To put it plainly, as an action title, Wolf: Shadows Die Twice didn't really possess a single mechanic that was entirely original. Parrying, posture deflects, execution finishers, grapple hooks for acrobatic mobility, wall-scaling double jumps, and even posture gauges built on weapon clashes, all of these mechanics had appeared in other action titles in one form or another.
What set Wolf: Shadows Die Twice apart was how seamlessly it distilled these elements into visceral, edge-of-your-seat duels between the player and the bosses. It took core mechanics like parrying and deflecting to an unprecedented level of depth and fluidity.
This wasn't just a memory from his previous life; even in this reality, John had yet to encounter a game that transformed boss battles into such an intricate, cinematic dance of blades.
It wasn't the typical formula where a boss telegraphed an attack, you rolled out of the way, and then took turns hitting each other like a glorified turn-based battle styled as an action game.
Instead, every deflect, clash, jump-dodge, and posture break delivered an intoxicating rush of adrenaline, setting aside, of course, those inevitable moments where you ended up brutally diced into chicken meat.
In the heat of combat, as your blade locked against an opponent's flurry, metallic clashing echoed in rapid succession while your character shuddered and yielded ground under the heavy impacts. The sheer feedback of those exchanges was an absolute, undisputed thrill.
As time slipped by, the development phase of Wolf: Shadows Die Twice gradually neared completion. Meanwhile, the first batch of custom-branded Yu-Gi-Oh! VR units had officially hit the market through Warwick.
Unsurprisingly, sales figures were somewhat lukewarm, primarily because the price tag was steep enough to make wallets weep.
While the VR immersion was undeniably superior, the majority of players still preferred sticking to traditional platforms for their gaming fix.
Over on the Warcraft custom map front, creative user maps were popping up everywhere, but the two undisputed kings dominating the lobby list remained the competitive maps: Dynasty Warriors and DOTA.
When all was said and done, nothing beat the raw joy of competitive PvP.
Yet none of these topics were taking center stage in the gaming industry right now. The spotlight of the entire community, players and industry rival studios alike, was firmly locked onto the flagship 3A blockbusters newly launched by Ansoft and Essence Games. Naturally, PixelPioneers' upcoming Wolf: Shadows Die Twice also drew a fair share of public intrigue, though mostly from curiosity-driven gamers.
"Wait, what's going on? Why hasn't PixelPioneers dropped any news about Wolf: Shadows Die Twice? Ansoft and Essence already launched their titles!"
"Seriously! I thought PixelPioneers Games was planning to release theirs on the exact same day to go head-to-head!"
"Stop asking! It's obvious why!"
"There's been plenty of gossip floating around, but why hasn't there been a single piece of official news?"
"It's definitely a timeline issue. How could a massive 3A project be cooked up that quickly anyway?"
"Nah, the timeframe should actually be reasonable. It's already been months since Warcraft launched."
"Wait, has anyone considered a horrifying possibility? What if the reason PixelPioneers isn't saying anything... is because the game isn't even finished yet?"
"No way! If it's not even done, then what on earth was President John bragging about during the announcement?!"
Wild theories and heated debates erupted across major gaming forums. Truth be told, PixelPioneers Games had been far too quiet lately, offering zero official development updates.
Apart from John occasionally posting mundane daily office banter on his social account every few days, there wasn't a single frame of actual gameplay footage to be seen anywhere.
Some conspiracy-minded gamers were already starting to wonder if PixelPioneers Games hadn't even started making the game, and had literally just created an empty desktop folder titled 'Wolf'.
Faced with such slander, John felt that Koch and the core development team definitely had a right to object. To get the game finished as quickly as possible, while they weren't grinding until midnight every single day, weekend overtime had become a regular routine. They were essentially running on a full-blown 996 schedule. (Note: 996 schedule means 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., six days a week.)
Granted, mandatory overtime wasn't a policy at PixelPioneers Games; John was fond of stating that crunch was strictly reserved for post-launch windows to monitor live servers and push emergency hotfixes.
However, when it came to hitting milestones, the project team members were actually more than happy to stay back late. After all, money talked. Overtime paired with generous hourly rates and night subsidies was true dedication; overtime without proper pay was just corporate robbery.
John made sure every employee who stayed late received proper overtime pay and reimbursement for the night trip home. As for the developers working for outsourced vendors, well... that was outside John's sphere of influence.
Still, credit where credit was due: the game outsourcing studios, both domestic and overseas, certainly knew their stuff. As long as the funding was deep enough, their output quality and turnaround times were top-notch. The only lingering concern was the alarming rate at which their programmers were losing their hair.
"Alright, who here is the best at playing the game? Specifically, who can pull off a no-damage kill against the Juggernaut?" Pushing open the heavy door to the main project room at PixelPioneers Games, John stepped inside and addressed the crowd directly.
Although the full development phase hadn't wrapped up yet, it was time to kick off the promotional machine. The gaming public was getting restless online, flooding his personal social account with daily demands for updates.
Rather than giving empty promises, John had thought to himself on the way over, I might as well capture a clean chunk of actual gameplay footage to hand over to Marketing and calm the crowd down.
The response inside the room was a heavy, suffocating silence where you could hear a pin drop. Following John's question, all twenty developers inside froze, not a single one daring to squeak or make eye contact.
"Wait... nobody's managed to defeat him yet?" John asked, a sudden realization dawning on him as his brows furrowed in surprise.
Faced with John's stare, the developers fidgeted awkwardly in their chairs, looking anywhere but at him. Was it embarrassing? Well... actually, no! They were testing the maximum hidden difficulty setting, for goodness' sake! The Lightning Reversal phase in the Juggernaut's third stage on this difficulty was utterly ruthless.
It wasn't the standard routine of simply leaping into the air, catching the lightning on your blade, and slinging it back to the ground. It required frame-perfect precision. In standard gameplay running at 60 frames per second, the window to catch and reflect the lightning strike was a brutal 4 to 6 frames.
Worse yet, the raw damage from a failed lightning reflect would instantly vaporize the player's health bar; even if they had collected every single prayer bead in the game, they could take two hits at most before dying.
And this was on the nightmare difficulty, a mode meant to be unlocked only after players beat the main story on New Game Plus!
On a standard first playthrough, the mechanics were far more forgiving; as long as you mastered the basic timing for Lightning Reversal, the Juggernaut was practically a walk in the park. Assuming, of course, you could survive his first two terrifying forms.
"Forget it, forget it," John said with a helpless sigh. "Koch, go ahead and code a temporary internal debug tool first, something that automatically dodges incoming hits and auto-deflects parries."
Debug features like skip-cutscene codes, map teleports, insta-quest completes, and auto-block macros were standard tools of the trade for game developers. These utilities made internal testing vastly more efficient; after all, you couldn't expect QA teams to manually play through every single encounter from scratch during every single test build. Each boss encounter and story cutscene required targeted, repeated runs using automated scripts to streamline the process.
"Mr. John, are we launching the closed beta already? But... we still have a mountain of unfinished assets," Koch asked, looking up from his monitor in confusion.
"Don't worry, just stick to our original production timeline," John replied casually, waving a hand. "This is just to gather raw footage for the Marketing Department. We need to record a flashy, high-skill duel showcasing the combat system so they can edit a gameplay reveal trailer. A stylish, zero-damage, perfect-parry, high-octane warrior duel trailer."
???? Listening to John's breezy instructions, several developers who were currently playtesting silently stared at the blood-red 'DEATH' character glaring back at them from their pitch-black screens... before quietly reaching over and closing the beta build.