After an unprecedentedly tumultuous apocalyptic ritual, the game was “rebooted.”

Two years ago in November, Netease’s apocalyptic survival game “After Tomorrow” was officially launched. By virtue of its unique gameplay design and art style, Aftermath of Tomorrow topped the iOS free charts as soon as it was launched, becoming a dark horse product that was in full bloom at the time.

And to this day, two years of operation of the “After Tomorrow” is still amazing after. The author learned that the “After Tomorrow” has more than 200 million registered users, water ranking Netease system hand tour TOP3.

This is not surprising, from the external list, “after tomorrow” has been steadily OPPO, Huawei and other Android channels best-selling list head. However, what is surprising is that such a handheld game with such excellent results, but recently sent out an announcement to all players, announcing that the game will soon be suspended.

It all started with that night.

An anniversary event never before seen in the history of handheld games – the night of Doomsday LIVE!

The original “After Tomorrow” will be updated on November 7, the update will usher in the third season of the content.

The official definition is that the whole world will be “rebooted” and all players will leave the old world behind and move on to the new world of Doomsday.

Therefore, the government has prepared an unprecedented apocalyptic party for all players at this time of transition between the old and new worlds.

The event used a wide range of online and offline simultaneous live streaming form, online, based on the game elements and doomsday tone, with electro, rap, poppin and other trendy audio-visual expression forms, to create a trendy party night containing NPCs, infected and players three-way interaction within the game, and synchronized Douyu, tigers, CC and other more than 10 live broadcast platforms.

The NPCs and bosses in the game all took to the field, picked up the microphone, danced the street, a unique apocalyptic aesthetic style of audiovisual expression. In this party night design, everyone (players) and non-human (enemies) have put aside the hatred in the backstory, whether they were once enemies or friends, tonight all party together.

Online, “After Tomorrow” first cooperated with Guangzhou Changlong, “Hope Valley Tunnel”, “Happy 101” and other game landmarks to “transport” to the reality, and combined with electronic music, to create an immersive apocalyptic party.

Similarly, the characters from the game TAXX, a famous bar in Shanghai, broke the “dimensional wall” and appeared in the crowd, dancing in the psychedelic smoke at the bar, enjoying and indulging in the carnival night.

Doomsday and rave, farewell and new life, clash, fuse and sublimate in the frenetic dancing and singing.

According to internal data, the number of people online in After Tomorrow doubled on the night of the rave, even forcing players to be allowed to enter in separate lines to reduce server pressure.

Players’ enthusiasm for LIVE wasn’t just reflected in the numbers, as on various social media outlets, countless players expressed their feelings for the NPCs of the night, expressing their own part of the apocalyptic DNA of the frenzy.

Why did Aftermath forgo the celebratory anniversary celebrations commonly used by industry peers and go to such great lengths to create an apocalyptic party filled with fervor that connects online and offline? This may start with its audience.

As an apocalyptic survival game, After Tomorrow has always left a heavy impression of a collapsing society, the end of civilization, and humans struggling to survive under high pressure, but this impression is not only the dark color of depression, but also the bright color of humans chasing hope under desperate circumstances – this conflict is the “human nature” that the apocalyptic survival genre strives to show, and also the “spiritual core” that the audience values most.

And this “humanity” extends to many apocalyptic scenes, such as how people will walk towards the end of the world and what kind of actions they will take before the end.

Every fan of apocalyptic games has probably fantasized about such a scenario to some extent – the pressure to survive under a completely collapsed order has reached a critical point over the years, and the old world has been declared dead, and all familiar things will vanish overnight.

Doomsday and partying are always a good combination, that’s why Aftermath doesn’t celebrate its anniversary in the usual way of other games, but based on the apocalyptic tone, stirring up the players’ nerves to release themselves.

Because that’s what the apocalyptic audience really wants, and at the same time, there’s nothing more violent and fitting than a party to say goodbye to the past and usher in a new life amidst the depression of the apocalypse.

