Chapter 195
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 195
Chapter Title: Side Quest (1)
A bewildered voice came from over the receiver.
It was Yuri Jackson.
—I don't think I did anything special… It's all thanks to the team and the president helping me.
Even from halfway across the world, his tone made it obvious he couldn't grasp the reality of the situation.
Well, he had just joined the ranks of GOTY-winning directors. How could he not be overwhelmed?
I understood his feelings completely.
I was exactly the same when I first won a GOTY award.
“That’s enough modesty. You did more than your fair share, Yuri.”
—No, really. I barely did anything…!
“You’re saying some funny things. Anyway, the business department should have sent you an email about your schedule after the awards ceremony. We’ve fixed the places you need to visit, the newspapers you’ll be interviewing with, and even the expected questions, so just go and have a comfortable time.”
—It’s just, *phew*… *haah*…!
Only deep, heavy breaths, not human words, came through.
Of course. His heart must be pounding too hard to calm down.
He would need more time to accept that this was reality.
I looked at the footage of Yuri’s acceptance speech on my computer screen with a pleased heart.
I planned to record a copy and show it to him when he returned to Korea.
“That’s all for now. I have a surprise gift for you when you get back, so you can look forward to it.”
—Rather than a gift, an extension on my vacation…
“Well then, goodbye.”
*Click—*
I hung up the phone.
I pretended I didn't hear his last words.
This was a crucial time to ride the momentum and dive into Hellic 0’s development, so taking a break was out of the question.
Besides, hadn’t he already taken about half a year off for the Hellic 2 Remake development break until the middle of this year?
‘He’s had enough time to play.’
Playing too much isn't good.
It dulls your development sense and creates difficulties for the next project.
After finishing that major task, I stretched.
My stiff body let out a chorus of cracks, waking itself up.
Thinking about it again, it was true.
‘It was a good call to delay it until ’21.’
I could have pushed for the Hellic 2 Remake to be released in 2020, but deliberately postponing it to this year was an excellent choice.
Thanks to that, we were able to clinch the honor of winning two of the five major game awards.
‘The competition was light this year.’
The COVID-19 pandemic had completely scrambled the new release schedules of major development studios.
Perhaps because of that, there weren't many masterpieces released in 2021 that were considered GOTY material, and Hellic 2 Remake had exquisitely slipped through that gap to secure the award.
Suddenly, a memory from over ten years ago came to mind.
‘It was hell back then.’
I still get chills thinking about the original Hellic 2.
The release timing happened to overlap with Minecraft, and the indie GOTY competition was so intense it made me break out in a cold sweat.
Although we beat Minecraft when it was still in its early development stages, the fact that the moniker ‘The Game That Beat Minecraft’ still follows Hellic 2 proves that the choice back then was indeed brilliant.
Well, that game has now grown to a scale Studio Rewind’s operating profits can't even dream of touching, but that’s not my problem.
‘If they didn't like it, they should have won back when it was released.’
For some reason, thinking about that time made my chest swell with pride.
I felt like a man who could do anything, and I couldn't let that feeling go to waste.
“Ho-su, call a meeting.”
“Yes, sir. All of a sudden?”
“It feels like the right time to push things forward.”
“All of a sudden?”
“Let’s meet in the conference room in an hour.”
What needs to be done now is… right.
“It's a meeting about side quests.”
The task of making an open world a *true* open world.
* * *
Open-world games were a genre that required an immense scale of development resources.
Putting everything else aside, just the multi-faceted map implementation and designating multiple play routes were enough to completely drain the development team.
But it didn't end there.
If you also considered the work of embedding enough content to dangle freedom as bait, and the interactions between various objects, the developers would have to groan in agony on the border between life and death.
The fortunate thing was that Hellic 5 had already cleared the planning for many of these elements.
The map design was more or less complete.
A rough outline of the main story and play direction was finished, the gimmicks for each map's theme were established, and the diverse playstyles applying them had been considered in a broad sense.
In fact, Hellic 5 is a playable game even at this stage.
It has the core structure of placing a character, letting them roam the map, join a main school, grow stronger, conquer all seven lands, and see the ending.
The QA department is currently testing that prototype plot.
See? There are bugs big and small, and comments like “Why doesn't this work?” that stab the planning and programming teams like knives, but isn't it undeniably certain that the game is, at least, in a functional state?
However, if someone were to ask me if Hellic 5 is an open-world game, I wouldn't be able to answer with confidence.
There’s only one reason.
“How can you call a game with only a main objective an open world? It limits the player’s sense of adventure.”
The ultimate fun of an open world comes from players freely intervening in and changing the events that occur in that world.
In other words, densely connected in-game elements must create a chemical reaction, adding to the world's vitality.
To achieve this, we need to add side quests.
Some might say they’re just side quests, but that’s a ridiculous notion.
Side quests are the very flower of a game that completes the open world.
