Mistake (2)
"Oh, the lobby looks pretty cool."
After the game finished downloading and I’d created my account, I was greeted by a seriously stylish lobby screen.
It was the sort of scene that fed you pure tactical dopamine: a soldier in night-vision goggles, rifle raised and aimed straight at the screen.
Judging by the chat’s reaction and the way the viewer count had already swelled, it was definitely a game with a solid following among military fans.
That meant more pressure for me, too, but I couldn’t just let a chance like this slip through my fingers.
I’d give them the best, god-tier control they’d ever seen.
"Let’s see... there’s campaign and multiplayer. What should I start with?"
Before I fully dove into the stream, I studied the lobby and spotted two options.
Single-player campaign, and multiplayer.
Each had obvious strengths and weaknesses.
If I went with single-player, the difficulty would be relatively forgiving compared to multiplayer, which meant I could move the broadcast along smoothly without getting stuck every few minutes.
And if I played it while really getting into the story, I might even earn bonus points from the game’s fans.
The problem was that if the story turned out to be complete trash, then not only would I be bored, but the viewers would lose interest too.
On top of that, campaign mode was linear by nature, which made it even more likely to drag.
Multiplayer, on the other hand, created a much more fluid and original flow than any campaign ever could, with all its countless variables.
And because I’d be fighting actual people, the psychological warfare and raw mechanics would create a tense, satisfying edge that wouldn’t give the viewers a moment to get bored.
But for someone just starting the game, going into multiplayer before I’d gotten used to the controls was basically the same as sticking my neck out and begging, please kill me.
In a realism-driven military game like MILSIM, there would definitely be veteran monsters out there who’d grown to a disgusting, inhuman level of skill.
So what was my appeal to the viewers supposed to be?
In a gender-reversed world like this one, a stream hosted by a male war veteran had a rare kind of novelty to it.
So what did people expect from a veteran?
Not everyone was the same, of course, but most of them wanted to see one doing insanely well at FPS games, especially military FPS titles.
Real combat and games were worlds apart, but from the point of view of viewers who’d never experienced combat themselves, they couldn’t help but see a veteran through the lens of all the media images they’d been fed.
In other words, if I picked multiplayer and then got crushed by some hardened sweatlord, public opinion would probably turn ugly in a hurry.
On the flip side, if I happened to play brilliantly, the crowd could explode in a storm of positive reactions.
It was the textbook definition of high risk, high reward.
"What do you guys think? Should I do the campaign first, or jump straight into multiplayer?"
I didn’t really want to gamble, so I silently prayed that everyone would choose the campaign.
"Ah."
To my immense relief, people started recommending the single-player mode, apparently because MILSIM’s solo content also served as a tutorial. The chat quickly tipped in favor of doing the campaign first.
"All right. Let’s give it a shot!"
Finally able to breathe a little easier, I let out a silent cheer and clicked the campaign button.
That was close. I nearly got beaten to a pulp by the veterans.
If it’s single-player, this should be a lot more manageable, right?
.
.
.
.
.
An ambitious title developed by Black Eagle Entertainment, a U.S. studio specializing in hyper-realistic military games.
MILSIM was a war simulation game in which up to a hundred players fought on massive maps.
It featured a realistic physics engine and graphics, the removal of ally-enemy identification, and damage that varied depending on which part of the body was hit.
In other games, a character usually had to take at least five bullets before going down, but in MILSIM, one or two rifle rounds were enough.
There were in-game voice effects that changed depending on the surrounding environment, a “play dead” function that forced you to confirm the kill, and equipment malfunctions that made your stomach drop in the middle of a frantic firefight.
Tanks that showcased overwhelming firepower and armor, armored vehicles with high mobility, and even the helicopters and fighter jets that were every infantryman’s nightmare were all faithfully implemented, and players called it the very embodiment of a military nerd’s dream.
But because the developers had done everything they could to preserve realism, the game was riddled with obstacles that made it brutal for casual players...
[Ominous description]
"I... this is the tutorial?"
The damn tutorial, set in a military training camp, was one of those obstacles.
Like most tutorials, it was built around a sunglasses-wearing instructor who taught you the controls and systems.
Wham—
"Ah, shit... I hit the wrong key...!"
[Ominous description]
What a shitty game...
A truly, utterly shitty game...
I swallowed my tears and struggled to endure the instructor’s nonstop stream of profanity.
[Recruit, turn off the flashlight, now!]
[Recruit, move your ass!]
[Recruit!]
[Recruit!]
"Ghaaaah...!"
Just as my ears had started feeling permanently violated by the instructor’s screaming, the infantry training ended, and armor training began. When that was over, air force training followed without so much as a breather.
As someone who’d come from the infantry, I was baffled by the unfamiliar controls. I managed to get the hang of the armored vehicle pretty quickly, but the air force stuff was absolutely hopeless.
This insane game of realism had fully implemented every cockpit button and function in a fighter jet, which meant you had to memorize the purpose of each one just to fly the thing.
On top of that, the aircraft would shake depending on wind direction and strength, and if you messed up the controls when hitting turbulence, you’d stall and plummet out of the sky.
What the hell was this supposed to be, a game?
It was basically a military VR training program.
By the time I’d finished all that misery and cleared the tutorial, a full hour had passed.
I really wanted to see the face of whoever designed this tutorial.
I was genuinely confident I’d take good care of them.
Holding back the frustration boiling up in my chest, I stared at the cutscene playing on the monitor.
[Congratulations. At last, you’ve become a human being.]
"Heh heh heh... go to hell, Instructor."
"Yeah, it really does feel like the day you leave boot camp..."
As I watched the cutscene, a weird mixture of anger and emotion rose in my chest—the exact feeling I’d had when I’d left the training camp.
Who would’ve thought a game tutorial could make me feel something so contradictory, this awful and yet so strangely moving at the same time?
Did the developers actually plan for this?
If so, they were complete perverts.
While I leaned back in my chair and gave my exhausted mind a moment to recover, one of the chat messages caught my eye.
"Ah."
For a moment, an icy chill ran down my spine.
My sensitive survival instincts warned me that something was wrong, but—
"Aaaaaagh!!!"
By then, my retreat had already been cut off by the viewers.
I screamed and flailed around, desperately trying to survive somehow, but reality wasn’t going to change just because I threw a tantrum.
"Save me..."
And so, with the expression of a prisoner being dragged to the execution grounds, I had no choice but to enter the real game...