Author | DR Editor | Cheng Chi Title Picture | "Four of Swords and Swords" ....

author | dr

editor | Cheng Chi

title picture | "Fairy Sword Four"

After 8 years, the "Fairy Sword" drama is back.

This rare space-based competition is even more interesting than the multiple blooms of the "Three-Body Universe" in recent years.

national ip, since Li Xiaoyao came out of Yuhang with his sword, the "Sword of Immortal" series of stand-alone games has produced 9 orthodox sequels in the past 30 years, and now more than half of the works have been adapted into TV series. There are currently reports of film and television projects or preparations for the remaining works. The once-successful "Sword of Sword and Fairy" will also be remade into a new drama version.

(Picture/"Legend of Sword and Fairy III")

Just, whether it is the "Ecstasy of Two Chefs" presented by the drama version, or the intensive game remake of "Sword and Fairy IV", for those who are still looking forward to the next "Sword and Fairy Sword" For game fans, these "meal replacements" may not be enough - otherwise, why would we miss the "Fairy Sword" in our memories over and over again.

What ended was the whole world

When "Sword of Sword III" was launched with huge uncertainty in 2005, Zhang Yijun, the former chief planner of the "Sword of Sword" series, seemed full of ambitions when he talked about this sequel that was freed from Li Xiaoyao's shadow for the first time.

In his opinion, although "Sword of Immortal One" has achieved success, the "Sword of Immortal" series must not stand still. Only by continuous innovation and change can it not be abandoned by players. As the originator of "Xianxia" game products, no matter how hard it is, the cultural core of "Xianjian" should be stable.

As a branch of "martial arts" stories in a broad sense, "xianxia" stories have considerable innate advantages in the hearts of Chinese players. Especially in the 1990s when "Sword of Sword" came out, the martial arts works of writers such as Jin Yong, Gu Long, and Wen Ruian held up half of the popular literature in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

(Picture/"Legend of Sword and Fairy")

Even though the world view has been expanded from generation to generation, the dominant elements of the "Sword and Fairy" series are more focused on gods, ghosts, monsters and myths and legends, and the core of the story has never strayed away from the sword-fighting Jianghu. , the cultural common denominator of chivalry, justice, and gratification.

Or it can also be said that there is no difference between Li Xiaoyao who flies with a sword and Guo Jing who travels south to the Central Plains, Xu Changqing who practices immortality and chivalry and Xiao Feng who practices chivalry and justice, Yuntianhe who travels down the mountain and Zhang Wuji who is just starting out. Immortal skills can be an advancement of martial arts, but the world, life, grudges, and friendships carried in the young man's heart are all the same after all.

(Picture/"Legend of Sword and Fairy")

This is the cultural aesthetic foundation of the "Sword and Fairy" series, and the stand-alone game as a carrier makes it a rare culture that is completely different from martial arts novels, dramas, and movies. product.

Therefore, in the eyes of a considerable number of game fans, the "Sword of Sword" series started out as a story. The game has slow pace, long cutscenes, backward turn-based gameplay and other "old problems", which were once objects of love and tolerance.

But this also means that, regardless of gameplay or story, once the level of game production is really low enough for players to complain, there are still many "replacements" before players.

’s recreational games can be higher-quality foreign 3A masterpieces. There are also a large number of online novels to revisit the new Jianghu Dream. No one really wants to play "Fairy Sword".

What's more, after a long period of time when a hundred flowers bloomed, the aesthetics of the new generation of young people have undergone considerable changes - look at the "Xianxia dramas" that are still popular today, Nine Days Away and "Hegemony" Falling in love with "Xian" is the password for traffic. Who wants to find out what "Xia" is?

This means that "Jianghu" is already a very old school theme and has completely lost its innate advantages as a popular culture. It is difficult to expand its voice.

A Rusty Sword

For a game to continue, the most important thing is to be able to tell the story.

Although "Legend of Sword and Fairy VII", which was launched in October 2021, has a relatively mediocre reputation, Yao Zhuangxian, general manager of Beijing Softstar Technology and the "Father of Sword and Fairy", did reveal after the game was launched that it will develop "Sword and Fairy VIII" next. plan.

