Odinson—this game, which ought to be called Odindotti now—billed itself as a hardcore action RPG.
To break it down in more detail, it was a hardcore-rhythm-versus-action-open-world-RPG… but since that would go on forever, overseas people tended to just call it Odin-like.
This Odin-like was a masterpiece series that enjoyed fervent support from core gamers all over the world, but compared to its reputation, its sales had been steadily declining.
No one can go against the flow of time.
Asgard Software knew better than anyone that its many deep-dive elements, including zanshin, were becoming entry barriers as time passed.
In particular, the new director—who had originally been a fanboy of the game himself, and in the original timeline had left the company due to the effects of COVID—was firm in his stance.
In the end, they resolved to carry out sweeping reforms. In line with global trends, Odin-like also began gradually lowering its difficulty.
Though, as they say, old habits die hard; they couldn’t quite erase the subtle stink of shit lurking in places you couldn’t easily see.
Still, Tyr, which experimentally lowered the entry barrier, succeeded, and Asgard, having felt the effects firsthand, made another decision.
This time, they threw the gates wide open altogether.
It wasn’t as though there was no resistance from the existing core fans.
It was just that the director pushed forward with sheer stubbornness, crushing countless criticisms and mockery as he advanced like a rhinoceros horn.
The backlash was especially tremendous when Modern Controls were first announced.
Voices of fear grew louder even inside the company, but the director did not waver.
—“In the end, if a game is to have longevity, change is inevitable.”
Even if existing users and new users fought a bit, they had no choice but to endure it!!
—I hope all those weak-willed low-IQ button-mashing insects just die
—Anyone wanna last-hit these wheezing old classic boomers before they croak?
—How the fuck were you raised to talk like that
—You’re the one talking like that at your age lol
In truth, they fought far more viciously than expected, so even the director got a little scared.
But there was value in pushing forward silently without showing it.
In the end, the conflict subsided to a level that could be managed.
Given that it was a PvP game, intense conflict seemed to lead directly to popularity.
In this way, when fights break out between existing users and new users, game companies often side with the new users. They can’t just wither away and die.
The introduction of the Modern system was like that, the easing of inertia was like that, and the difficulty adjustments to the open world were like that too.
Of course, it wasn’t as though there were no perverts who deliberately went around searching for hard mode, but that had nothing to do with most users.
The tutorial boss wasn’t put there to be beaten in the first place, and the difficulty of the underground cave dropped sharply if you brought just one torch.
Even though it had been designed that way, there were two kinds of people who insisted on stepping into hell.
One was rotten veterans with warped tastes, like Jincheol.
The other was streamers hunting for content.
***
[Clear the Underground Cave without a torch - 2 hours 10 minutes 11 seconds / 460,000 won.]
“Dogshit!!! Trash game!! Shitty-ass game!! Trash, junk, garbage game!!”
-lolololol
-this is it!!
-kya
-lololol
-umai lolol
-the malice of the devs lolol
The virtual WeTuber Yuuri gasped for breath.
On the gray-tinted screen, her character lay collapsed miserably.
YOU DIED.
In the center of the monotonous black-and-white screen, only those words sat there in vivid color.
An indescribable feeling thumped against her head.
To say she was simply angry would be inaccurate; she was too dazed. To say she was thinking nothing would be inaccurate too; she felt too filthy.
The avatar twitching in the corner of the screen represented her complicated emotions.
While she was at a loss for words, the audio went empty, but the viewers were busy laughing at her avatar. Seeing things like this, it did feel worth it to have poured so much money into it.
Taking comfort in that fact, she barely gathered herself and continued speaking.
“…Whew. No, I mean, there was clearly a lever right next to the door, right? And I pulled the lever, right?”
-And an axe blade dropped down, right?
-And you died, right?
-lololol
“What the fuck kind of game is this!!”
-Here…
-In your library…
-You bought it yourself lol
“No, fuck, what I installed was definitely a 60,000-won AAA game, so why does it smell like a 6,000-won shit game?”
-this is it
-this is Odinson
-kyaaa I’m drunk on it!!
“…I’m seriously dizzy.”
Yuuri squeezed her eyes shut and slumped.
VTuber Yuuri was a rookie, but the streamer Uri was a variety game streamer who had been through the wringer in the internet broadcasting scene.
It wasn’t as though she had only played one or two games up until now, and it wasn’t as though she had only suffered from unreasonable missions once or twice.
When you worked as a variety game streamer for as long as she had, you inevitably ended up reaching for indie games too.
And in that abyss, there were plenty of all kinds of shitty games that seemed to have been made to destroy a person’s character.
Pots. Horse racing. Cats. And so on.
Those trials had tempered her mentality.
So even when strange missions like this came in, she would often be secretly delighted.
She’d been lacking good editing material lately, and here one had come along at just the right time.
If she got the mission money, great; if she didn’t, that was still clip material. That was her calculation.
