On November 27th, The Perceiver, a new Chinese-style open-world action game developed by Papergames, released a one-hour live stream demo. It showed the game's combat system in more detail and included regular enemy battles, boss battles, maps, traditional buildings, etc.
After the live stream, the game’s pre-registrations surpassed 230,000 on Bilibili, and the development team thanked the players for their support.
Screenshot from The Perceiver’s one-hour livestream demo
Chinese game studio Papergames has focused on female-oriented games with titles such as the Nikki series dress-up games and Love and Producer, an Otome gacha game. This latest move in creating "a Chinese-style open world-action game" marks their first step in this area.
The Perceiver builds a fantasy world designed to explore different beliefs. War ensued when the dynasty was overthrown, and the protagonist, who still misses the old dynasty, was captured and imprisoned in a mansion. Then, after awakening, he rushes out of the mansion with his sword, starting a journey that will confront fate and faith.
In the demo, the five developers from Papergames played the game at a level similar to the game’s trailer and explained the movement, skills, mask switches, and battles.
Screenshot of The Perceiver’s one-hour live stream demo
Since the setting of this work is just after the fall of the Tang Dynasty, the dev team said they had done a lot of research to accurately present the architectural design, textures and style of that era.
In the previous trailer released on November 10th, masks were presented as an important part of the gameplay, and two fighting styles were shown. The mask-switching is related to the change in fighting styles. One mask makes the player light on their feet and focuses on stabbing. The other mask was also powerful, causing the enemy to be put off-balance.
A mask showed in The Perceiver’s one-hour livestream demo
During the livestream, the devs encountered some difficulty in combat. The connection of skills, mask switching, and a player’s own style of play all affect the experience.
According to the game’s intro, the combat portions of the game focus on transitioning between fast-paced attack and defense as the core and strives to bring players an action-packed combat experience.
A mask showed in The Perceiver’s one-hour livestream demo
The action design of the characters not only reflects the Chinese style but also has a rich derivative mechanism. Players will have a challenging and fulfilling combat experience by better understanding the enemy's fighting styles and their own action system.
After the livestream ended, many players left comments online. A player praised the devs for having the livestream demo so soon after the trailer’s release, which is a rare and commendable practice. The player said, “Many games only have splendid trailers, but the devs aren’t able to show a gameplay demo soon after.”
”The devs released the livestream demo shortly after the trailer, which was a rare and commendable practice.”
“The combat system can be called a perfect design.”
Another player also left a comment saying that the combat system can be called a perfect design and that the system encouraged players to make decisions instead of simply attacking.
The Perceiver will land on PS5, PC, iOS and Android platforms, though the exact release date has not yet been announced.
The game is still in development, and we can see from positive responses that the game has great potential.