Rebirth: a more realistic world of apocalyptic crisis

Behind such a big promotion campaign is a version iteration with real content. The above-mentioned “end of the old world” is not a marketing tactic, but rather the original framework of the game is broken and the underlying logic of the game is reorganized to reconstruct the world of “After Tomorrow” – the world of “After Tomorrow”! -As the Season 3 theme tagline would suggest, the entire world welcomes a reboot.

Tomorrow Never Dies Season 3 Live Action Trailer

Such a drastic reform was quickly reflected in the results, and the update hit ninth on the iOS free charts on the day of the update.

In the third season, all the map level restrictions and air walls have been broken, allowing players to explore the world freely without any restrictions. All the maps will be linked together to form a truly seamless world, so that players no longer have to constantly switch between areas, but can move freely to get to the areas they want to reach, just like in the real world.

In addition, more complex landscapes and resource generation systems have been added to the game, making the world more realistic and varied. On top of that, the game also includes a four-season system, where different seasons will not only change the landscape but also affect the output of resources, making the world more dynamic and vivid.

The more realistic world is followed by a stronger pressure to survive. In Season 3, the Infected have increased in intelligence and scale, calling upon their companions, employing outflanking tactics and destroying key facilities, no longer the traditional apocalyptic survival monsters waiting to be swiped, but the real “dangers” of the apocalyptic world. “.

This series of updates means that the Seamless Big World is not a generic template. Rather, it is a large world within an apocalyptic framework, where resources, environments, monsters, etc. all operate according to the ecological laws of the apocalyptic world, testing the player’s dynamic survival strategy choices even more.

What exactly are players playing when they are in an apocalyptic survival game

In all fairness, if you break down the main gameplay in the Doomsday Survival game, whether it’s building, collecting or PVE for destroying large groups of enemies, it’s not unique to Doomsday, but combining these gameplay methods together under the general framework of Doomsday Survival can always create a unique excitement that makes players want to stop.

So, why are players so fascinated?

As the TOP of the apocalyptic survival category, the answer given by After Tomorrow often represents the trend of the category, and from the update of the third season, we can also get a glimpse of its design philosophy from its system changes.

On the one hand, the third season of After Tomorrow has made major adjustments to the underlying logic of the original gameplay, further distancing the focus of the player experience from the traditional handheld mode and emphasizing the pressure of survival throughout the apocalyptic setting to continue to give players a sense of excitement and accomplishment. For example, by improving the intelligence of the infected and giving players more diverse and three-dimensional combat options, the underlying logic of “accumulating resources with multiple parties – expanding survival space” will guide players to connect with each other and use resources efficiently in the apocalyptic environment.

On the other hand, the third season of Tomorrowland also places more emphasis on the integration of gameplay. It is true that shooting, collecting, and building are all classic gameplay designs, but in the context of apocalyptic survival, these gameplay styles have more meaning – they are no longer isolated from each other, but integrated and integrated in the apocalyptic context, ultimately serving “survival” and immersion. The most important thing is that it’s a doomsday survival experience service.

What is reflected behind these changes is the thought of the product and the insight into the needs of the current players.

The drastic changes made by “After Tomorrow” also convey to the outside world that the experience players want to get in this kind of theme game is not just a simple brush against monsters or an unchanging map, they are eager to die in a desperate situation and be reborn afterwards, eager to chase a faint hope in a high-pressure survival environment, and eager to connect with more people to build a new order and nurture a new hope in a world that is falling apart. ……

Back to the just-concluded binge night, the decision to discontinue service, and the version update for Season 3. The gesture presented by the “After Tomorrow” product and brand, that is, whether it was a blue or red sea in the past, is now to start again and sail to a new sea that the category has not seen before.

The dark horse that sprang up two years ago is not silent, but keeps breaking through to the next higher peak. This apocalyptic survival drama is like an American drama, and it’s starting a new season.

After Tomorrow players on Weibo are keen to take screenshots of the third season of the game.

The “passenger” players, who follow the ship, also give their response with their actions.