Source:AppGrowing
Source:AppGrowing
Game producer mentioned in a media interview that the team's creative goals have shifted from a solid foundation with "Epic Seven" to a more ambitious exploration with "Chaos Zero Nightmare."
01. Create a Game That Remains Engaging
02. New Strange Tales
Data from AppGrowing shows that before the official launch of "Chaos Zero Nightmare," a relatively conservative advertising strategy was employed, starting small-scale ad testing from July.
Source:AppGrowing
During the game's pre-registration phase, the official team focused on building initial hype in player communities and on social media, such as Bilibili and YouTube while actively interacting with players, resulting in over millions exposures.
After the launch, the game significantly increased its ad placement, with daily placements approaching 3,000 during peak periods. Additionally, it ramped up promotional efforts during content updates to sustain player engagement and maintain momentum.
Source:AppGrowing
Looking at specific creatives, "Chaos Zero Nightmare" inherits the team's signature 2D animation strengths, further highlighting the "New Strange Tales" aesthetic. This is achieved through the pathological expressions of characters in moments of mental breakdown and dark sci-fi scene designs, creating differentiated memory points.
For example, by combining "breakdown states" with card battle animations, the creative starts by showcasing character images, which suddenly shatter, transforming the characters' expressions accompanied by strong visual and auditory impacts. This contrast creates suspense and tension, provoking viewers’ curiosity. Subsequently, actual gameplay footage showcasing diverse characters with unique skill cards and attack animations, hinting at rich customization options.
Source:AppGrowing
Additionally, the "New Strange Tales" aesthetic is also reflected in narrative-driven creatives. For instance, one creative opens with oppressive imagery and irregular heartbeat sounds, rapidly flashing through abstract monsters and scenes of characters being engulfed by darkness. This is followed by the term "REWIND," which rewinds the timeline, resulting in a series of quick, fragmented shots and information reversals, igniting users' desire to explore the game.
Source:AppGrowing
As a core highlight of the game, the unique artistic style of "Chaos Zero Nightmare" vividly represents the narrative core of character "breakdown" through dramatic transformations in illustrations and distorted skill effect visuals. This design not only aligns with the game's worldview but also delivers a strong visual impact.
03. From "Gameplay-Heavy" to "Content-Heavy"
The South Korean gaming market has long been dominated by genres such as RPGs and FPSs, while hyper-casual games with simple gameplay and short session times have also maintained a broad user base.
In this environment, games that emphasize character development, narrative depth, and world-building in the anime-style game have not garnered much attention from mainstream developers in Korea. Their development focus has leaned more towards immediate gameplay experiences and numerical growth rather than long-term narrative investment.
In the early days, Korean anime-style games were often perceived as a visual style rather than a genre. Products like "Brown Dust 2" and "Goddess of Victory: NIKKE" combined Japanese cuteness with American realism and successfully stood out in the market with striking visual styles through high-precision character illustrations and fully animated skill performances, captivating player aesthetics.
Source:AppGrowing
However, as the player base continuously expands, the issue of user churn due to insufficient content supply has become increasingly prominent.
For instance, the game "Ever Soul," launched in 2023, faced significant backlash due to neglect of narrative development in its early stages. The project lead stated in a post-launch interview that the notion of "game narratives no longer matter" is no longer applicable; even fighting or action games now invest heavily in their storylines.
In addition to the evolution of the domestic market, Chinese anime-style games entering the Korean market, such as "Genshin Impact" and "Honkai: Star Rail," have also profoundly influenced the Korean anime-style landscape.
Source:電ファミニコゲーマー
Taking Netmarble's "Solo Leveling: Arise" as an example, the game successfully combines traditional Korean MMO gameplay with a Mihoyo-style development system. It enriches the experience with well-developed main and side storylines, diverse sandbox-style levels, and multiple development paths.
Source:AppGrowing
Overall, the demand for game content among local South Korean players has become increasingly diverse, while overseas counterparts have effectively filled market gaps with their abundant content offerings, promoting the rise of "content-driven" anime-style games in the region.
In this context, many developers are now consciously integrating artistic style with narrative and world-building depth to enhance character development and emotional engagement for players.
This trend manifests in two main pathways: the first is the development based on popular IPs, such as "Arad" and "The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin," which, while preserving the original worldviews and core characters, narrate entirely new original stories and introduce open-world gameplay to expand the narrative boundaries of the IP.
Source:AppGrowing
the second is original IP works like "Chaos Zero Nightmare," which build a completely new worldview and unique gameplay, emphasizing originality and uniqueness in content.
Various signs indicate that the past focus on "gameplay" in anime-style game design is transitioning towards an emphasis on "content." The creation of content-driven products has become a key strategy for seeking differentiated competition and long-term development in the South Korean anime-style market.
Currently, although the domestic version of "Chaos Zero Nightmare" has not yet officially launched, the international server's performance suggests that Tencent may have really made a wise investment this time.
