Text/Nine Lotus Treasure Lamp

2025, 2026 at the latest, maybe it will be the last big year of the second tour:

"Ark of Tomorrow: The End", "Double Helix", "Different Ring", "Looking at the Moon", "Infinity", ...... The final big productions of these categories will be released in about these two years. At the moment, there is almost no news of more large-scale second-game projects.

The reason why there are no new teams entering the game is very straightforward: the entry threshold is getting higher and higher, but the overall market is shrinking, it is becoming more and more difficult to recover costs, and user satisfaction is becoming more and more difficult to obtain. The prosperity that was held up in previous years has now gradually collapsed.

In this case, the second tour needs to be re-examined, or even redesigned. In other words, the market is in dire need of a product like Ark of Tomorrow or Genshin Impact to change the situation.

The result is not necessarily to expand the circle like the first two, but it must bring a complete innovation, rekindle users' love for the second game, and bring vitality back to the category. If it can't be done, then how many new products will be released in this category, I'm afraid it will only be a salary to put out the fire.

The CEO of a large manufacturer said, "Two or three years ago, I felt that the current two-game model should end in 2024. So we're always making new things, and they have to be new anyway, and if we don't make new things, we're going to die."

So can these yet-to-be-released second tours take on such a task?

While there's no way to draw a conclusion, we can see that they did introduce a lot of new things to try and adapt to the new rules at this table.

Ark of Tomorrow: The End

01

What's different about the new generation of second tours?

What is the difference between this batch of second tours and the previous products? Some friends, some friends.

In my opinion, if you look at the 5 products that are loud enough and currently have more displays, their logic can be split into 3 points, which are new themes, new gameplay and new modes.

Needless to say, new themes are one of the most important ways to shape differentiation in the two-dimensional category.

"Alien Ring", "Mochizuki" and "Infinity", which are nicknamed by many as the "Three Masters of the Two-dimensional GTA", all of them are from the perspective of modern urban themes, and they are combined with urban legends and other elements to bring a lot of new content.

Infinity

Compared with today's fantasy adventures in another world, or the popular sci-fi apocalypse earlier, modern urban themes emphasize more interaction between people, and the topics are more life-oriented, bringing a completely different content experience.

"Ark of Tomorrow: The End" is more special in this. It's almost a style of its own, it's a bit like a relatively new sci-fi genre such as "industrial sci-fi", but it introduces a lot of content that is very life-like for Chinese players.

The most representative is its national style scene, which not only has the characteristics of classical Chinese style, but also integrates many modern Chinese characteristics into it.

This yard is very lively

New themes are also driving the addition of new ways to play.

For example, urban theme products, they are basically integrated into racing gameplay, among which "Mochizuki" also adds gameplay elements similar to Zelda and Paru.

"Mochizuki"

The re-beta version of "Ark of Tomorrow: The End" also brings more freshness to the gameplay. On the one hand, it is a continuous exploration of the dual-core cycle of combat + factory gameplay, and on the other hand, it is to improve the density of content experience through gameplay coupling.

"Ark of Tomorrow: The End" "Test Again" display screen

Although the theme of "Double Helix" is still a different world, they also have a lot of innovations in gameplay. Based on what I tried last year, they include at least a series of changes that enhance the combat experience, such as mowing the grass to clear monsters, and free switching between long-range and short-range weapons.

I think the most important thing, and the one that players have been calling for the most in recent years, is the "root" of character collection and cultivation.

The way of collecting and cultivating has always been one of the main battlefields that affects players' evaluation of the game. And the newcomers are also using the knife against this point again.

The end of the retested version, the game development mechanic

It has also been well received by many players

"Double Helix" is very bold in this regard. The game allows the characters to share weapons and bonus props, which significantly reduces the player's cultivation pressure, which can be said to be a very courageous attempt.

02

The underlying logic of the rule change

So, can these attempts made by the new players really change the life of the old second game?

It depends on what the current problems of this category are. According to my observations, this can likewise be divided into 3 points.

First of all, although the product form and technical level of some previous second games are improving, they can actually give players little freshness.

Since the success of Genshin Impact, almost all second-game products have been transformed into Genshin Impact-style character collection and development models overnight, and even some products are completely consistent with Genshin Impact in terms of commercial design: such as the size guarantee mechanism, the number of draws required to trigger the guarantee, the pricing of each draw, the "constellation system" of the characters, and so on.

In terms of cultivation, these games also adopt a gameplay similar to that of "Genshin Impact" to farm holy relics. This leads to the fact that although the second-game market seems to be full of flowers, in the final analysis, it is nothing more than some colorful "Genshin Impact".

In addition to this similarity in the system, in terms of content, the current secondary games on the market are also becoming more and more solidified. For example, in the direction of the story, whether it is this "person", that "person", this "official", that "official", or what "expert", the name of the protagonist is not small, but the story brought is difficult to exciting.

As for the characters, perhaps because of the increasing number of second games, many of the characters released in the game now either give people a sense of familiarity, or have almost no memory points. However, as long as the commercialization of the second game does not leave this model of selling characters, the quality of the content, especially the quality of the characters, cannot be ignored for a day.

Secondly, the game rhythm of some products in the past two years has not kept up with the gaming habits of players.

