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Text by: Guofu
The once-popular term "Four Rising Stars of Shanghai's Gaming Industry" is rarely mentioned nowadays.
Four young game companies based in Shanghai - miHoYo, Hypergryph, Papergames, and Lilith - have each carved out their own paths in the industry. When it comes to these four companies that emerged during the golden age of Chinese mobile games, "innovation" has always been a key word.
As is well known, innovation in the gaming industry is a luxury today. With players becoming more discerning, game playstyles becoming more diverse, and most game companies focusing on cross - platform games, innovation often comes with huge risks. However, the Four Rising Stars continue to offer new insights and excellent products to the industry.
For example, Arknights: Endfield has been highly anticipated even before its official release.
On November 10th, Hypergryph held a media conference for the "Comprehensive Test" of Arknights: Endfield in Shanghai, inviting multiple domestic and international media outlets and KOLs. Two of Hypergryph's main creators, Haimao and Rua, attended the conference. They shared the current progress and their thoughts on the product and provided a six - hour trial - play session.
Left: Rua; Right: Haimao
According to Haimao, it wasn't until early 2022 that they figured out how to turn the automated factory gameplay into a long - term operational product and connect it with the anime - style characters.
From the first test to the second, and then to this third test, Hypergryph has been taking players' reasonable feedback into account and continuously optimizing the game. These small improvements have led to significant changes in each test version. Compared to pure promotion, Hypergryph clearly prefers to communicate with the public directly through the existing product. After the communication, they go back to development, which is quite practical.
In - game cut - scene of the story
Nine months have passed since the last test. According to Haimao's on - site sharing, during this period, besides preparing content for the third test, Hypergryph has also been developing future versions and making long - term plans. For example, they are planning to test a strategy of simultaneous multi - platform and multi - language release from scratch.
As a new work of Hypergryph's core IP, Arknights: Endfield has received countless attentions since its first reveal.
Even before the game was released, it was nominated for the "Best Mobile Game Award" at this year's Gamescom. During the iPhone 17 Pro segment of Apple's September 10th fall event, Arknights: Endfield was chosen as a product for performance demonstration to showcase the excellent graphics processing capabilities and ray - tracing effects of the device.
Display on the official website for iPhone 17 Pro
The overall creative concept of this product originated from a proposal Haimao had when conceiving Arknights in 2017. To ensure the continuous creation of both works and the expansion of new stories, Hypergryph set the story in a far - flung future with a huge time span. Even players who haven't played Arknights can easily understand the story.
For long - time fans of the IP, the game also hides many unexpected Easter eggs. For example, the "Re - travelers" are characters strongly related to Arknights. Currently, the team is trying to design Re - travelers based on the characters' inner wishes or their other selves in dreams, and there may be more ideas in the future.
One of the Re - travelers
On this basis, they also face a derivative problem: how to transform the 2D character illustrations from Arknights into 3D and build a technical framework from scratch for long - term use in the future.
In terms of design, they hope to continue the IP's style, which is the "anime - realistic style" that emphasizes texture. To achieve this effect in 3D, the team has made great efforts. They have done a lot of work to restore the 2D art texture in 3D materials, added many hand - painted texture special effects, and combined real - time lighting effects.
Similar designs can also be seen in Arcane. One of the reasons for the high - quality of this animation is that almost every frame is filled with a large number of hand - painted original paintings to add details, presenting a strong industrial and comic - artistic texture.
Hypergryph also conducts experiments on fusing PBR and NPR for different real - world materials to distinguish them. At the same time, they ensure that the characters' clothing materials exist in the real world. For example, Eldera's skirt has a texture that combines the feeling of a volcano and fluff, corresponding to the effect of "steel wool" being ignited in the real world.
Eldera
Regarding the final visual effect, Rua provided specific data: The rendering level of a single character in the game can reach 80,000 to 100,000 polygons on PC and PS5, and half of that on mobile phones, which is 50% - 100% higher than most products on the market. For the new main city scene, "Wuling City", the polygon count is controlled between 3 million and 5 million on PC and PS5, and between 1 million and 2 million on mobile phones.
Considering the multiple characters on the same screen, dynamic items in the factory infrastructure, and the number of enemies on the same screen, the optimization pressure Endfield faces is likely to be even greater. To address this, they rewrote the underlying scripts of the Unity engine and modified the rendering architecture.
Late - stage display of the factory system
It's hard to imagine that this is the result of Hypergryph's first attempt at a large - scale 3D game. After achieving all this, they still have the energy to do things that are usually only considered in high - quality AAA games. For example, the art and technology teams jointly developed a 3C action system to ensure seamless action transitions for characters.
Cut - scene of the story animation
Only at this time can we intuitively feel how amazing Hypergryph's growth and iteration efficiency is after deciding to venture into 3D games.
Of course, "learning by doing" inevitably leads to some mistakes. Since they had never done a narrative - based performance in a 3D game before, they underestimated the cost of resources and energy. Although they were prepared for the huge challenges, the actual investment exceeded the team's initial expectations.
Haimao gave a simple example: The production of 3D storylines is often a complex process. Even a small change in the plot can lead to adjustments in the previous and subsequent scenes and resources, and sometimes the entire production may need to be redone.
In this third test, based on players' previous feedback and suggestions, they re - organized the storyline and almost re - did all the performances. These are just part of the iterations in the third - test version of Endfield.
Cut - scene of the story animation
Against this design background, Endfield is likely to be a special and completely independent product in the market.
For many companies, the level of investment required for a project like Endfield is simply beyond reach. Some people also call the games they make "author - driven games" because of Hypergryph's strong design style and the high degree of creative control, which is different from the common practices in the market.
For example, the anime - industrial - science - fiction style of Endfield is quite distinctive in the entire market.
Cut - scene of the story animation
When it comes to the Chinese - style theme, other game companies often rely on traditional cultural elements such as opera and ancient costumes. However, Endfield presents a concept of "green mountains, clear waters, and scientific development".
Chinese - style architecture in the game
Chinese - style architecture in the game
Chinese - style architecture in the game
Walking in the city, you'll often be attracted by the signs. Coupled with the realistic in - game scenes, it's hard not to have a strong sense of familiarity.
Chinese - style architecture in the game
As for the production units with signs... Well, I probably wouldn't be surprised even if the walls of a room in the game were covered with "Model Student" certificates.
Chinese - style architecture in the game
Surprisingly, Endfield's design doesn't come across as tacky or out of place. If you take a long - distance view of Wuling City, you'll be shocked by this simple industrial wonder.
Overall, the design of Wuling City in Endfield is an attempt by the development team to translate their vision of China's cultural future into a 3D game. It not only represents inheritance but also unity and development.
