At 7 p.m. tonight, TapTap launches the live-streaming broadcast of TapTap PRESENT 2021, a game press release officially hosted by TapTap.
As the first mobile game press release in the second half of 2021, the game product lineup can be called as a typical sample of diversity, with both quality and quantity of the games reaching a surprisingly high level. In the content of this press, it covers the debuts of new games, the latest news of star IP franchises, high-quality commercial games and great indie games from domestic developers, as well as several classic cross-platform mobile games. There are totally 27 games on the stage this time.
From this point of view, the PRESENT is more like a promise that TapTap fulfills its “Discover Good Games” to gamers than a pure press release with the 4 pillars: “a new look of classic IPs”, “debuts of new games of all genres”, “high-quality indie games” and “XD developing team appearance”. As Huang Yimeng, CEO of TapTap, said at the opening of the press, “whether it’s a commercial product from an experienced developer or an indie game from a developer comes out of community, the key reason we select a game is only 3 words: IT IS GOOD.”
Therefore, after watching the entire press, we combed through the information and hoped to get a glimpse of how TapTap PRESENT, which has become “an annual event for mobile game players”, is gradually exploring its future path of diversification.
Star IPs in TapTap PRESENT Leverages the Standard of Mobile Game Press Release
In the general impression of players, many products of TapTap’s come out of the community. Although they are not intentionally for the niche, they are nothing closer to massive-DAU games. But in this press, TapTap showcased a strong attitude of embracing with star IP products.
Shortly after the press started, Hearthstone came to the center of the stage. Wei Kai, the general manager from NetEase’s Blizzard Partnership Department, took the stage and brought the audience a VCR recorded by Paul Nguyen, the Lead Designer from Blizzard’s “Mercenaries” dev-team, announcing the latest news about Hearthstone: Mercenaries. In addition to detailing the gameplay and map features, he also announced that Hearthstone: Mercenaries will be officially released in the fall of 2021, with an exclusive Android pre-registration on TapTap from today (17th July). If the pre-registered player number hits 200,000, every player who pre-registered will be gifted the hero “Brightwing”; If the pre-registered player number hits 500,000, they will also be gifted a mysterious Legendary hero in addition. Through the silhouette and the quote “You are not prepared”, players can almost guess no far out.
As the grand finale of the PRESENT, League of Legends: Wild Rift shows its influence of how a classic IP should be. Early at the trailer of the press on July 8th, many gamers predicted that League of Legends: Wild Riftis coming in terms of the “Poro” hint. On the night of the PRESENT, League of Legends: Wild Riftstar player, actor Zhang Binbin and its Publishing Producer Xia Dan released the latest content of the test in their interview, which includes new heroes, new skins and new items. Xia Dan also announced that the Ultra-exciting Test will be fully opened on July 20th.
In the trailer on July 8th of the press, APEX Legends has brought about widespread by a great number of gamers. It is officially announced that APEX Legends Mobile is coming with actual gameplay, new characters, new weapons. The game is now available for pre-registration on TapTap. On July 15th, the Marvel franchise title Marvel Super War and a CCG Marvel Duel are also showcased on the PRESENT. With the release of new Marvel film X-Men: Dark Phoenix in China, the previous two Marvel franchise mobile games announce new heroes. Marvel Duel will be officially released in Q4, 2021. As the new mobile title of Torchlight franchise, Torchlight: Infinite made its debut at TapTap game press last year. The dev-team brought the latest news of the game and announced that the Campfire Test of Torchlight: Infinite will be launched in Q4, 2021.
It’s clear to see that TapTap continues its style of the first PRESENT, presenting the real stuff to gamers. In the 2nd PRESENT, TapTap made more efforts to reveal more star IPs from domestic and abroad, and strive for exclusive content announcements for those franchises. The presence of these heavyweight IPs undoubtedly added weight to the core value of TapTap’s press, and such a press release is EXACTLY what gamers want to see. The name of “hardcore mobile game press release” is gradually being established.
Debuts of All-genre New Titles Brings Expectations One After Another
Over 10 new titles were brought to gamers’ view in the PRESENT this time. Many of them open their TapTap page along with the press – which is literally a REAL DEBUT for them. Some games with previous exposure revealed their clear gameplay this time as well. If the star IP titles in the last paragraph make gamers “wow”, these sincere new titles can provide the most cutting-edge experience to the gamers.
Li Zeyang, CEO of ChillyRoom Games, released a new game from the Soul Knight Universe franchise with a cat on the press. Roguelike Shooter Soul Knight is relatively popular on TapTap with an accumulated over 20 million downloads after release. Continuing with the pixel art style, the new title is an RPG with progression and grinding as its core gameplay. At the end of the release, ChillyRoom even revealed another unpublished title as an easter egg: a mobile RTS game called Xeno Command.
Astral Angels is an Anime-style mobile action RPG powered by UE4 Engine. The PV and actual gameplay video have been revealed for the first time with the pre-registration available. The producer of the game has shared the background story of the game on stage: the story takes place in a fantasy world called Astral, where players will embark on an adventure with their girl partners to fight against fate. The PC version of Farming Simulator 20 has been popular overseas for a long time. This time it released a fun “vitalized” short video. If you are interested, don’t forget to go back and watch the English subtitles of it – you will be SURPRISED!