Now the concept of "main and secondary games" can be popularized in the category, which shows that many players have a gaming habit of playing multiple secondary games at the same time.

Based on this situation, the amount of time and money a player can spend on each game becomes limited.

Players are becoming more sensitive to time-wasting designs and high-priced positioning, and the old routine of forcing players to spend time online is outdated.

As we mentioned in our previous article about the re-testing of Ark of Tomorrow: The End, the essence of excellent content is not in the form of an open world, but in order to meet the needs of players, providing a differentiated and fresh experience with a large volume and high density.

In the current market, "Singing Tide" can be regarded as a relatively positive example. From an international perspective, the game is basically on the rise in terms of player voice and evaluation, and based on my actual experience, I think it is exactly what players want to "cool and fast":

The cool of the game lies in the strong operability, gorgeous combat performances, and low difficulty of dungeons and large worlds; The fast is due to the short time (about 1 minute) and the number of times (about 3 times a day) to cultivate resource dungeons.

"Singing Tide"

On the commercialization side, we can also see that more and more second-game products are now beginning to pay attention to the design of gift packs, or design updated card pool mechanisms to reduce the frustration brought to players by "eating guarantees" and "crooked cards" in card gacha, and improve the sense of refreshment.

However, the fast pace needs to be reflected not only in gameplay and commercialization, but also in the content side.

Now the debate over whether to add a skip option to the plot of the second game has settled. But what is reflected behind this is the player's impatience with the lengthy script.

This trend is actually very similar to the current popularity of short dramas - audiences want content that is simple and clear, and easier to digest without waiting.

But this tendency will bring a paradox: if the second game still chooses the grand narrative orientation, if the quality is not high enough, the audience will not be able to bear the long foreshadowing; If the plot of the second game is simplified, it is not enough to attract users of the second game.

Looking at it this way, perhaps for many new teams, the next goal of breaking the content style of the second game is to find a way for players to quickly understand the plot and love the characters enough.

In this regard, the shaping method of "Azure Files" may be a worthy reference direction for the second tour in the fast-paced era: when they create characters and stories, they often take creativity as the core, such as the most famous "beautiful girl robbing a bank" plot, which is fast-paced and has simple motives, but because it is bizarre enough, it leaves a deep impression.

But the most important thing is that I think it's easy to lose the taste of the second dimension itself in order to pursue differentiation in the second game.

The two-dimensional taste is a mysterious thing, it is difficult to explain clearly, but it is indispensable for players who have been tested by the market for a long time. Products with insufficient taste often can't retain people.

The second dimension reaps the taste!

In this regard, "Jeopardy Zero" is another example. When the product was first launched, its gameplay and system design were quite controversial, but after a lot of modifications, the game suddenly exploded with great energy.

In my opinion, this is enough to say that the game has always had a group of potential players who enjoyed their content enough. And the content style of "Jeopardy Zero" is also the most flavorful of a series of two-dimensional products in my eyes.

Looking at old products such as "Ark of Tomorrow", it stands to reason that this is a game that has been online for five and a half years to six years, but in fact, it is precisely the gameplay and content charm that are always online that can always have such a big voice.

The Spring Festival has just passed, and the lively atmosphere of the Second Tour New Year Party during this period of time, I think it is the place where I can best see the charm of a game's content: players are willing to do second creations, are willing to watch, and are willing to discuss, which is not something that can be done just by having a new way to play.

After so many years, the second creation atmosphere of "Tomorrow's Ark" is still strong: taking "Jin Feast and Spring Season" as an example, not only did offline viewing be organized, but the whole film of this Spring Festival party lasted more than two and a half hours, with more than 40 single product second creation videos, and some videos could even break one million plays. In addition to this, this year's "Ark of Tomorrow" players also spontaneously organized and produced four New Year parties with different themes.

On the other hand, I think the reason why Eryou can't lose this temperament is also because products that target pan-users from the beginning are usually not very successful.

I have observed some products on the market, they seem to be second-game, and only second-game players are attracted, but I don't know if it is to absorb pan-users or have other considerations, and I am reluctant to admit my two-dimensional attributes. I haven't seen this kind of product succeed so far.

In the discussion with me, a number of second-game practitioners have mentioned that in today's quarrelsome two-dimensional public opinion field, many times the content style of the product is not determined by the team, but what the core users say is what you are. There is no shortage of examples of games that have succeeded on this momentum.

Infinity

In the final analysis, although the scale of the second tour is not small, it is still a vertical track. The audience of this type of game may not be so picky about how to play, but they are only willing to accept the two-dimensional theme.

What's more, there are more niche preferences within the player base, and it's not easy to just keep them safe. If the team also wants to generalize the two-dimensional attributes of the product to attract a larger audience, then it is even more important to fry.

Now whether a second game can attract the attention of players in the early stage of launch is one of the core elements that affect its life and death. And the core ACG users are very good at digging out the communication points by themselves to add heat to the game.

We can also see this change clearly in the field of short videos:

The content produced by pan-ACG bloggers often lags behind the core users for a period of time, which can show that a lot of ACG content and memes out of the circle are usually discovered by core users, and then followed up and amplified by pan-users.

However, with the addition of new teams and new users, the question of "what is ACG" has become more and more complex, and whether it can capture core users has become the key to testing manufacturers.

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