This mobile racing game that 14 million pre-ordered players have been waiting for is finally here.
On April 6, the first club invitational tournament of “Need for Speed: Assemblage” ended successfully with WB winning the championship. The players put on a wonderful performance for racing enthusiasts. At a press conference held at the same time as the event, the official officially announced that the game will be released in the summer, directly pushing players’ expectations to the peak.
At the press conference, producer Hao Sheng shared a set of data records: a total of 165,000 riders have raced on the streets of Rewan. Among them, 30 players have completed the 100% exploration achievement, and each track has refreshed on average. played 48,000 times, indicating that the game has sufficient demand for playing. What is particularly eye-catching is that a mysterious poisonous picture easter egg leaked out at the conference, indicating that the game may launch UGC functions, which inspired players’ unlimited imagination.
To be honest, it is not easy for “Need for Speed: Assemblage” to still maintain a good reputation after going through several rounds of testing. In the context of today’s stratified racing game experience, there are few products that can simultaneously satisfy multiple experiences such as immersion, hardcore, and leisure. Especially in the mobile field, user needs are more diversified. Even for the powerful alliance of Tencent and EA, it is a big challenge to take into account the needs of all players.
Therefore, after four tests of the game, Mr. Gyro has a new understanding of “Need for Speed: Assemblage”.
The first open world racing mobile game, satisfying all the imagination of racing games
As mentioned above, on the mobile terminal with a wider user base, “Need for Speed: Assemblage” needs to take a wider approach. It not only needs to take into account hard-core players and provide the core driving experience, but also needs to take care of IP fans and casual players. . In Gyro Jun’s view, this is a racing game that hopes all players can enjoy a fun experience that is “easy to learn, capable of growing, and deep”.
Easy to learn but difficult to master, a new choice for hardcore players
In terms of the most core operation method, “Need for Speed: Assemblage” not only uses the classic key combinations of racing mobile games, but also restores the major control elements of handbrake, footbrake, throttle and nitrogen, and adopts sliding linkage. The design extends advanced driving skills, allowing players to get a real driving experience.
Taking “drifting” as an example, the two braking methods allow the game to implement different drifting techniques such as handbrake sideslip, inertial drift, and even a combination of handbrake and footbrake drift. In addition, there are intuitive and easy-to-understand drift angle divisions during drifting, allowing novice players to accurately grasp the best timing for entering/exiting corners.
The ability to quickly feel the refreshing drift experience is largely due to the game’s clear advancement goals. The game cleverly combines straight sprint sections with various curve designs in the track design, and deliberately reduces the interference of external factors such as NPC vehicles, so that players can focus more on the driving pleasure itself. As players continue to hone their skills, the game will open up. A more challenging track.
A similar approach is also reflected in the vehicle modification part of the game. The game adopts an upgrade system in the form of a technology tree to make the modification effects simple and easy to understand. It is opened hierarchically according to the level requirements of the rally points, which not only ensures the layering of racing performance growth, but also This avoids overly complex settings that may cause confusion for junior players.
Innovate while inheriting and inspire resonance among IP fans
After creating a refreshing drifting experience that is easy to learn but difficult to master, the development team also skillfully captured and reproduced the characteristics of the Need for Speed series, also meeting the needs of die-hard fans of the IP.
In this mobile game version, the game draws on the stylized features of the latest PC game “Need for Speed: Unruly” – graffiti comic special effects, allowing players to experience this visually impactful style in mobile games. It is also a design that IP fans have praised recently.
In addition, the personalized racing system that the Need for Speed series is often praised for is also an integral part. “Need for Speed: Assemblage” has up to 5 adjustable dimensions, allowing players to fully customize the appearance of their exclusive cars.
More importantly, the mobile game also inherits the classic “Hot Pursuit” mode of the series, integrating 40-player large-scale asymmetric competition and evacuation gameplay for the first time, and adding elements such as skill strategies and random weather events, realizing inheritance and innovation. The clever balance not only retains the core of the IP’s classic chase battle, but also makes the gameplay more entertaining, providing IP fans with an unconventional experience.
Use skills to disable the steering of police cars
Added new open world, a new space for casual players
In this world with an area of about 100 million square meters, players can enjoy pure driving fun. You can slow down and explore, drive your car along the coastline, or enjoy the romance of nature among colorful flower fields. The camera function gives players the ability to record these moments.
In addition, the interactive design in Hot Bay makes the world more alive. There are interesting challenges such as “Snow Cone Challenge” and “Rhythm Bumper”, as well as entertaining competitions such as 1v1 and multiplayer elimination matches. There are a total of 500 gameplay points like this in Rewan.
Players’ play in “Hot Bay” is like a racing-themed drama. You can even participate in emergency rescue operations by driving a truck through part-time tasks. Players feel like they have entered an MMO experience instance, where they can explore and socialize.
