Originally uploaded to Bilibili.tv
In this current update miHoYo decided to do something different. We had an "event" that lasted the whole patch where we were able to find the playable characters and play out scenarios of them just going through their daily lives.
I had actually suggested this idea to them I think going on 3 years now? It's long enough I didn't remember off the top of my head. (it was a great idea to have an archive for this stuff) Anyway what miHoYo came up with isn't quite what I had in mind. The thing is I was just thinking about very simple cameos that might let us catch a glimpse of daily life for the characters in game. The purpose for that in-game was to allow better immersion as we'd be able to see things changing day to day instead of a static game. Imagine an NPC in a game you like suddenly in a different spot one day. Let's say it's a guard so they're usually patrolling one area and on a particular day you happen to find them in a different area or maybe they're with another NPC because they're helping them with something.
What miHoYo came up with instead are these fully developed cutscenes that tell a story. For example, one character has unique speech patterns so to better understand her they wrote a "translation guide" but she takes offense to it. While this approach is novel I think the problem with it is that it feels like there were just a few incomplete events that miHoYo was working on and they couldn't come up with a full story in the end. Rather than let the scenes go to waste, they created this "event" to dump them on.
Another issue with this idea is only really noticeable now. The SAG voice actor strike is still going on so most of the voices for these characters are missing in the English version of the game. Now in my original idea that wouldn't have been a problem. I actually suggested that the cameos wouldn't need to be voiced if it would be too much trouble. After all my idea was for them to be very simple, perhaps only a single line a piece. But these are fully developed cutscenes and some even have NPCs who were able to be voiced. It is less acceptable for these kinds of scenes to be silent so the English version players miss out or have to switch to another language. Meanwhile miHoYo is paying 3 languages worth of VAs to voice scenes that don't really matter. (on the other hand Reel Ad-Ventures was fun and would have been made more fun with the voices; I think it might have been inspired by some of the game's fans who made commercial shorts to meme about the game)
But that's just my two cents. What did you guys think of it? Are you looking forward to the next Anthology event?
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