Tencent Games introduced 44 product and projects for the Chinese market, along with several projects that harness game-related technology for cultural, industrial and scientific research at its “SPARK 2022” conference.

At the virtual conference, Tencent Senior Vice President Steven Ma emphasized the growing importance and benefits of crossover technologies that originated during game development, with players even beginning to experience a blending of the real and online worlds, in a sort of “hyper-digital reality.”

“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 have accumulated a series of unique technical capabilities,” said Ma – or, more accurately, Ma’s high-fidelity digital double built using homegrown next-gen technology from Tencent's NExT Studios, which delivered his message to the online crowd. “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 Games Announced 

Tencent Games gave updates on 26 games, including eagerly awaited titles such as League of Legends Esports Manager, Return to Empire, Code: To Jin Yong, and cloud gaming technology solutions START ENGINE along with its first demo EVOLUTION.

They included an announcement that League of Legends Esports Manager, the official mobile game of League of Legends tournament, will start an open beta test in the Chinese Mainland market in July.

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.

The armies on the battlefield can be created and matched freely, while strategies can be adjusted at any time to provide an intuitive imagination of the battlefield. Return to Empire reimagines the classic siege battles on both offense and defense, with a rapidly changing battlefield raising the challenge for players. This allows players to go beyond traditional strategy, and exploit the tactical potential of each and every situation.

Code: To Jin Yong, is being developed by LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS, 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.

With the power of Unreal Engine 5, classic characters in Jin Yong’s masterpiece, such as Yang Guo, Qiao Feng, Linghu Chong and more, will come to digital life. At the same time, the engine enables developers to recreate spectacular martial arts techniques through engine’s underlying physics system. The game also utilizes photogrammetry technology to provide immersive experience. “Jin Yong Wuxia Landmarks” project will see more partners joining in the future, digitizing martial arts landmarks and pushing development capabilities and continuing to promote the culture of martial arts.

Tencent Games also dangled new information about cloud-game technology, with START ENGINE offering EVOLUTION, a demo of its native cloud game technology. In the demo, players are brought back to the era of dinosaurs in a movie-level, 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 focused on the development of native cloud game technology and offering a brand-new game experience to the end users. START ENGINE is looking forward to working with global game studios, indie developers and film industry creators to explore more possibilities and embark on a journey to a full-real world together. 

Game Technologies Empowered Projects

Also at the conference, Tencent Games demonstrated how it has applied game-related technology to other areas, such as scientific research, culture heritage, and industrial applications. 

Cultural Heritage

Tencent Games has assisted 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 including Programmed Content Generation technology (PCG), Physics-based Rendering Technology (PBR), Cloud Gaming, Virtual Avatars and other game technologies, allowing the transformation of the heritage into vivid stories, allowing public to better understand the history and culture behind in a compelling way.

Industry

BaoSteel Co., Ltd., Tencent Games and Tencent Cloud have cooperated to apply Real-time Cloud Rendering, Motion Capture, Reality-Virtuality Interaction, AR/VR and other game technologies to create the digital twin of the Baosteel 1580 hot rolling mill, and to build a holographical glasses-free 3D full-fidelity digital factory. In the digitalization of steel industry, for the comprehensive data collation, management and analysis, and real-time simulation and interaction, this partnership integrates Tencent’s game technologies into different scenarios in the steel manufacturing process for the first time, to improve the manufacturing efficiency and make steel manufacturing smarter, more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly.

Tencent is also working with China Southern Airlines’ subsidiary, Zhuhai Flight Training Center, to develop and build China’s first Full Flight Simulator (FFS). The jointly built visual system will use graphics rendering and physical simulation technologies from games. Using real-time simulation technology widely used in games, Tencent can quickly build remarkably life-like and constantly changing virtual environments.

Scientific Research

Tencent Games also announce it will join the Chasing All Transients Constellation Hunters (CATCH) program initiated by the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Key Laboratory of Particle Astrophysics. The CATCH program will harness Tencent Games’ industry-leading AI technology: multi-agent reinforcement learning algorithm empowering more than 100 satellites to intelligently and collaboratively observe the Extreme Universe, where matter exits in the extreme condition.

The intellectual action generation and real-time physical simulation technology that powers Non-Playable Characters (NPCs) in games will also be utilized to make robots smarter while working around humans. The technology will improve the autonomous decision-making ability of robots to adapt to different situations. The breakthroughs will help pave the way for future real-world applications, such as elderly care and other people-oriented services.