Comparing with Apex + Pet-catching Battle Royale, can Lilith's new game turn the tables in the Chinese server?
Written by | Xue Dexing
Edited by | Liu Shiwu
The crowded battle royale game track has added a new member. The Chinese server of "Farlight 84" has officially announced that it will be launched in March - April. This console-level battle royale game, which has been prepared for a long time, is not only an important transformation work of Lilith in recent years, but also one of the highly anticipated games in the domestic battle royale track.
"Farlight 84"
However, whether it is the discussion in the player community or the official publicity tone, this game is trying to package itself as an "Apex substitute" or a "masterpiece of battle royale". When players peel off the shell of its trendy cool aesthetics and marketing rhetoric, they will find that there is a not small gap in quality compared to Apex, as well as the predicament hidden under the stitched gameplay.
Just looking at the data side, the foreign server has been launched for less than a year and a half, and the daily Steam online number has dropped to about a thousand. So, what is the prospect of the Chinese server of "Farlight 84"?
Lilith's Ambition: The First Hero Shooting Game Trying to "Break the Circle"
Lilith has always been known for its SLG and card game genres, and battle royale games are not their traditional strength. As the first 3D shooting game with Unreal Engine 4 under its belt, "Farlight 84" is undoubtedly a game that is not so "Lilith".
Just as the first sentence written in the introduction, the current feature of "Farlight 84" is the pet-catching battle royale. Pets play a lot of variables in winning and losing and gameplay changes. In the battlefield, players can catch different pets and use their skills to pave the way for victory.
In-game screenshot
In addition, we can completely regard it as a third-person "Apex Legend" with a secondary style. There are too many shadows of Apex in it, whether it is the long TTK (Time To Kill), the four types of hero positioning, the sliding and shooting, the armor upgrade and the talent points. No wonder the current publicity tone of this game is benchmarked and connoted against Apex, the veteran hero shooting game.
Bearing the task of "breaking the circle" and opening up a new track, we can see Lilith's attention and caution to this game: The release of "Farlight 84" adopts the strategy of going overseas first and then domestic. It was tested and launched on the mobile and Steam platforms overseas as early as September 2023, and it also obtained the Chinese server version number in June of the same year, but there has been no news about the Chinese server.
The game has also undergone several major revisions including character models, skills, and even special gameplay in the middle of 2023 - 2024. The special gameplay of the pet Badi was launched in September 2024.
"Farlight 84" update content
The overseas "Farlight 84" once entered the top 20 of Steam's daily active users after its launch. Up to now, it has received 78% positive reviews and also won the Best Multiplayer Battle Game on Google Play.
It seems not bad?
But as a free service game, its current online number is not optimistic - the recent monthly Steam daily active users are about a thousand, and this is still under the situation of the preheating publicity of the Chinese server. Overall, after entering 2024, the daily active users of this game have been on a downward trend, and the player retention rate is not high.
Image source: Steam
Even if a large number of bots have been added, the matching time is still "not to be underestimated". Especially in the Asian region, almost the same group of people are playing in the high-score segment, so that the player's method of identifying cheats is to see if they know each other. In the process of continuous updates and approaching Apex, the disappearance of the original special gameplay has also forced some old players to quit.
Image source: Little Black Box
Benchmarked against Apex? The Hard Gap in Quality Cannot Be Ignored
In the recent period, the preheating publicity of the Chinese server of "Farlight 84" is infinitely benchmarked against Apex. It not only invited the most popular Apex anchor in China for cooperation, but also continuously connoted the operational failures of Apex in the promotional videos, giving a feeling of being confrontational.
Image source: Bilibili
It is not difficult to sense that "Farlight 84" hopes to package itself as an "Apex substitute" or a "masterpiece of battle royale" during the window period when Apex's popularity is declining, thereby attracting many "Apex disappointed players". This marketing strategy has also tasted a little sweetness. The latest two videos on Bilibili have nearly one million views, and the attention of many Apex players has indeed been attracted.
In terms of game content, "Farlight 84" does hit some pain points of Apex players, such as more impressive character images and skin designs.
Image source: "Farlight 84"
As a trendsetter of diversified content and political correctness, Apex's large number of characters and skins have always been criticized by players for "lack of aesthetics" and "ugly of heavyweight". Even when it is linked with a handsome and beautiful IP like "Final Fantasy 7 Remake", the final skin product is still hard to look directly at.