In general, “Need for Speed: Assemblage” not only refines the classic IP, but also organically integrates hard-core racing with casual exploration. The rich content of the open world also ensures that the game has enough depth, making whether it is hard-core racing or Players, IP fans, or players who like to enjoy casual driving can all find their own exclusive fun in this vast game world.
It’s not just the gameplay that attracts racing players
In fact, when we delved deeper into racing players, especially the group of realistic racing games, we found that their preference for a product was not just due to the gameplay, but also covered the core element of racing and even the entire ecosystem. As the core soul of racing games, racing is equally attractive to players for its authenticity, uniqueness and the car culture behind it.
Many video players related to head racing games focus on a certain car model.
The reason why “Need for Speed: Assemblage” can attract a large number of players is that, in addition to its unique gameplay, the delicate depiction of the racing itself and the in-depth exploration of car culture are also crucial. The team has done a lot of homework on car culture and carefully designed a racing lineup in four categories: fuel supercar, hybrid electric drive, classic emotion and sports street. Each model has its own characteristics and is full of stories.
For example, the Nissan 370Z is a classic Japanese car that embodies the spirit of craftsmanship. With its tight and sharp body lines and sharp and precise control response, it seems to be in the golden age of Japanese performance cars. It explains to players the importance of Japanese sports cars to speed and precision. The ultimate pursuit of control.
Or the Shelby GT500, which symbolizes the power of American muscle cars, exudes a rugged and bold atmosphere like a beast, making people deeply understand why American muscle cars can inspire the passion in the hearts of countless young people.
“Need for Speed: Assemblage” does not stop at collecting internationally renowned classic models. It also keeps pace with the times and grasps the emotional appeal of domestic players for domestic car brands today, including domestic car brands such as Weilai, Hongqi, and Xiaopeng. in. With the rapid rise of domestic automobile brands in recent years, this decision not only enriches the diversity of models, but more importantly, it also brings more down-to-earth and emotionally resonant game content to players, thus deepening the relationship between players and the game. emotional link.
“Need for Speed: Assemblage” is like a vivid and three-dimensional car culture museum, satisfying players’ fantasies about luxury cars, classic cars, and domestic cars in many aspects. The game also provides a considerable supplementary explanation of car culture around the world view. For example, players can learn about the track story and vehicle story on the corresponding plot track.
It is the game’s rich racing types and emphasis on car culture that touch players’ deep love for real vehicles, thus effectively meeting players’ needs beyond gameplay. Until now, “Need for Speed: Assemblage” has been continuously negotiating cooperation with major car brands.
In addition, it can be seen from the previous offline meetings that the players’ needs can be fully met, and more importantly, the development team really listens to the advice.
For example, many of the contents of the 4th beta update are requirements raised by previous players. Taking the linkage between the game and QQ Music as an example, players expect to have the experience of playing car music while driving. Through the linkage with QQ Music, players can enjoy high-speed chases while choosing their favorite music as they please.
Under this cross-border linkage, games can also improve players’ sense of immersion, and at the same time deepen the cultural connotation of games, effectively promoting the construction of a more three-dimensional and attractive game ecological environment. Taking into account Tencent’s strong matrix business, it is entirely possible to launch in-car video and TV functions in conjunction with Tencent Video in the future. By then, combined with the high-freedom experience of the open world, this fantasy city with racing as the main body will become increasingly clear, broadening the boundaries of racing games in various senses.
Whether it is linking with car brands or linking with QQ Music, it is essentially respecting and satisfying the diverse needs of players. It shows that the production team not only pursues the core gameplay, but also meets the peripheral needs of players in the entire racing-related ecology.
Personalized racing life, UGC will be the best “nitrogen”?
After understanding why “Need for Speed: Assemblage” has won the expectations of many players, and looking back at the poisonous picture easter egg at the press conference, Gyro Lord concluded that it is logical for the official to deploy UGC content in the game.
At the same time, compared with the operation model of a series of stand-alone games, “Need for Speed: Assemblage”, as a mobile game, especially needs to rely on UGC to supplement the game content to continuously enrich the gameplay, thereby maintaining the active vitality of the game community. A new second-generation cultural ecology derived from games can also help products continue to attract volume and maintain long-term operations.
Therefore, it is not surprising that “Need for Speed: Assemblage” has deployed UGC so quickly. Today’s UGC capabilities not only meet the needs of players for co-creation, but also help the team better understand and grasp market demand, and carry out product iteration and optimization in a timely manner. After it goes online, the blessing of UGC will also further enhance the user stickiness, activity and commercial value of the game in the early stage.
At present, “Need for Speed: Assemblage” is striving to fill the gaps in similar mobile games in the past, whether it is the diversified coverage of gameplay design or the improvement of the ecology. It has always adhered to the development concept of meeting the diverse needs of all types of players. , will be the driving force for “Need for Speed: Assemblage” to lead racing games into a new pattern in the future.
