Yourspace
She nails exactly why even when four newbies stack up on the same game, a single mission still eats 40–50 minutes.
Yeah, camping in a corner and just shooting isn't how this game works lmao
I was watching the stream with my jaw on the floor. This psycho is actually insane lmao. At this point isn't it just an aimbot?
Specialty was firearms. If I drop my class number someone could ID me, so just think of me as a special forces NCO who did four years and got out right on schedule.
Anyway, I got lucky enough during my service to bounce all over the place and shoot a bunch of stuff beyond just the K-series. For this write-up I'll stick to that rifle that looks like an HK416 derivative.
There's going to be a lot of personal opinion in here — it's my standard, but it's also a special forces standard, so keep that in mind while you read.
This is the plaza right in front of the UN General Assembly main entrance — the one you all keep sneaking into to loot. See how many cars are parked around? Every gallery regular knows this spot is infamous for cover density.
There's a really subtle detail here too. You see the part where Harmony tries to open a car door and take cover behind it, and this user stops her? That's because those doors punch through way easier than people think.
If you're using a vehicle as cover, you need to put the engine block or the axle — the actual chunks of steel — between you and the threat. That's basic. Watch a few more seconds and you'll see enemies who just cracked a door open and half-assed their cover getting their bodies ventilated. One wrong move and that's you.
That's a C-grip — the stance you see all the time in room clearing. Not sure how often you guys actually run it in-game haha.
Anyway, it's textbook and stable, so not much to criticize there. But look closer and the entry speed after the breach is ridiculously fast. If I'd moved like that, my senior or the instructor would've cracked me across the back of the head.
Whether you can maintain that level of accuracy and rate of fire without slowing down, though — I honestly don't know. Maybe a US tier-one special operations unit could pull it off.
And midway through you can see the rapid strong-hand/support-hand transitions around cover. If the gallery rumor mill is right and this person is a hardcore user, I genuinely have nothing left to say.
I figure a lot of you have been wiped out by getting outgunned or botching your positioning. This person just solves it by dropping every incoming enemy before they can even take cover.
Grip technique, recoil control — nothing off there. Look carefully and you'll notice they run both-eyes-open shooting from start to finish, probably for full situational awareness.
There's a suppressor on so muzzle flash is basically nonexistent, but most people still reflexively blink when they fire. This person just doesn't care at all and keeps shredding hostiles.
I can't say for sure, but at this level it feels like a genuinely excellent instructor spent a long time tearing apart and rebuilding everything — fingering, eye line, the works. I can't even begin to guess what this person actually does.
Personally, I think this is someone who trained somewhere real and then got thoroughly seasoned in actual combat. Look close enough and every single motion has a tactical purpose behind it.
I enjoy Dark Zone myself, and even with 100% assist, I've never once seen anyone implement all of this stuff this completely.
I'm not a motion developer so I can't speak to the technical side, but I never expected my military service to come in handy analyzing something like this haha.
Man, suddenly craving Dark Zone. Logging in, peace out
Clank.
I fired off a short reply, then wrapped my hands firmly around the loaded bar and drove it up off the rack. A heavy, familiar pressure settled over my entire upper body.
The fitness club owner had custom-ordered a couple of back pads with the hip section cut open just the day before, so I was finally working the upper body I'd been neglecting. He'd even gone out and bought a dozen-odd 50 kg powerlifting plates just for me. The results were showing, sure — but at this rate I almost felt too guilty to keep coming.
Of course, he insisted it was fine, saying word of mouth had spread so fast that people were lining up to sign memberships. Still, something about it sat uneasily with me.
A dizzying weight. Roughly 700 lbs — 320 kg — of mass traveling through the air on nothing but human strength. Blood flooded into maximally compressed muscle, and sweat poured off me of its own accord.
Up to about this point, holding seven reps for a single set of bench press was manageable. Looking at the three people — the owner plus the trainers on staff — glued to my side just in case something went wrong, I felt pretty bad about it.
I finished strong through the last rep and set the bar back on the catchers. Everyone broke into applause at once, unable to hide their amazement.
"This is exactly why they ban Awakened from powerlifting competitions…."
"I'm getting some serious cognitive dissonance right now. In-ho hyung, you know what I mean, right?"
"How could I not."
Fair enough. Looking at it from their perspective — a body that barely even looked muscular suddenly throwing around insane weight — of course it'd leave them speechless.
Granted, lifting wasn't only about moving heavy numbers; it was also a form of self-discipline aimed at better muscular aesthetics. But by the same token, the former was a perfectly valid goal in its own right. There was a reason the phrase "1,100-pound total" floated around the internet.
Anyway, I hadn't come today to hit a max. More precisely, I'd come to wake up the physical capacity I'd been letting atrophy — moderate weight, moderate reps. There were rumors that your chest would shrink, but as long as you fed yourself enough calories while training, it was fine. Thoracic volume improved in all kinds of ways, actually.
Not that I particularly wanted to know the details.
