and the player doesn't know when the boss will attack.

But we didn't completely adopt this method, but let the player quickly understand all the actions and mechanics of the boss, just look at the front swing to know what it is going to do, how to dodge yourself, but even then it is still difficult to beat the boss. That's the experience we want to achieve.

From this point of view, the current "Kazan" has achieved a very good level. Players who are not familiar with action games can overcome difficulties by constantly challenging and improving their proficiency; Players who are familiar with action games will be able to enjoy the thrill of battle. This is the core fun of Kazan, and it is also what makes it different from other products.

Question: Will the return risk of stand-alone products be higher?

Yin Mingzhen: That's true.

As a company, it's certainly impossible to say that we don't expect revenue at all, and if Kazan has a good revenue performance, that's certainly the best outcome. However, at present, we believe that the DNF IP can attract more players, which is the more important value.

As long as there are more players who have never played DNF before, who are interested in learning more about DNF IP and its worldview, and then try some other different DNF products, we think we have achieved our goal.

Question: Now that you can see more and more action games in various regional markets, how do you position Kazan in the action game category? And how do you see the company's investment in developing this category?

Yin Mingzhen: There are a lot of high-quality action games in China, such as Jeopardy Zero, Singing Tide, and Black Myth: Wukong, and I will experience them myself. There are some games that think more about the characteristics of the device platform itself than the action, and these strategic directions are very correct, and we have considered them before.

But the direction pursued by "Kazan" is different, and the core we want to reflect the most is the action itself. We are more invested in the depth and quality of action, and we also want to do the best action when we choose terminal games and console platforms.

There is no distinction between good and bad choices, just that we have different priorities when choosing a strategic direction. For Neople, mobility is where we stand and where we want to grow.

Question: If you had a score of 10, how would you rate Kazan?

Yin Mingzhen: In my mind, it's 20 points.

If you have to say that there is a point deduction factor, it may be that the difficulty of the game is relatively high. But based on the setting of the game itself, the protagonist has to face all kinds of difficulties and break through one difficulty after another, and the process cannot be very simple. Even when I was experiencing Kazan myself, I often died.

Therefore, in the process of player experience, we have also added a lot of guarantee mechanisms and growth elements, as long as players do not give up, they can eventually clear the level through in-game growth. Some of these features are quite difficult to develop, requiring a lot of detailed design, and we are still optimizing them.

Q: Will you be restarting BBQ in the future?

Yin Mingzhen: If one day we can do it, of course it would be the best.

But for now, the focus is on the products we have prepared, including "Kazan", which is still in the works, and another new DNF title, "Project overkill", which is more similar to the original DNF game, but offers a different camera view, operating system, and visual effects.

In addition, how to better serve everyone in the "DNF" terminal game and mobile game is also a more important topic. Instead of distracting our efforts, we should focus on the products in front of us.

05

We don't want to go along with the trend

Q: You mentioned a lot of concepts about the DNF IP universe, what are your vision for the future? If there is a progress bar, where is the progress now?

Jiang Daxian: We see this plan as relatively long-term, maybe 10-20 years or longer, and the current progress is about 5%. Because DNF has been developing in the form of a single game IP before, it is now a project that focuses more on the game itself, and does not fully expand the IP content.

We always believe that DNF itself is very attractive, and there is a lot of room for development in action, story, and character growth. In terms of business prospects, DNF IP may have 10 to 20 times more room for development than it does now.

Q: What are your goals for DNF IP in the next 3-5 years?

Jiang Daxian: The top priority is to update the content and improve the quality of service to meet the needs of DNF mobile game players.

We will move forward with other matters in the future. For example, we will develop some games that can not only maintain the charm of the IP, but also expand the user base, such as "Kazan", "Project overkill", etc.

Secondly, we will launch some products to allow players of these games to retain and flow with each other, and make the game platform; Finally, we will also develop additional services such as multimedia content to further promote and explain the appeal of our IP.

Through this path, we can let players feel the charm of DNF in a variety of forms, and let these players who like DNF together enjoy it in a variety of product content such as games, animations, music, etc.

Q: How much money are you going to invest in this?

Kang Daxian: We haven't discussed the relevant data internally, and if we had to quantify it, it might be at least 10 times larger than it is now.

Yin Mingzhen: Recently, we have also made a lot of investment in IP culture, such as making animation, novels, and animation, which are relatively large investment directions.

There is a consensus between Nexon and Neople on this part, and for us DNF is the most important IP, so we will actively invest in it, not only to make high-quality games in terms of products, but also to expand the IP content ecosystem.

Q: What do you think are the similarities and differences between the Chinese and Korean game markets? What specific advice would you have for game manufacturers?

Yin Mingzhen: I would like to share some views on my personal observations.

Judging from the trend of the market, China and South Korea are indeed very different, and there will be differences in the preference for different game genres. But I think the market is getting fast. For the Korean market, users who used to love online games are now more and more interested in single-player games. Recently, because of "Black Myth", Chinese players will also change.

So from my point of view, we should not always chase market changes, but should be market leaders. What we pay more attention to is what kind of game we want to make, how to make the game quality to the extreme, and finally let the market change the trend because of the products I make, which is what I want to achieve.

Jiang Daxian: I also think the same way, following the market trend is not the direction we want, and guiding the market trend is the more efficient way.

We've been working on the action category in the same way. It's not that the action genre has become a market trend, I'm just following this trend to make an action game. DNF can be so successful because it is a market pioneer and leader, and it has seized a completely vacant market.

So we should focus on what we do best, and then look at how to lead the market changes.

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