In the first half of the year, it wasn't just the Assassin's Creed franchise that shone in the global gaming market.

Of course, Assassin's Creed: Origins and Assassin's Creed: Revelations are undoubtedly among the best games released at the same time, but that doesn't mean they can completely crush other games of the same period.

It can only be said that the "Assassin's Creed" series has become an iconic game IP with its moving plot, exquisite historical background, rich cultural heritage and unique combat system, but it has not been perfect in all aspects.

Because of this, TGN gave Assassin's Creed a rating of 9.3, which is considered to be the best work.

Before the release of Assassin's Creed, a VR game called Voyager scored 8.8 points, and half a month after the release of Assassin's Creed: Revelations, a game called Lost Fleet was released, which also received a high score of 9.3 on TGN.

The strong appearance of this game seems to announce to the world: the era of Celant's rule? It's still far away!

Indeed, in the past two years, Thunder Mutual Entertainment and Chen Mo have been in the limelight too much, especially the emergence of a series of classic IPs, which has made many major foreign manufacturers feel a little breathless, and players have sighed that "the times have changed".

However, the game industry is not a zero-sum game after all, and when everyone can make a good game, you earn it and I earn it, and you won't beat me up just because your game is 0.1 points higher than mine.

As long as you really put your heart into making games and truly adapt to the market demand, every game designer will reap the rewards of success, and it is nothing more than a matter of sooner or later, more or less.

The Lost Fleet is an FPS game set in a sci-fi setting that tells the story of a small starfleet in the future where a small starfleet has to go through adventures in a treacherous cosmic environment due to an accident that completely loses contact with the mothership.

In this process, players will experience the warmth of human nature and the cruelty of the laws of the universe in desperate situations, experience treacherous cosmic adventures, fight with terrifying cosmic creatures, experience the loneliness of infinite wandering in the universe, and finally return to Earth, many players are like wanderers who have been wandering for many years returning home, with tears streaming down their faces.

In terms of influence and topicality, the game is not as good as Assassin's Creed, but it is clearly a good game in terms of artistry and gameplay, so it also received a high score of 9.3.

Moreover, due to the popularity of this game, the sales of the same name have also risen, and the shooting of the movie of the same name is already in preparation.

For players, "The Lost Fleet" creates a very real cosmic environment (or seems very real, after all, the current technology is not enough to support human space navigation), and the loneliness and despair of human beings wandering endlessly in the universe are vividly embodied, mixed with bloody spaceship piloting and gunfight scenes, in all aspects, this work has an evaluation of 9.3 points.

However, the discussion of Lost Fleet is not limited to the game itself, but expands to a larger aspect.

Like what...... The direction of the game industry.

The reason why this is happening is mainly because the two best-rated works in the first half of the year, "Traveler" and "Lost Fleet", are both linear games.

In other words, both games abandoned the idea of an open world and went down the path of "game cinematization".

As for why...... has to start with Chen Mo's "Uncharted" last year.

Before Uncharted, the world's mainstream VR game masterpieces were basically working towards an open world, and many people even felt that not doing an open world was behind the times.

The reason is simple, an open-world approach has an immediate effect on extending the player's playtime, while at the same time making your game appear "informative" and "value-for-money".

In fact, many open-world games are not necessarily better than linear games, and many open-world games that are not done well are often in vain. For example, the game's map is filled with a lot of collectible elements, repetitive gameplay, high-level items with strict control of values, and so on.

This kind of open world, players will actually feel bored after playing for a while. It's nothing more than running the map.,It's nothing more than brushing and brushing.。

But I have to say that the effect is really immediate, players like to collect achievements, trophies, and the numerical stimulation of brushing is simple and crude, but it is very effective.

Therefore, many major international game manufacturers are addicted to the concept of open world and cannot extricate themselves.

However, the advent of Uncharted changed that. Through ingenious process design, high-performance art effects, meticulously crafted game scripts and other factors, "Uncharted" as a linear game, successfully conquered a large number of players, almost in seconds to say that most of the open world games of the same period.

And the emergence of "Apocalypse America" has played a role in fueling the flames, obviously, a game like "Apocalypse America", the most suitable way is to do a linear game, if you do an open world, it will ruin this classic.

"Apocalypse" won the game of the year and made many designers start to reflect, is the open world necessarily good?

And "The Voyager" and "The Lost Fleet" are the result of this reflection. Many designers no longer blindly believe in the concept of open world, but turn to linear games, with beautiful stories and exquisite pacing to firmly capture the hearts of players.

It has to be said that the open world is good, but it is not controllable. On the other hand, linear games, as long as there is a good script and the game is polished with heart, it is almost inevitable to create a game with good ratings.

Regardless of whether it sells well or not, the rating of the game media will definitely not be bad there.

If the rating is not bad, do a good job of publicity and publicity, and then properly cater to the taste of the market, and the sales will not be bad.

"Voyager" and "Lost Fleet" came into being at this opportunity, and it turns out that linear games are really good.

This has led many designers and players to start a discussion, and the core question is: with the current level of technology, is it not enough to make the open world the best? Is it a better choice for linear games at this stage?

Of course, there are some good open-world games in parallel worlds, but they are still a minority compared to the total number of open-world games. In other words, parallel world games are classics as long as they are done well, but the vast majority of games are not done well.

On the contrary, a linear game with a strict process and clear rules has become a very good option.