When she boldly accepted the mission and threw the torch onto the ground, she had still been full of confidence.
And now?
Her anger had risen to the top of her head, her hands were trembling, and her breathing had grown ragged.
Things like clip material and mission money had long since vanished from her mind.
This wasn’t simply a matter of easy or hard.
This game was sincerely committed to screwing people over.
“Ha… haah… Ah, seriously. My head really hurts. Isn’t this insane? I think I should just pick up the torch.”
[Mission money added!!]
[Clear the Underground Cave without a torch - 2 hours 3 minutes 17 seconds / 460,000 won + 100,000 won.]
“I told you bastards not to add more!!”
-not happening lolol
-do your best lol
-where d’you think you’re running!!
-you still have two hours left lol
“Is this really the early part of the game? It’s really okay to travel in whatever order you want to play this game, right?”
-I told you it is?
-You think everyone’s out to trick you?
-fr lolol
“You guys have quite the record, though.”
-gasp
-that’s true lol
-aw come on, this time we mean it!!
“Ss…”
Uri gauged the mood while looking at the chat.
Could she quit? Did she have to force herself to keep going?
She glanced deeper into the cave.
The underground dungeon, sunk in deep darkness, was filled to the brim with malice.
If she hadn’t seen it, that would be one thing, but having to wander around for two more hours while clearly remembering that filthy map structure made the road ahead feel bleak.
Even for her, someone who devoured every game without discrimination, this was a bit…
But judging by the mood in chat, if she threw cold water on things here, it looked like it would take two hours just to recover the broadcast.
She weighed it in her head.
The mental damage she would suffer in that horrible dungeon, versus the broadcast damage she would suffer if she refreshingly turned the game off.
And then there was her job as a streamer. Even the price of the avatar she had ambitiously commissioned.
She furtively checked WeTube on her phone.
A destructive thumbnail caught her eye. It was a new video that had just gone up on her colleague Hanami’s channel.
Even though it hadn’t been long since it was uploaded, the view count was no joke.
‘Ah… I wish I had one rotten veteran like this too.’
Still, she couldn’t keep hesitating forever.
She forced herself to refresh the mood and headed back underground.
Of course, she couldn’t hide her reluctance. The suffering that was about to unfold was vivid before her eyes, and she wondered if this was really the right call.
“No, a ladder snapping like that is just conscien—!!”
Her instincts as a veteran streamer were never wrong.
If she had been an ordinary person, if she hadn’t possessed the crisis-avoidance skills honed through years of broadcasting experience, she might already have unleashed a torrent of curses at the developers.
Still, as she continued dying, there were things she naturally came to realize.
At first, she had thought progressing without light was just an entertainment play for the broadcast, but surprisingly, the developers had even taken this into account when balancing things.
Even under the faint lighting, traces of thought could be seen in the placement of objects and the spacing of alleyways.
‘Though it also kind of feels like they’re carefully screwing you over for daring to raise a shield…’
Even so, no section appeared that was completely unreasonable.
It was designed so that if you bashed your head against it and kept challenging it, you would gradually progress.
Her career as a variety game streamer hadn’t been gained for free either, so even while dying until she was sick of it, Uri was able to stubbornly keep moving forward.
“They hid that trap really cleverly. They want me to avoid it by jumping… Why are there two traps?”
A trap that anticipated the landing of a player who had jumped over the first trap.
“No, you know it’s scarier because it’s quiet, right? Why is nothing happen—what is that?!”
After making her way past a slime that silently crawled along the ceiling before dropping onto the player’s head, and continuing for quite some time—
“There!! I can see the bonfire!!”
At last, a light began to flicker in the distance.
-wow, with 5 minutes left;;
-human victory ㄷㄷㄷ
-are you losing? “Win.”
-Yuuri wins!!
“This is it!! This is me!! Thanks for the meal!! Buuurp!!”
But perhaps she had set off the celebratory fireworks too early.
Perhaps she had gotten too excited and her field of vision had narrowed too much.
-Thwack!!
She did not see the enemy rising behind her.
-lolol?
-ouch
-what was that?
-insane lolololol
-hey, that’s a bit;;
Not even up until the very moment the enemy’s weapon lodged itself in the back of her head.
YOU DIED.
Red letters, who knew how many times today, appeared on the screen.
Unable to bear facing them, she squeezed her eyes shut.
She simply couldn’t bring herself to open them.
Because if she opened her eyes, she would see her character returned to the entrance of the cave again.
-getting mugged there, damn ㄷㄷㄷ
-where did that come from;;
-lolol how do they even think of that?
-ah lolol I seriously can’t stop laughing
-my head feels numb
Uri drew in a long breath.
“Cr… cra…”
This crazy game!!
“…This crazy game!! This filthy game!! This absolute garbage game!! This deranged game!!!! Winner of the 2020 Game Awards J.O.A.T…!!!”