Tencent Games has showcased over 44 products and projects for the Chinese market during the SPARK 2022 conference. These products and projects harness game-related technology for cultural, industrial, and scientific research however they are specifically targeted at the Chinese market only. SPARK 2022 was recently held as a digital-only event during which Tencent Games revealed brand-new games and new game technologies empowering projects.
Starting the conference, Tencent Games Senior Vice President Steven Ma emphasized the growing importance and benefits of crossover technologies that originated during game development and stated that players are starting to experience a blending of the real and online worlds in a sort of ‘hyper-digital reality’. During the conference, Ma’s high-fidelity digital double built using homegrown next-gen technology from Tencent’s NExT Studios said:
The gaming industry is not one that develops in isolation. Since its inception, the industry has always been mutually driven and symbiotically developed with cutting-edge technologies and has accumulated a series of unique technical capabilities. Along with the continuous progress of technology and the deepening of our understanding, games will play a more important role in both economic development and social life, creating even greater technological breakthroughs and richer value.
New Game Announcements
During the conference, Tencent Games released new updates on 26 games which included titles such as League of Legends eSports Manager, Return to Empire, Code: To Jun Yong, and cloud gaming technology solutions START ENGINE along with its very first demo EVOLUTION. League of Legends eSports Manager is the official mobile game for the League of Legends tournament, and the developer is aiming to launch the first open beta test in the Chinese Mainland market in July.
Other major reveals included:
Return to Empire – a strategy-based mobile game developed for the Chinese market by TiMi Studio Group in partnership with Xbox Game Studios. It integrates the classic elements from the Age of Empires IP and expands gameplay with a greater degree of freedom across 625 square kilometers of the 3D battlefield.
Code: To Jin Yong – It is being developed by LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS, and uses the Unreal Engine 5. It is adapted from the acclaimed series of martial arts (“wuxia”) novels by famed novelist Jin Yong and authorized by Ming Ho Publications. As the first Unreal Engine 5 open-world game starring the legendary heroes of the Jin Yong wuxia world, Code: To Jin Yong will be released to players around the world in the near future. Players can look forward to freely exploring the vast and grand world of martial arts.
Tencent Games also released new information about its upcoming cloud-game technology with START ENGINE giving EVOLUTION, a demo of its native cloud gaming technology. The demo showcases the era of dinosaurs in a movie-real, real-time interactive scene with ultra-fine rendered dinosaurs and dense woods. Native cloud-game technology organically supports synchronization for multiple players. The START ENGINE team is currently focused on the development of native cloud game technology that will offer a brand-new gaming experience to the end-users. It will gradually expand its work with global game studios, indie developers, and film industry creators to explore additional possibilities. You can check out the demo below:
Game Technology Empowered Projects
Apart from new games and cloud technology, Tencent Games also demonstrated at the conference how it is applying game-related technology to other areas such as scientific research, cultural heritage, and industrial applications. This includes various projects like Tencent Games assisting in the protection and restoration by building the digital Great Wall of China, the Library Cave of Dunhuang, and the Beijing Central Axis through the use of game technologies such as Programmed Content Generation technology (PCG), Physics-based Rendering Technology (PBR), Cloud gaming, Virtual avatars and more.
Additional details are available on the official blog post at the Tencent Website.
