Chapter 636: New Mission
Spring Festival, the first day of the new year.
This year, Chen Mo didn’t bother messing around with any tricky little games for the holiday. Instead, he just stayed home and kept a low profile.
Although Chen Mo’s family relationships were relatively simple—no need to visit a bunch of aunts and uncles—the Spring Festival still kept him fairly busy.
But there was one good thing: everyone now used messaging apps to send New Year’s greetings, saving a lot of trouble. Instead of traveling a long distance to meet face-to-face, it was more practical to just send a red envelope in a group chat or a private message.
Chen Mo sent out a bunch of red envelopes: three in the big designer chat group, five in the Thunder Game employee group, and ten in the player group.
He also ran a lottery event on Weibo under Thunder Game’s official account, with various "sunshine for all" prizes and draws that kept everyone entertained.
None of this cost Chen Mo much money anyway. After all, it was the New Year, and it was all about having fun. Especially the ones he sent to the player group—wasn’t that just taking from the people and giving back to the people?
Cough, that didn’t sound quite right. More like, the wool came from the sheep.
Chen Mo sighed to himself. "Ah, a designer as good as me is rare. Giving so many red envelopes to players during the New Year—I’m taking a loss again."
He also had to show some courtesy to the Game Committee. Chen Mo sent red envelopes to Qiao Hua, Zhang Zhongxiang, and a few other familiar Game Committee leaders. The amounts weren’t large—just 666 yuan each.
And they all got rejected.
Qiao Hua replied, "I appreciate the thought, President Chen, but I can’t accept the money. The audits have been really strict lately."
Chen Mo was speechless. He had deliberately not stuffed too much money in, and now even 666 yuan was considered a bribery risk?
Then Qiao Hua sent him a red envelope in return: "This is my gesture to you, President Chen. Happy New Year."
Chen Mo opened it. Six yuan and sixty-six cents.
Chen Mo: "..."
He instantly felt like he was back in a family group chat, where red envelopes were sent in three-digit amounts—except the first digit was often followed by a decimal point.
They chatted a bit more, and Qiao Hua said, "By the way, there might be a special mission for you after the New Year. Want to prepare in advance?"
"Special mission?" Chen Mo was taken aback.
The last one, *Dark Souls*, had been a special mission, tailor-made for the Pangu Engine. As for how it turned out, the Game Committee should have been fairly satisfied. Even though it started off a bit tricky, winning TGN’s Game of the Year was enough to prove how awesome it was.
Qiao Hua sent a voice message: "Here’s the thing. You know that VR games have always been closely tied to military drills and training. Actually, after the Pangu Engine was developed, the higher-ups had already been pushing for this. Now that everyone’s seen how good the Pangu Engine is, I think after the New Year, they’ll definitely bring it up again."
"VR games are already used across various industries, especially in the military field. Abroad, there have long been VR platform FPS games specifically for troop training. We have them domestically too, but overall, they’re relatively outdated and not particularly satisfactory."
"So, there might be a need to make an FPS game. Are you interested? Speaking of FPS games, you’ve already made *Overwatch*. Even though it’s a futuristic theme, it’s still one of the top three domestic FPS games. Making another one shouldn’t be a big problem, right?"
Chen Mo thought for a moment and replied, "I can do it, but I’m not sure about the specific requirements. As long as it’s not dancing in chains, I’m fine. Honestly, I’m good at making games that players love, but making a game that satisfies the higher-ups? I’m not so sure about that."
Qiao Hua sent another voice message: "Don’t worry about that. Most of the Game Committee leaders have high hopes for you. With *Dark Souls* in the bag, even if the leaders didn’t particularly enjoy the game, winning TGN’s Game of the Year already says enough."
"This FPS game won’t come with too many restrictions. But you have to remember: it’s not just a game for players; it’s also meant for military drills. At the very least, it should help with soldier training. Something like *Overwatch* wouldn’t be very useful."
Indeed, no military training would involve a soldier yelling "Ryūjin no ken wo kurae!" in a VR game.
Chen Mo replied, "Alright, I understand. Director Qiao, send me the specific requirements later, and I’ll think it over."
They chatted a bit more, and Chen Mo used his S-class designer privileges to look up some information.
In the parallel world, VR games were widely applied across various fields—Chen Mo had known this for a long time. It was precisely because of VR games’ important role that they were so highly valued by different countries, leading to the gaming industry’s rising status and the establishment of dedicated Game Committees for management.
FPS games, or shooting games, had always been a very popular category in VR, closely tied to the military field.
Many countries had similar projects, organizing soldiers to conduct live training in VR games. Through VR simulation, soldiers could be placed in more dangerous environments without worrying about any casualties.
Of course, the VR in the parallel world still had a significant gap compared to the real world, but that gap was gradually narrowing.
Especially in the FPS field.
Compared to other game genres, FPS games required far fewer character actions, making them much closer to reality.
Currently, the other two popular domestic FPS games, *Blaze Assault* and *Wolf Soul*, already had many in-game elements specially customized for the military, used to complete specific training activities.
Although the marksmanship in VR games couldn’t be fully equated with real-life marksmanship, soldiers could still train many things in the game, such as reaction time, situational awareness, and teamwork.
However, both of these games were getting a bit old. After the Pangu Engine was completed, a better FPS game was needed.
Of course, there was no very clear or unified standard for how this type of game should be made.
If it were solely for soldier drills, it would have to be a large-scale, realistic gunfight simulator to ensure the best training effect.
But the problem was that developing a VR game often cost over a hundred million yuan, and the Game Committee wouldn’t foot the bill for the game companies...
So for game companies, the priority was still to make an FPS game that players loved, ensuring the investment could be recouped. They couldn’t just lose money to please the higher-ups—the cost was too high, and the results weren’t guaranteed.
As long as the game was profitable, making it as realistic as possible and incorporating gameplay that could help with soldier training would be enough.
Of course, this mission wouldn’t be assigned to Chen Mo alone. Qin Xiao, the designer of *Wolf Soul*, and Ran He, the designer of *Blaze Assault*, also received the same task.
After all, they were the top three domestic FPS game designers.
But whether the other two would accept it was another matter. They were designers under Di Chao Interactive and Zen Yi Interactive, so they didn’t have full control over which projects to develop.