"Final Fantasy 7 Remake"
Apex's recent anniversary skin also makes people feel dizzy
In contrast, the character images of "Farlight 84" are indeed much more pleasing to the eye. We don't see so many sensitive labels here, nor do we see the feeling of "deliberately uglifying" the characters.
However, "Farlight 84" is ultimately a big gap behind Apex in terms of game hard quality. This temporary "taking advantage of the situation" is not really useful, but will instead backfire.
On the one hand, Apex players have extremely high requirements for shooting feel, skill balance, and map design, while the "semi-finished product feeling" of "Farlight 84" is easy to cause a gap.
For example, its shooting feedback is criticized as "strong plastic feeling", and the painting style is criticized as "too rough". The map design and the depth of the character skill combination are insufficient, making it difficult for competitive players who are already familiar with Apex and similar end games to be interested. And the lack of the first-person gameplay in the game also makes people feel that there is a lack of sincerity to truly "substitute" Apex.
Comment area of the promotional video
And Apex's recent "resurgence" at the operational level has also weakened the original public opinion advantage of "Farlight" - with the major version update of the new season, Apex has finally passed the shield battle and redstone version that many players have criticized, and regained the feeling of the thrill of flat-ground shooting battles. In February, the average active number of Apex returned to 100,000, and the highest number of simultaneous online users on the Steam platform was 220,000. Although it is not as brilliant as in previous years, it has already reached the standard of being popular.
On the other hand, overly emphasizing the similarity with Apex instead makes players ignore its real innovation points (such as the pet-catching system and the growth experience mechanism), falling into the cognitive trap of an "imitator". If it can avoid direct competition with Apex and rely on the unique "pet-catching + diverse vehicles" to form a memory point to attract non-traditional FPS players and mobile game players, "Farlight" may still have a fighting chance. But combined with the recent version changes and publicity tone of the game, "Farlight" seems to be heading towards the muzzle.
Combat performance
The Future Life-and-Death Game
Back to the question at the beginning of the article, what is the prospect of the Chinese server of "Farlight 84"? Currently, it is not optimistic.
The predicament of "Farlight 84" is essentially a common problem of "stitched" products in the red ocean market: It wants to undertake the traffic bonus of mature IPs, and also tries to open up a new track through micro-innovation, but eventually falls into an awkward situation of "not relying on either end". We can see that Lilith is inexperienced in dealing with this type of game: The entire game is still in a tentative "constant change", and the characters, firearms, and gameplay, including the core features, have undergone major revisions.
From the current version, the lightweight texture of "Farlight 84" actually does not meet the tastes of the domestic PC battle royale and Apex player groups. It only attracts a wave of attention through aggressive publicity, and the situation of the game's Chinese server launch is not optimistic.
Either continue to polish and update, or shift the focus to the mobile end to serve non-traditional FPS players and compete with "High Energy Hero" in the mobile game track. What is worrying is that the official recently announced that the first-person perspective is being intensively produced, and it seems that they are determined to continue on the PC end.
As mentioned earlier, Lilith's past achievements in the SLG and card game tracks are not insignificant. "Rise of Kingdoms" launched in 2018 has long ranked among the top three in China's mobile game overseas revenue, with an annual income of over 3 billion yuan. And the continuous success of the "AFK Arena" series in the European and American markets has made it firmly in the first echelon of mobile game overseas expansion.
However, in recent years, with the tightening of privacy policies in the overseas market, Lilith's original precise delivery strategy has been restricted; coupled with the slow growth of the user market and the fierce competition of many imitations, the market ceiling of SLG and casual card games has gradually emerged. By the end of 2023, the annual IAP (In-App Purchase) income of "AFK Arena" has dropped by more than 70% compared to three years ago.
This market decline may be one of the reasons why Lilith hopes to break through the category dependence and bet on shooting competitive games.
Undoubtedly, "Farlight 84" is a product of great strategic significance. The game is directly named after the overseas distribution brand Farlight Games established by Lilith in 2022. And now the decline of the game in long-term operation and player retention is obviously not what everyone wants to see.
Honestly, if "Farlight 84" cannot complete the transformation from an "Apex imitator" to a "unique category definer" within the next 3 - 6 months, or still insists on promoting to traditional PC FPS players, this game that Lilith has high hopes for "breaking the circle" may find it difficult to survive in the battle royale track.
This article was first published on "36Kr Games".