Chapter 37
Chapter 37
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Silver Dragon
Chapter: 37
Chapter Title: Warrior
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“Huck, you must’ve dropped a serious chunk of change on this stuff, huh?”
“Way scarier that you recognized it.”
Rogers stepped into the newly renovated fourth floor and immediately started looking around, letting out gasps of admiration.
The fourth floor had indeed taken a ton of work, since it was built as a dedicated studio space.
To keep sound from leaking to the other floors, they’d started with soundproofing walls and even set up a separate recording booth for capturing audio with pinpoint precision.
What had Rogers especially awestruck right now were the speakers up front.
Westlake BBSM-15.
These top-of-the-line beasts—normally only found in Hollywood studios—were infamous for their brutal $15,000 price tag when paired with the dedicated amp.
“But why drag us up here if you won’t spill what the new game even is?”
Jason couldn’t hold back his curiosity anymore, piping up next to Rogers, who was too busy gawking at all the sound direction gear.
“The next title’s going out on Uni’s console hardware.”
“What? Uni? The Walkman guys?”
The exclusive deal Savior had inked with Uni was classified info—only Scarlett and Jane knew about it besides me.
“Now that we’re all together, let me be clear: this stays locked down until Uni’s device reveal this December.”
Everyone nodded, faces tense.
I made a point to shoot Jason one extra warning glare.
“Jason, one more leak from you, and it won’t just be termination.”
“...Got it.”
He’d spilled the beans on our past programs and games way too often, so it was smart to lay down the law.
I might catch some side-eye for coming down so hard on a buddy,
but
Savior’s on track to become a major corporation. Without ironclad rules from here on out, it’s doomed to crumble.
Setting those boundaries firm before we scaled up was crucial.
Start making exceptions for friends or OGs, and you’re planting a time bomb for the future.
One loophole always breeds more.
“Point is, this Uni launch title? Think totally different scale and genre from everything we’ve done so far.”
Dead Hills was a solo dev job. Village Maker pulled in some manpower, but still indie-tier. This new one? It was edging into what folks would later call AAA territory.
“Jane, cue up the music you prepped.”
“Right away.”
No sooner had she answered than Jane killed all the fourth-floor lights and got ready to play the track.
As the conference room plunged into darkness and the music swelled, the space felt like the dead hush of a fog-shrouded forest.
The opening sounds were alien, crystalline.
Like a single raindrop plinking into still water... or bow strings delicately scraping the frigid air of a frozen dawn.
L layered over it was something like a human voice—but not quite. An otherworldly hum that conjured pure mystery.
No lyrics. Barebones melody. And yet it hit like dredging up some ancient memory from eons ago.
Then, thudding between the notes, came deep, ponderous drumbeats—like echoes rumbling up from the earth’s core. Your pulse couldn’t help but race.
Less music, more the primal warning growl of beasts stirring underground.
The team could feel their bodies tense up instinctively.
When Jane’s track finally faded, someone whispered,
“That wasn’t music... it was an incantation.”
The whole crew murmured agreement, faces a mix of confusion and awe, still puzzling over what they’d just heard.
Who arranges Korean instruments this masterfully? Real instinct like that has to be innate.
Even on a repeat listen, Jane’s composition left me in awe all over again.
- I went with haegeum and gayageum for the leads. They’ve got that clear tone with a rich afterglow. But to avoid it feeling too sparse, I treated the big drum like a full kit. What do you think? Builds that rising tension just from the sound alone, right?!
Hearing it was enough to paint a vivid scene: you, squared off against something mystical and unknowable.
“So, what’d that music bring to mind for you all?”
I asked the still-dazed team.
“Uh... something mystical.”
“Mystical, yeah, but it stirred up this uneasy vibe too...”
“Totally! The sounds were soft, but it felt like we had to brace for a fight.”
Their takes lined up perfectly with mine.
Just a bare music cue—no context—and she’d unified everyone’s emotions like that? It blew past my expectations by a mile.
“That’s exactly the vibe for the game we’re building.”
“Huh?”
