"Sky World 1.31 Patch"
The first thing that comes into view is a huge tentacle monster with a strange black body that looks like a creature from a nightmare. Beneath this huge monster, there is blood, bits of flesh, and entrails everywhere. The entire shallow pit looks like a horrific slaughterhouse. Around this pool of blood, there are many scattered corpses and severed limbs, as well as adventurers crying and running away.
The whole scene is so impactful that at first glance, you might mistake it for a horror movie poster.
Actually, this game has had bloody and violent scenes in the past. Because the game is made so realistically, there have been scenes of blood splattering when players are killed, and scenes of severed limbs or even decapitations are inevitable. However, in previous games, such scenes appeared individually and were quickly refreshed. Therefore, even in large-scale battles with thousands or tens of thousands of players, the number of corpses on the screen at the same time was very limited, and there were not many bloody scenes.
But this time, thousands of adventurers were killed at once, and in an exceptionally cruel way—they were ground into mincemeat, and the gore from the flowing blood was absolutely horrific.
Now look at the title of this video.
The Most Terrifying Boss in History - The Birth of Azathoth
Video Description: Although the final result of the Demon King Tournament is yet to be seen, there is no doubt that the most evil and terrifying BOSS is none other than the Azathoth, Elemental King. Today, the Elemental King demonstrated to us the terrifying power that a true BOSS who wants to destroy the world can unleash, letting everyone know that this is what a truly terrifying villain looks like. All the previous BOSSes were weak in comparison. What could be more evil than turning thousands of people into mincemeat in one go?
When you open the video, it shows his match from today. There's no narration or editing; it's just a direct clip of his final combo, accompanied by a creepy, eerie piece of music.
As the music reached its climax, the final scene even showed the perspective of an adventurer who was crushed in half by a monster falling from the sky, screaming for a long time while his internal organs spilled out, before the screen turned blood red—THE END.
After watching the video's introduction and content, Xiao Yu couldn't help but feel a mix of amusement and exasperation. When he made his move earlier, he hadn't really felt any bloodshed. Although he knew the scene wouldn't be pleasant, he hadn't expected it to cause such a horrific scene and such a huge reaction, which was quite unexpected.
At this moment, he felt a little strange. He felt a sense of pride, but on the other hand, he felt uneasy, as if he had really done something heinous.
Xiao Yu tried hard to put this unease out of his mind. It was just a game, and those people weren't really dead, he comforted himself.
Scrolling down, however, this video is just the tip of the iceberg of the incident he ignited. Countless posts discuss that bloody feast, thankfully most of them focusing on how creative Azathoth's skill combination was, whether elemental creatures need to be weakened, whether other bosses can achieve similar effects with different skills, and whether adventurers will be wiped out badly in dungeons in the future.
Some have even started speculating about how to gather the power of the entire world to defeat Azathoth if it becomes the final boss of the next expansion.
However, a few people are discussing whether the game is too gory, whether the scenes are excessive, and whether such realistic game effects are necessary.
Not only were game forums talking about it, but Xiao Yu soon discovered that his post had also appeared on the homepages of major virtual communities.
These virtual communities can be said to be the hub of public opinion in this era. News from almost the entire world is read and watched here. Xiao Yu never expected that his video would be featured on a world-class news website. This made him feel both proud and uneasy.
Among these inflammatory posts, one in particular garnered significant attention.
A post titled "Bloody violence and ****, what's wrong with games these days?"
The content of the post was quite simple.
[Modern games are no longer purely for entertainment as they used to be; instead, they have become a place for some people to vent their violent and sexual desires. As a result, some games have started using gore, violence, and explicit content as gimmicks to attract players. Recently, there has been such a game that is not only extremely inappropriate but has even shown such scenes to a global audience. Below is a screenshot from a match in this game.]
The first scene shown in this post was of the Succubus Queen making her appearance, and very "thoughtfully" pixelated her private parts.
The result is that it gives the impression that the succubus queen is completely naked—although she wasn't actually wearing much, the mosaic instantly transforms her originally sexy and alluring image into that of a blatantly promiscuous female celebrity.
A voiceover also appeared while this video was playing.
[Modern games have become so obscene, using women's bodies as a selling point; it's truly morally depraved. Not only that, the level of gore and violence in these games is appalling.]
What followed was a scene of Xiao Yu furiously beating up thousands of adventurers, accompanied by narration.
[The game's graphic violence and gore inevitably encourage imitation and borrowing in real life. Furthermore, this rampant killing can easily trigger negative emotions. I believe this kind of game should be banned and should never be allowed on players' screens.]
However, the comments under this post were somewhat ironic, because very few people supported it; instead, some unexpected comments appeared.
[Very Adult: Holy crap, what game is this? It's amazing! I'll download it too.]
[Two Books Serious: What era are you from, OP? What era are we living in that you're still talking about pornography? There are so many adult games out there, why are you picking on a role-playing game?]
[Little Piggy So Cute: Upstairs, what game is this? Is that tentacle monster a player? It looks so cool!]
Xiao Yu closed his browser, thinking to himself that things were escalating far too quickly. Something felt off. The match had just ended this morning, and so many posts had already appeared by the afternoon. This was abnormal, very abnormal. He wondered how the official response would be.
He opened the game's official website, only to find an announcement.
[Game Announcement: Patch 1.31 Release Announcement.]
[Our company deeply regrets what happened during the competition this morning. In pursuit of a realistic gaming experience, we neglected the psychological impact on players. We sincerely apologize for this and have immediately taken remedial measures.]
In the Sky World 1.31 patch, we added Harmony System to the game. After players enable the Harmony System, all bleeding effects in the game will be removed.
At the same time, Mosaic Harmony System has been added. For overly violent scenes, such as decapitation, dismemberment, and mutilation, the system will automatically generate a mosaic to cover the scene, preventing overly bloody scenes from having a negative psychological impact on players.
Players can choose whether or not to enable the Harmony System.
Players can also purchase the Advanced Harmony Pack in the game store using in-game currency. The Advanced Harmony Pack can transform the bleeding effect into fun effects such as jam, ink, popcorn, rose petals, and LEGO bricks.
The Advanced Harmony Pack can also harmonize broken limbs into various interesting and unique appearances such as fruits, bread, ceramic shards, and plush toys.
The Advanced Harmony Pack is priced at 199 points, but during the Demon King Tournament, it will be offered at a special half-price discount, for only 99 points.
Furthermore, our company will also be launching the Deluxe Harmony Pack and the Supreme Harmony Pack in the future. Please stay tuned.