But in May last year, the "Beisoft" technical team, which was the development team for the stand-alone version of the "Xianjian" series, was suddenly disbanded. Insiders interviewed by the game media 3dgame revealed that the "Eight Fairy Swords" previously promised by Yao Zhuangxian has not actually been approved.

Thunder suddenly sounded, and the players howled.

(Picture/"Legend of Sword and Fairy IV")

Today, the next generation of the "Sword and Fairy" stand-alone game may have become a "lifetime" series.

To be fair, this is not the first time that the pessimism of "The Fairy Sword is Dead" has spread. In the minds of many old players, after the release of "Fairy Sword IV" in 2007, as the main planner of the "Fairy Sword" series "Foreman" Zhang Yijun left with the core team, the game's original development team Shanghai Softstar quickly disbanded, and "Fairy Sword" was It's already "cold".

"It doesn't matter whether it's good or bad, life is a big empty dream, the years are spent, but it's just a fleeting moment."

Before the disbandment of Shanghai Softstar, it coincided with the release of "Sword and Sword IV". Murong Ziying, the second male lead in the game, said at the end of the game The exclamation is like an "epitaph" written in advance, making players feel even more lonely.

However, there is still a chance to avoid the conclusion that "after the Four Immortals, there will be no Immortal Sword" - after all, this is not the first time the development team of the "Immortal Sword" series has changed. As long as the game is done well, players will not care that the main creator is Hideo Kojima. , Eiji Aonuma or Zhang Sanli Si.

In fact, since Daewoo Technology released "Fairy Sword 1" in 1995, the game has released four generations and five works. Most of them have Douban scores of 8 or above. "Fairy Sword 2" with a slightly thin plot is also stable. 7.3 points.

It can be said that even if the core creative team all leaves, Beijing Softstar will still take over a "rich mine".

(Picture/"Legend of Sword and Fairy VI")

But things did not work out as expected. The four sequels developed by Beijing Softstar have been stumbling on the road of "innovation", whether it is "relying on Li Xiaoyao" or " The performance of "Five of Sword and Sword", "Five of Sword" and "Fairy of Sword" were both broken in terms of game optimization and narrative, and "Seven of Sword" was labeled as "mediocre".

What makes the "Fairy Sword" series even more embarrassing is that Zhang Yijun founded another game company, Shanghai Zhulong, after resigning from Shanghai Softstar. "Gu Jian Qi Tan 1", which was released a year earlier than "Fairy Sword Five", was also praised by more Old players regard it as the spiritual sequel to the "Fairy Sword" series.

At that time, Beijing Softstar's first innovation after taking over "Fairy Sword" was "Fairy Sword Online", which took advantage of the trend of online games and launched it. However, its performance in terms of krypton gold was too ugly. Just the fact that "the character cannot lose equipment after death" One item costs 48 yuan, so what's the use of having more feelings? Players' money is never blown by the strong wind.

After that, "Fairy Sword" returned to the stand-alone game, but Beisoft was unable to solve the series' ever-present and increasingly serious gameplay problems, and also lost its consistent plot advantages. From character modeling, game plot to gameplay design, it completely collapsed. He only briefly regained his respect in the "Five Prequels of Sword and Sword". The dream of

Xianxia is hard to come by. The

stand-alone game is also the "Xianjian" IP of

with an unpredictable fate. It will not disappear in the foreseeable future and will even become more active.

In the summer of 2021, Daewoo Information’s patience ran out. The ambition that once expected to turn the “Sword and Fairy Sword” series into a “Chinese version” of “Final Fantasy” finally came to an end. Beijing Softstar, together with the “Legend of Sword and Fairy” IP, launched in mainland China. All rights and interests were packaged and sold to China Mobile Games for HK$642 million.

With the dissolution of the development team for the stand-alone version of the game, China Mobile Games’ next development focus on the “Sword of Immortality” IP will also shift to mobile games, TV series and peripherals.

