Development Department.
Although the chip fabrication hasn't been completed yet, Lin Lixin has already obtained the approximate parameter data.
For an arcade machine, the least of your worries is its specifications.
"Ideally, at the very least, we can produce a 32-bit circuit board with 8MB of memory."
He said he mentally estimated the system requirements for the Mirror's Edge project.
"That's probably... enough."
In fact, the original Mirror's Edge was a complete disaster when it was first released.
EA didn't do very well that year.
A barrage of blockbuster titles, including Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, and Call of Duty, bombarded the market.
They were all released during the Christmas season, a time when everyone is fiercely competing.
For EA, choosing to release a completely new IP at this time is undoubtedly very disadvantageous.
But more importantly... they rushed to finish the project. To make their financial reports look good, EA simply released Mirror's Edge, which was still in the optimization phase.
The combat system is flawed, later levels are rushed, there's a high degree of repetition, and the details are poorly presented...
There were obvious signs of rushed construction everywhere.
The development team hasn't even decided whether to keep the gunfight component yet.
The game features a large amount of FPS content.
Although it gradually regained its reputation, the initial release issue of being released in a cluster of similar films made it a "gatekeeper," falling just short of being a true masterpiece.
It wasn't until the time of Mirror's Edge Catalyst that Dice finally figured out its positioning.
Now the question is...
Even the original Mirror's Edge was a PC game from 2008.
That year, most gamers were already using Windows XP.
The processor is already a Pentium 4 of 1.3GHz.
If a game lags under those conditions, is it really possible to run it with current hardware? The answer is...
impossible.
No need to even think about it.
Unless it's the 2D browser game version of " Mirror's Edge ".
But if it doesn't run, then stop?
That's the mindset of a weakling!
Battlefield has already been done, and now with even better hardware, Mirror's Edge might as well give it a try.
Now it's time to test your swordsmanship.
"We need to find a way to simplify things as much as possible without compromising the core enjoyment..."
Lin Lixin pondered,
"So, the first cut..."
He reached out and, to everyone's surprise, drew a diagonal line across the "[Open World]" section of the whiteboard. "Open World is absolutely impossible."
"But we're already in Battlefield 1991..."
Sam was somewhat displeased.
For some time now, he's been drooling over the "open-world first-person 3D parkour game" that Lin Lixin described.
Now they're suddenly going to cut the open-world aspect and revert to a linear game?
Where does its spirituality lie?
Wouldn't that bring us back to the realm of 2D platforming?
Making it into 3D would just make it look cool, nothing more.
"That's different, Sam. Battlefield 1991's maps are procedural; large desert areas don't consume too much display performance. But Mirror's Edge isn't..."
Lin Lixin sighed.
Although he also wanted the stunning open-world freedom of exploration found in Mirror's Edge Catalyst.
But this is truly impossible. Neither of the hardware components can meet the requirements.
Complex city clusters and extensive specular lighting will directly drain the limited graphics performance.
Neither video memory nor system memory could possibly support such a large-scale demand.
"But... can't linear games be made more open-ended?"
Lin Lixin's lips curled up in a smile.
"Although we're no longer making it an open world, we want players to feel like it is."
"Huh?"
Sam's intuition was correct.
The most important aspect of the concept of parkour is absolutely freedom.
It is inherently a street culture, a subculture, and also a part of extreme sports.
They are naturally endowed with a strong rebellious streak.
If players can't move freely along their own desired routes and are forced to follow the game's pre-set program step by step, then it's not parkour at all.
In this respect, an open world seems to be an indispensable condition that cannot be avoided.
But... is it really unavoidable?
"We create 'open-ended linear games,' without any invisible walls that restrict player movement, and without any forced route guidance."
"That... isn't that an open world?"
No restrictions, free to move around...
Isn't this still a battle between the left and right brains?
"No, no, no! Sam, you've done level design before, I'm sure you'll understand what I mean."
Lin Lixin laughed heartily.
A good video game never relies on mandatory requirements to constrain players.
Even in Super Mario, there are visual guides using character starting locations and coins.
Ninety-nine percent of players, when first encountering * Super Mario *, will instinctively move forward, that is, to the right. Only a few modern players accustomed to finding Easter eggs will move to the left.
Even though everything was designed by the designers, the players feel like it was all their own decision.
"Once you grasp this, Sam, you'll understand what I mean."
"Guided freedom...? Ah, you mean..."
Sam nodded thoughtfully.
He had participated in the game's level design more than once, and Lin Lixin had secretly tutored him in this area.
I am indeed well-versed in this art.
"Keep players feeling like they have choices, but guide them in the right direction, letting their intuition lead them along a pre-designed path, rather than through invisible walls?"
Its core idea is actually very simple: it's better to guide than to block.
This is a highly skilled technique that truly tests the abilities of level designers.
A slight mishap could lead to a series of embarrassing situations.
But if it succeeds... it would be one of the most amazing psychological magic tricks in gaming history.
The player is clearly exploring freely, and every action is taken according to their own will.
But every step was under the designer's control.
"That's exactly right."
Lin Lixin seemed quite satisfied with Sam's cleverness.
He turned back to the planning board and added a few more items under the previously crossed-out [Open World].
[Open Space][Visual Guidance][Guided Freedom]
Have you ever been to Disneyland?
"Certainly."
The world's first Disneyland is located in Anaheim, California.
A super amusement park covering more than 700,000 square meters and costing tens of millions of US dollars.
Since the summer of 1955, it has consistently been a must-do activity for tourists visiting the United States. Among the visitors are even presidents from various countries.
"What we're going to build is a ' Disney park'."
Upon hearing this, Sam did not press the matter further.
Because he had already understood what Lin Lixin meant.
This is actually a very vivid metaphor.
At Disneyland, visitors seem to be free to explore the park and queue for their favorite attractions.
But in reality, the visitor flow had already been planned by the designers.
The vast majority of people are actually following the path that the designers have prepared for them.
Take photos at the photo spots prepared by the designer.
But that's not enough.
Lin Lixin straightened his expression. Let's do a simple estimate: assuming they would need to build a thousand buildings to form the map in the original open-world setting.
Even with a guided open system, it would still require dozens of buildings to support the environment within a single coin-operated cycle.
Even with optimization techniques they've used in Need for Need for Speed and Battlefield, such as occlusion culling and skyboxing, the number could be even lower.
However, rendering just a few buildings still incurs huge performance costs.
For the era when Mirror's Edge was created, neither the Xbox 360 nor the PC generally had very strong performance.
To solve this problem, Dice found the perfect solution.
"We create a 'utopian' worldview, a near-future style world."