“《Under the Gods》uploaded two promotional images?”
Lin Xian was both shocked and delighted.
So the Game Company also knew what proper game promotion should look like!
Before, there wasn’t even a promotional video, yet they made a huge fuss about a closed beta—wasn’t that way too bold?
With a ‘since I’m already here, I might as well do something’ attitude, Lin Xian decisively clicked to view the blurry image in the small window.
The first image’s background was a gray wasteland.
Dark gray sand swirled in the air, and the plants on the ground hunched over like old women, their branches twisted.
Under the crooked grass, the bones of an unknown species lay exposed, half-eroded by the wind, looking particularly desolate.
Lin Xian’s eyes lit up!
“So cool! Realistic style!”
In ordinary games, no matter how much they flaunted realism, scenes of howling winds usually needed auxiliary lines or post-processing.
But this promotional image was completely different.
Lin Xian zoomed the picture to the max—even the sand grains, just a pixel or two in the background, were all unique!
Just like a real photograph!
This was the essence of virtual reality games!
A fully simulated Second World!
And the black plants in the foreground were all distinct as well.
On top of the harmonious color palette, Lin Xian counted carefully and found seven or eight different types of original plants!
Lin Xian studied the promotional image over and over, finding it more and more intriguing.
Clearly, it was a landscape photo without any characters or special structures.
Yet it still made people instantly sense the presence of supernatural power in this world!
It was as if fantasy and blood had been veiled with a layer of mist—both visible and hidden, enticing curiosity!
“This must be some boss map scene in the game, huh, bones scattered everywhere. Interesting!”
Lin Xian quickly clicked open the second image.
Compared to the pure wasteland of the first, the second had characters.
A knight clad in silver armor stood at the center, his gaze sharp yet slightly confused.
He held a battered, dirt-stained hoe in his hand.
Beside him was half a broken Sanctum, engraved with white Runes, and nearby was a mountain of Monster and Human corpses.
The entire scene was harmonious yet bizarre, full of stories.
“Whoa, the details!”
Lin Xian couldn’t help but exclaim.
“The person who designed this image must be a genius!”
The image was full of contradictions.
A knight in splendid armor holding a near-broken axe.
A sacred Sanctum destroyed, with corpses piled beside it.
It made you want to delve deeper.
Why did the Knight come?
What did he encounter?
What was the purpose of the Sanctum?
Did the ritual held at the Sanctum succeed?
Lin Xian’s heart burned as he looked on.
Though the homepage of 《Under the Gods》was poorly made, its promotional images were packed with detail.
He suddenly regained confidence in this game!
Maybe the Game Company just poured all the website budget into the game itself!
After all, virtual reality games are expensive!
Lin Xian suddenly remembered that he’d logged out too quickly during the day and hadn’t read the Introduction of 《Under the Gods》.
These two images reignited his interest.
He immediately closed the images and clicked on the game’s Introduction, which had been shrunk into three ellipses.
Other games’ Introductions would at least show a few lines, but 《Under the Gods》’s Introduction was fully collapsed.
If he didn’t know about 《Under the Gods》spending big on fake reviewers, he’d have suspected the official website was made by a programming novice!
After reading the three short lines of Introduction.
Lin Xian’s excitement felt like it had been doused with a bucket of cold water, instantly sobering him up.
He couldn’t believe it.
“You’re telling me this is a game Introduction?”
There were so many flaws with the Introduction that Lin Xian didn’t know where to start ranting.
For example, two-thirds of it was just describing game genres.
What the heck is a hardcore sandbox building multiplayer online MMORPG card roguelike farming management city-building game?
Did they write every genre on the market just to attract more players?
If Lin Xian hadn’t played all these types of games himself, he wouldn’t even know how to parse that sentence!
The only real description of the game content was a single line:
Basically a Western fantasy magic background world, somewhat backward and feudal.
“¥%#@!”
Lin Xian was speechless after reading it.
“Who describes a game’s world view with ‘basically’?”
In his mind, the alarms honed by internet scams blared loudly.
It felt like the sentence was intentionally vague, hiding something.
But considering that cheap games hyped up for attention are all about deception.
He wasn’t even surprised anymore.
Lin Xian scratched his head as he stared at the Introduction and the two promotional images, torn.
Rationally, the style gap between the promotional images and the Introduction was so huge, it was obviously a reskinned trash MMO.
Emotionally…he really liked the style of those two images!
“Forget it. Since I’m already here, clicking to reserve isn’t a big deal. It’s just a closed beta. There’s no guarantee I’ll even get picked!”
Lin Xian ignored his face, filled with anticipation and nervousness as he clicked the reservation page with his mouse.
The page was as simple as the Homepage.
Just a few forms for players to enter their personal information.
Standard procedure for other game closed betas.
Then came a payment entry for a 99-yuan closed beta fee.
Only after paying would the reservation be successful.
Lin Xian’s hand, poised to sign up, paused.
“……Doesn’t this count as starting to harvest leeks?”
He could understand why a virtual reality game needed players to pay.
After all, a game of this era-spanning scale required extremely advanced technology.
It was common knowledge that the higher the technology, the higher the cost.
Just one VR Headset capable of reading brainwaves was an enormous expense.
There was no way the Game Company would give away headsets for free.
But.
Isn’t this price a bit too low?!
What kind of fully immersive VR headset costs only 99?
A black-tech product that even EsGame couldn’t perfect, and it’s just double digits?
“Only an idiot would believe this!”
Lin Xian grumbled and closed the page.
He wanted to slap his half-hour-ago, secretly hopeful self!
The words ‘scam’ might as well have been written on the other party’s face.
How could he still have any delusions?
“Sleep! Time to sleep!”
Lin Xian turned off the light and climbed into bed.
The next morning.
Lin Xian found some materials and made the third commentary video on 《Divine Realm》.
Because 《Under the Gods》had thrown itself into the ring, everyone was less hostile toward 《Divine Realm》now.
As a result, the stats for Lin Xian’s third video were cut in half.
That’s how trending topics work.
After a few days of frenzy, the popularity fades like a receding tide.
But Lin Xian was in a good mood.
Even though the third 《Divine Realm》commentary video’s stats dropped, compared to his old gameplay data, the revenue still doubled!
And through these videos, Lin Xian gained tens of thousands of new followers, which was already a huge gain.
In his spare time, Lin Xian thought of 《Under the Gods》again.
Browsing various comment sections, the water army for 《Under the Gods》still seemed to be running rampant.
However, many people had visited the official site and understood what kind of game it was.
They couldn’t even be bothered to respond anymore.