“An action-hunting game where you stalk and slay mystical, awe-inspiring fantasy beasts.”
Provisional title: Warrior.
Game genres came in all shapes and sizes.
Get granular enough, and you’d hit hundreds of subcategories.
But if you had to crown the “royalty” of genres? Adventure, RPG, action, and FPS usually topped the list.
And out of those, I’d zeroed in on action.
Best way to show off the physics and graphics engines straight-up intuitive.
Savior’s top priority right now: our game engine.
Tailored to Uni’s specs, so we couldn’t unleash its full potential—but even hobbled, it’d outpace the competition for years.
Post-Village Maker, I’d obsessed over the perfect genre: one that maximized the engine and crushed commercially.
Narrowed it down to two finalists.
But after hearing Jane’s track, I locked in on Warrior.
Warrior.
An old Korean term once thought to mean “fighter.”
Of course,
Later got debunked as a modern coinage, but it still caught fire back then.
From “Goryeo-era warrior” rumors to all sorts of origins, Warrior sparked endless debate before the truth came out.
But honestly? Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Other countries peddle fabricated history all day. Historical accuracy is for academics—games are all about fun.
My most-hated games and devs? The ones that lecture players or cram in their personal manifestos.
Games exist for play, pure and simple.
Devs’ one job: make it fun for the people holding the controller.
Not “teach life lessons.”
Warrior was no different.
I picked the Warrior hook because it had a cool ring and screamed unique.
Whether it was “real” history? Irrelevant.
Hong Kong action flicks were blowing up in the West right now—from Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan, riding that exotic Eastern martial arts wave.
But China and Japan were already household names, so freshness was waning. Enter Korea’s Warrior—a concept that’d skyrocket culturally down the line.
Eastern warriors hunting legendary beasts.
Western myths were game staples by now. Eastern ones? Still exotic turf.
Factor in how many killer beasts lurked in Eastern lore, and this worldbuilding had global appeal locked in.
Especially for hunting-action, where action and graphics were make-or-break.
Deliver action and visuals that make Final Fantasy VII look like a joke? People would lose their minds.
If any series owned those two pillars, it was Final Fantasy.
FFVII in particular left massive footprints on the industry.
Pre-FFVII, consoles were 2D turf. Its groundbreaking 3D shifted the whole paradigm.
But what if we blew that away with god-tier graphics and my physics engine for action generations ahead? The reaction would be unimaginable.
Image locked in: a spear-wielding Warrior taking down a nine-tailed fox spirit. Yeah, this was it.
“Intriguing.”
Jackson couldn’t tear his eyes from the mountain of docs piled on his desk.
Legendary creatures used to mean dragons, vampires, trolls to him.
But
‘You’ve gotta read every bit of this. These are just the basics—company card’s open if you need more.’
Staring at the stack Savior’s CEO Huck had dumped on him, Jackson realized just how narrow his worldview had been.
A “dragon”—Western dragon vibes, but totally alien look.
“Dokkaebi”: spirits born when souls possess old objects.
“Yamata no Orochi”: eight-headed serpent, a Japanese god.
“Kumiho”: enigmatic nine-tailed fox across Korea, China, Japan.
Western legends feel contrived. Eastern ones? Born from nature itself.
As he pored over the files, that mystical, dreamlike track from the fourth-floor team huddle floated back up.
Pair those beasts with that score? Perfect harmony.
Gonna be brutal. Workload from hell.
Not knowing which would make the cut, Jackson had to redesign every creature here into game-ready form.
Plus a mysterious, wide-brimmed-hat Eastern warrior protagonist.
Massive undertaking ahead—he could feel it in his bones.
Still,
“You ever going home? New girlfriend not pissed?”
“We’re done. Fuckin’ Huck—thinks we’re trash, huh?! I’ll shove that smug nose in.”
“Preach, Rogers. What, our hundred days of grind won’t top his one week, so he’s telling us to phone it in?”
The dev team was split off now, but every time Jackson swung by the second floor for business, the vibe was pure blood feud. He just kept his head down and worked.