Gorogoa has won 3 awards including the Best Game in 2018 TapTap Annual Game Awards and a great many of awards overseas. This game will officially release in China region soon, with its page launched during the PRESENT. PC game Wizard of Legend is now playable on mobile, with its actual game play video revealed. This highly acclaimed roguelike game also launched its TapTap page during press.
DeNA, a well-known developer/publisher in the field of anime and gaming, brought two titles to the press this time: the debut of Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, a mobile game based on the anime Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai which is derived from original Dragon Quest franchise. And Takt Op., an original mixed-media project about classical music. The two games launched their Chinese pre-registration page on TapTap.
OMESCAPE, who worked with the Palace Museum together on the puzzle book Puzzle Palace, brought its first-revealed title Murders on Yangtze River. The art of the game creates a simple and elegant Chinese ink painting style, along the slowly unfolding painting scroll, players follow the protagonist to solve the mysterious case. From the press, we can see the game’s subtle puzzle design and slightly bewildering narrative. This work is sure to make players feel like a true detective. Haven on the Crimson Sea is a Kantai Collection style simulation SRPG. In the game, the player will play a newly appointed commander, unfold a series of daily life stories between the commander and ship spirits, this game will launch its test in the end of July.
Famous and witty producer, Gao Kan, appeared in the press and shot a funny short film combining the game world with reality and officially announcing that Finding Paradise, which is the sequel of To the Moon, is going to have its iOS/Android version. The game Mist Sequence has attracted attentions for some time, with only a few conceptional information on social media and comic-cons, always remained mysterious, now finally unveiled, revealing for the first time for its SRPG+RTT (Real Time Tactics) gameplay and more background information. During the press, its page was released and open for pre-registration.
One of the reasons why the PRESENT is so exciting can be seen by putting together all the debuting games. Unlike feeding illusions, gamers will receive plenty of sincere actual game play videos with specific and concrete content. They do have their own conclusion and anticipations, which reflects in the pre-registrations they clicked on the games’ page.
High-quality Indie Games & Diversified In-house Developing
At TapTap PRESENT, indie games are NEVER absent. Many indie games have been mentioned in the previous paragraphs as debut. Besides, there are still some indie games that met with gamers before but still not officially launched yet – we brought their news this time. Amongst them there are: Terraria announced that it will start to call for enrollment for players on TapTap; The test cut many players favorite music game Rotaeno announced its launch in the spring of 2022 on TapTap, exclusively; Neon Abyss: Limitless, a side-scrolling action roguelike mobile game with its first open beta testing finished also made an appearance at the press. Producer Xuanyi took off his long-wearing panda headgear during the event and gave a rigorous and detailed presentation on how they port and adapt the game and adding new contents. He officially announced that the mobile version of Neon Abyss: Limitless will be launched in Q1, 2022, with multiplayer feature available.
There are also some new game with TapTap characteristics. Some of them have already met with gamers through TapTap Campfire Test, while some others have gathered plenty of attentions through pre-registration. The developers of these diversified games sincerely shared their thoughts of R&D. Amongst them there are some titles developed in-house by XD: classic pixel style SRPG Sword of Convallaria unveiled its detailed gameplay features; casual shooter T3 and platform fighting game Flash Party launched their Campfire Test on TapTap; lifestyle simulation game XD Town announced its time of next open test; plus Torchlight: Infinite and Astral Angels, which were previous-mentioned, announced their time of next open test. It’s worthwhile to note that these 6 titles are of completely different genres, which seems to be hard to identify the taste of Xd’s development, but is clearly differ from any of the popular genres on the market so far. Besides, there is also a game from the TapTap Campfire Test called Project: GAIA. The producer of the game in the press announced that the game focus on PVE and co-op multiplayer shooter will be officially launched in the first half of 2022. The announcement of Laigu Project is very special in the press. The game is positioned as an “artifact anthropomorphic anime SRPG with traditional cultural elements”. During the press, characters from the game acted as the speechmaker introduced the world and combat features of Laigu Project to gamers.
In the PRESENT, there is another part that worth noting: a video clip about “TapTap Exclusivity”. The clip was short in length, but featured various popular exclusive games on TapTap such as ICEY, To the Moon, Muse Dash, Canal Towns, Pascal’s Wager, as well as the yet-to-be-launched Tribes and Machetes, The Swordsmen X, My Time at Portia. Add to the flashy comments “TapTap Exclusive Presents” throughout the press. The Images of these games can easily evoke wonderful memories of the gaming world, and perhaps many gamers may have forgotten the joy that TapTap once brought to everyone in the past 5 years. The nascent niche platform has now become a pioneer in the industry, and gamers who are used to TapTap’s presence can hardly feel its specialness anymore. Only in this video clip labeled “TapTap Exclusive Presents” represents the platform’s consistent dedication to providing GOOD GAMES, whether in the past, present or future.
As one of the pioneers in the gaming industry, TapTap has brought many valuable contents to the gaming market and gamers since its establishment. TapTap has created a game store that does NOT cut share from developers; maintained real rating; gradually built a bridge between domestic gamers and developers; launched a revenue-free annual game award to encourage and award those good games that deserve their recognition. Until now, gamers can see the full-of-sincerity press release. This progression is exactly what gamers are looking forward to seeing, perhaps looking back in the future, we will find that the history of unfolding to the greatness is happening today, when GOOD GAMES are showed on the screen one by one, such happiness belonging to the gaming world also emerges in front of our eyes today.
We have the deepest anticipation of TapTap bringing more surprises to the gaming industry and gamers in the future.