People, abilities, and events that can be picked and chosen.
As these connect and create changes in the world, big and small, which then accumulate to alter the main route, who wouldn't be impressed by such vastness and intricacy?
How could it not be thrilling to look back and realize that the seemingly meaningless things you did all over the world have culminated into one grand event?
Even setting aside such grand narratives, by carefully portraying the world's various characters through side quests, the world transforms from a mere setting for achieving a goal into a living, breathing organism.
The legend of this genre, GTA, is a perfect example.
It thoroughly utilized a single map, designing within it countless stories, countless lives, and countless choices and challenges.
The game created in this way became another world—a gangster's LA—and its magic led to sales figures worthy of being called a console legend.
To use Hellic 5 as an example of the above, it would be like this.
Let's say there's a scholar who despises the fanatical Hadelun School.
By completing missions related to him in various side quests and building rapport, the player will eventually uncover a secret.
That secret is a special art called the "Vengeance Weapon against Hadelun."
The moment the secret art is completed, the quest NPC will pass the technique to the player and annihilate the Hadelun headquarters.
If that happens, you would no longer be able to use Hadelun's secret arts in that playthrough.
Instead, only one secret art, having lost its purpose, would remain.
This is just a simple example, but it's one of the major side quests we'll actually insert into the game.
The motif is a story of a man I saw in the Hell of Hedonism.
I finished explaining all of the above.
The planning team staff hummed and nodded.
It seemed they understood the gist of it.
“Then let’s get to the main point.”
Even after I said that, they just hummed and nodded.
I became curious and asked.
“What’s with the reaction?”
No answer came back.
Only Ji-seok muttered in a low voice.
“…We’re fucked.”
I really don't get why that man is so obsessed with that word.
I added a word of caution.
“No genital sword fighting.”
That man… I was afraid he might try it again.
* * *
Team 1 of Studio Rewind is hell on earth.
That was the internal evaluation, and that was the external reputation.
This raises a question.
Within Team 1, which team has the most horrific time?
『Neosoft: Which department at Rewind gets ground down the most?
Art? Or Programming?
Rewind: Art
Rewind: QA
Rewind: Programming
Hyundai Motors: Looks like all these bastards think they have it the worst lol
Civil Servant: But isn't any team in Rewind's Team 1 hell anyway? Seems like a pointless comparison…』
The answer is, ‘We don’t know.’
It was only natural.
When people are struggling, they don't have the luxury of looking around.
When you don't have the luxury of looking around, you don't have time to compare yourself to others.
In other words, everyone knows they are struggling, but they don't really know how others are suffering.
That's why it tends to be overlooked, but in truth, the answer was quite simple if you thought about it.
『Rewind: Still, the line directly under that bastard Cheon is the worst.
The planning team gets ground down on a whole other level.
Thanks to them, I’m coasting in the sound department ^^7
Hyundai Motors: I don’t think this guy is in the sound department… Is he a spy?』
Planning.
The team directly under Cheon Yeon-ho, The Greatest Son of a Bitch, the team that conceptualizes and finalizes the Hellic series from start to finish.
To the other teams, Yeon-ho was just someone who gave them work. But to the planning team, Yeon-ho was like a deep-sea monster opening its maw behind them.
One moment of carelessness meant unavoidable death.
He was the grim reaper, the end of the world, and the one who stood on the other side of quitting time.
As such, the employees who still held their positions under him were anything but ordinary.
*He who gazes into the abyss, the abyss gazes back into you.*
Just as Nietzsche said, the planning team members, having been exposed to the abyss for too long, had their brains corrupted to the point where they could now think things like, ‘What? Only 100 hours a week? It’s a light week, then!’
Even for such a team, this time was a grueling march.
Rewind’s first monumental open-world game.
The game that was devouring the most resources in the history of the Hellic series.
It was a difficult task on its own, but they had to do it while getting confirmation from Yeon-ho, who was second to none in being fastidious.
In this situation, some people screamed in agony.
Some people trembled and foamed at the mouth.
Of course, Yeon-ho wouldn't go easy on them for that.
The work piled up while they screamed, and it piled up while they foamed at the mouth.
In the end, acceptance.
This was the process that led to the planning team only being able to utter “hmmm” in response to Yeon-ho’s “side quest omakase” order.
They didn't think any grand thoughts.
Their bodies could no longer live unless they considered themselves planning-churning machines. They had become a part of the pandemonium that was Team 1’s planning department, so all they did was try to accurately grasp Yeon-ho’s intentions.
The planning team members looked at each other.
Their gazes were cold, and the temperature seemed to drop by two degrees.
Not even the warm air from the heater could warm the atmosphere in this place.
To put it in one phrase, it was this.
‘So, do we just have to kill each other now?’
Getting feedback and confirmation on their plans in a meeting.
That was no different from being told to kill each other.