I checked the time, ran back through the sets I'd done today, and decided that was enough. After giving the trainers a heads-up, I started peeling the plates off one by one. The three of them returned to their posts. Today I chose the bike over the treadmill — no particular reason, except that Harmony had messaged me directly, so I figured I ought to check.
I settled onto the saddle, coiled my tail loosely around my arm so it wouldn't drag on the floor, and pedaled my way onto the Yourspace home screen. Since I hadn't watched much of anything, the algorithm was pure chaos.
I tapped the magnifying glass and searched for Harmony. A channel with 420,000 subscribers popped straight to the top. I clicked it without hesitation.
The thumbnails were, broadly speaking… a cute green cat character striking poses related to each video's content. Wholesome. Adorable. That was the overall first impression.
And then one of them caught my eye.
〔Harmony〕 A Game Where Suffering Just Begets More Suffering! Survive the Dead City! [Dark Zone — Day 1]
Ah. This one.
Anyone could tell it was brand new — dropped at the top of the upload list a mere few dozen minutes ago, already past 40,000 views and climbing.
Before I hit play, I looked at the thumbnail. Two panels. The first showed a thoroughly battered chibi Harmony clutching someone's foot and wailing for a party invite. And beside her… a black silhouette that I could only assume was me, rendered with truly majestic grandeur.
A speech bubble had been helpfully stuck on as well.
'Buckle up.'
…When did I ever say that, you absolute gremlin.
Runtime: 22 minutes 45 seconds. Considering most Yourspace videos capped out around the ten-minute mark, that was quite long. And she still had three or four more unreleased after this?
Quality was set to max, so it buffered a bit. Unable to sit through even that brief stretch of boredom, I flicked a finger and scrolled down into the comments.
…There were a lot of them.
Meanwhile, sound started coming through the Bluetooth earbuds I'd stuck in my ears. Must have finished loading — 16K quality would explain the wait.
I really needed to replace my phone soon, but unfortunately, with the cost of a dive rig, every expense had to be carefully weighed. The computer was still running, so the money would come eventually, but….
"La la la la, la la la… Ah, ah. Mic check. Mic check. Hello, I'm Harmony."
"Alright, today's game iiiis———"
And then the screen cut hard.
Login, character creation, first engagement. Exuberant screams and frantic jump cuts flashed past in rapid succession, an intro rolled, and the video proper began.
The opening wasn't all that different from mine, except this video showed the sliders in considerable detail. Every time a bar went up, a subtitle reading '+Coward Points' popped out beside it, and I let out a small laugh.
Then the sudden acceleration.
"…Ugh, no, hang on. Hey! You guys told me it was hard even with every slider maxed so I did it that way, why are you calling me Super Coward!"
So that was the behind-the-scenes. Though the Super Coward title did seem fairly earned.
After that, two conflicting mission objectives dropped. Harmony sighed, abandoned the one that looked harder, and started moving. Even with the skips in between, the editor — presumably for the viewers' sake — kept a live map up showing which direction she was heading. For the most part she took the same route I had.
Which meant the person who'd been ahead of me last time was almost certainly her.
And then the first firefight.
"No, the safehouse is right there! How do I get spotted by a recon squad noooow! What's with this timing!?"
A streamer's scream packed with agony all the way down to her soul, and in stark contrast, a flood of chat messages stuffed full of laughter. They scrolled past too fast to read, like watching a minigun feed belt cycle.
Still, the assist system seemed to be doing some work — the video even included a bit where she scooped up a grenade that had rolled in and chucked it back. That part was pretty impressive.
But the next moment came with a dry clicking sound.
"Hey, hey! What the—! Bullets won't come out! What's wrong with this thing! Help me!"
"Oh, for crying out loud…."
Doing everything right and then forgetting to reload was a little hard to process.
After all that back and forth, she practically crawled into the safehouse and flopped onto a field cot, proving just how mentally drained she was. At the same moment, the camera locked onto the staircase descending beyond her line of sight.
And then, after some stretch of time—
—those seven letters floated effortlessly above my avatar's head as I ambled down the stairs, trailing along as naturally as if they'd always belonged there.
What… what was I even supposed to call this. Embarrassing? Or….
"I'm going to lose my mind, seriously…."
Faced with editing stuffed full of deranged creative instincts, all I could do was mutter to myself.
The video ended on that exact scene, with a rather charmingly edited next-episode teaser tucked small into the closing moments. It was less about spoiling content and more about plucking just the critical beats to stoke curiosity for the next one — and it looked like it was going to be pretty entertaining too.
Maybe this was why people watched edited videos. The thought drifted through my head.
I'd only watched a single video and already twenty-something minutes had gone by. My whole body was soaked in sweat again, and my thighs were starting to ache.
The device and my phone were linked, so I could open the messaging app and send a reply with nothing but a thought.
Should I?
I still had a little over thirty minutes before I needed to wrap up the workout, so I scrolled down and decided to check out the other videos on her Yourspace channel.
Some amount of time later.
No, seriously.
What kind of channel was nothing but a game about climbing out of a jar with a hammer, a golf ball game, and a video of bouncing up on a pogo stick?