(Picture/"Legend of Sword and Fairy 7")

Therefore, in addition to the two new dramas that have just been launched, according to China Mobile Games' 2022 fiscal year annual report, the remakes of "Sword and Fairy 1" and "Sword and Sword 3", "Sword and Sword 5" The film and television versions of "Sword and Sword 7" and "Sword and Sword 7" have also been confirmed, the "Sword and Sword 4" animation is in production, and the series' first open-world mobile game "Sword and Sword World" just completed its second beta last month, and its launch date is approaching.

A hundred flowers bloomed, but there was no news about the "Eight Immortals of Swords".

From the perspective of mid-range mobile games, this choice may be a bit cruel to veteran players, but as an outsider, it is difficult to criticize it harshly. With the changing times, the embarrassment of "Fairy Sword" is not so difficult to understand.

On December 15 last year, Zhang Yijun, who now serves as the first vice chairman of the China Audiovisual and Digital Publishing Association and chairman of the Game Working Committee, released the "2023 China Game Industry Report" in Guangzhou. The report shows that the domestic game market revenue will exceed 300 billion for the first time in 2023, an increase of nearly 14%.

Behind this report, mobile games support up to 75% of the share, and open world role-playing games are the most popular game type. Client-side games account for more than 20% of the total revenue, and the main revenue source is online games, while the contribution of stand-alone games is minimal. Even for a national-level big IP, this contribution may be negative.

According to Yao Zhuangxian in 2016, the "Five Prequels of Fairy Sword" series, which has the highest sales volume in the entire "Fairy Sword" series, sold 1.5 million units, but in the end it could only recover the development cost of 10 million. The follow-up "Fairy of Sword and Fairy 6" and "Fairy of Sword and Fairy 7" sold only 7 to 8 million sets. The game industry predicted that the losses of both games would exceed 20 million, and the latter may even exceed 30 million.

(Picture/"Legend of Sword and Fairy V")

As for the earlier generations of works, no matter how loud they once were, it no longer makes much sense to examine their original performance.

In that era when pirated games were rampant, "Fairy Sword" and "Xuanyuan Sword" carried the banner of domestic RPGs. Zulong Studio's "Freedom and Glory" was the first domestic real-time strategy game exported to South Korea, but domestically produced It was the norm at that time for stand-alone games to be "popular but not popular", and it was also the deepest scar of the sluggish domestic stand-alone game market today.

Of course, chivalry will never be forgotten in the hearts of Chinese people, and the future of the stand-alone game market is not bleak.

Among the domestic stand-alone games ready to go this year, in addition to the highly anticipated "Black Myth: Wukong", the open world RPG "Gu Long Fengyun Lu", which will be released on February 1, also has high expectations from players. Pre-sales have also been launched on the two major platforms of steam and wegame. If

is of sufficient quality, the stand-alone game will naturally have the opportunity to survive the long night, and "Eight of Swordsman" will become a reality.

After all, stand-alone games do not make money, no matter how much expectations you have, they will all be disappointed, and no matter how deep your feelings are, they are all empty talk.

Proofreading: Yang Chao, Operation: Ono, Typesetting: Tan Xin

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[1] Chinese games move towards the next twenty years: the market size breaks through 300 billion for the first time, short videos may become the biggest competitor|Times Weekly

[2] Are fairy tale dramas "in decline"? |Gu Yu

[3] We agreed to "grow old together", but the fairy sword left first? |Jing Guantai

[4] "Legend of Sword and Fairy 8" was revealed to have not been approved. The game operation of Sword and Fairy 7 has not been affected |3dgame

[5] Classic re-release: Tencent Video's new version of "Sword and Fairy 1" passed review and was released as a web drama License | it home

[6] Why is it said that there will be no more immortal heroes after "Sword of Immortal"? | Harper's Bazaar

[7] China Mobile Games acquired the IP of "Legend of Sword and Fairy" for HK$640 million, or filmed a TV series | Red Star Capital Bureau

[8] "2023 China Game Industry Report" was officially released | The Paper

[ 9] The sword-asking test of "The World of Sword" has successfully concluded, and expectations for the open world of Chinese-style fairy tales are high | Dangle.com

[10] From fateful martial arts to national-style fairy tales: The narrative and aesthetic transformation of "Fairy Sword" in the past twenty-seven years