Tuesday 24 February 2002.
It had already been two days since ROCKSLEY uploaded his video about ZEPS 4, yet the impact was still spreading throughout the gaming community. Discussions about the console were everywhere, especially after Leeroy ended his review by reminding everyone that ZEPS 4 had only just started its life. That simple statement somehow made players even more excited because when people looked back at ZAGE's history, they knew how much its consoles usually improved after launch. If the launch lineup was already this ridiculous, then what would ZEPS 4 look like one year later? Two years later? What kind of games were still hidden inside ZAGE's development teams?
Inside ZAGE Tower, Zaboru sat comfortably in front of his computer while scrolling through several threads on the ZAGE forums. Some players were already creating ridiculous prediction lists while others were discussing which ZEPS 4 launch game had impressed them the most. There were even entire threads trying to guess what ZAGE would announce next based on small details in interviews, trademarks, development rumors, and random comments from ZAGE employees.
Zaboru chuckled while reading through them. "Whoa... that ROCKSLEY guy can really make a video. It's actually interesting."
He scrolled further before nodding. Leeroy's reputation helped a lot too. He wasn't someone people viewed as a ZAGE fanboy, and he had criticized ZAGE plenty of times before, so when someone like him became genuinely excited about ZEPS 4, people paid attention.
"But..." Zaboru grinned. "He's actually correct for being that excited. We barely just started after all."
Zaboru leaned back with a relaxed expression. ZEPS 4 had received enormous attention over the last several weeks, but that didn't mean ZAGE was suddenly abandoning ZEPS 3. In fact, three new ZEPS 3 games were releasing today, all of which had entered development long before ZEPS 4 reached the market.
Those three games were Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, Dino Crisis 2, and Silent Bomber.
Zaboru had no intention of delaying them simply because a new console generation had begun. ZEPS 3 still had an enormous user base, and even better, ZEPS 4 had full compatibility with ZEPS 3 games. Anyone who had already moved to the newer machine could simply insert the game and play it there without needing to keep their older console connected.
That actually created an unusual advantage for these late-generation releases.
Normally, games arriving near the end of a console's life could struggle because customers were already saving money for newer hardware. But in this situation, buying a ZEPS 3 game didn't feel like buying something immediately outdated. Players knew they could bring their entire library with them to ZEPS 4.
"So there's no reason to waste perfectly good projects," Zaboru muttered.
And these weren't filler games either.
All three had something interesting about them.
The first was Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee.
Zaboru smiled slightly when he looked at its promotional material.
Oddworld was strange.
Very strange.
And that was exactly why he liked it.
The game followed Abe, an ordinary Mudokon slave working inside RuptureFarms, a massive meat-processing factory controlled by the Glukkons. Abe wasn't some legendary warrior or chosen hero. He was basically just another worker who accidentally discovered that his employers were planning to turn the Mudokon workforce themselves into the company's next food product.
That alone gave Oddworld a bizarre identity.
The world looked disgusting, industrial, alien, humorous, and depressing at the same time. Machinery covered everything, advertisements were darkly comedic, workers were treated terribly, and the creatures inhabiting the world were intentionally weird rather than traditionally beautiful.
Zaboru had always liked that.
A lot of fantasy games tried to create worlds players immediately wanted to live inside.
Oddworld did almost the opposite.
It created a place that looked fascinating precisely because you absolutely did not want to live there.
The art direction alone made the game stand out from almost everything else on ZEPS 3, but its gameplay was equally unusual. Abe wasn't designed around direct combat. Most of the time, charging toward enemies was the quickest possible way to die.
Players needed to observe.
Move carefully.
Sneak.
Use the environment.
Communicate with other Mudokons.
Possess enemies through Abe's chanting ability.
And figure out how to rescue workers without getting Abe or everyone around him killed.
Zaboru had polished the controls and several transitions without removing the deliberate nature of the original gameplay. Abe wasn't supposed to feel like some hyper-responsive action hero. The entire point was that he was vulnerable and often needed to solve dangerous situations using timing, positioning, and whatever weird mechanics the environment provided.
GameSpeak was another feature Zaboru liked because it made communication itself part of the gameplay. Abe could call other Mudokons, ask them to follow him, tell them to wait, and use simple spoken commands to move groups of workers through dangerous areas.
It sounded basic, but within puzzle-heavy environments it created memorable situations.
Saving someone wasn't simply reaching them.
You had to figure out how the hell to get them out.
Sometimes one careless movement could cause a Mudokon to walk directly into machinery, gunfire, or some other horrific death.
And because Oddworld mixed dark themes with absurd humor, even those failures often made players stare at the screen for a moment before laughing at how brutally stupid everything had gone.
"It's such a weird-ass game," Zaboru muttered with a smile. "Perfect."
Oddworld wasn't something he expected to become the biggest release of the month, but it had the kind of strong identity that could slowly build a loyal following.
The second game was much easier to predict commercially.
Dino Crisis 2.
The first Dino Crisis had been a major success in this world, so anticipation for the sequel was already extremely high.
Players knew Regina.
They knew the dinosaurs.
They knew the tension of exploring facilities while hearing something moving somewhere nearby.
But Dino Crisis 2 wasn't simply repeating the exact structure of the first game.
That was the important part.
The original leaned much harder toward survival horror. Ammunition mattered, tension mattered, exploration was slower, and encountering dinosaurs inside narrow spaces created constant pressure.
Dino Crisis 2 deliberately shifted the balance toward faster action.
And Zaboru liked that decision.
Trying to recreate Dino Crisis 1 with new environments would have been safe, but it also would have been predictable. Instead, the sequel allowed the player to fight much more aggressively.
Dinosaurs appeared in larger numbers.
Weapons became more varied.
Combat became faster.
The player was rewarded for maintaining momentum and killing enemies efficiently.
Regina was still Regina, but now players could switch between her and Dylan, with both characters having different weapons and access to different situations throughout the story.
The game still had survival elements, but the atmosphere changed from constantly asking:
"Should I fight this dinosaur?"
into something closer to:
"How many of these bastards can I kill before they eat me?"
Zaboru chuckled when he thought about it.
Dino Crisis 2 also had something the first game lacked: a stronger sense of adventure.
Instead of spending so much time trapped inside one isolated facility, players moved through jungles, military structures, research areas, and dinosaur-infested environments that made the scale feel much larger. Raptors attacked in groups, larger dinosaurs became increasingly dangerous, and the game constantly encouraged players to keep moving.
There was also a scoring system tied to combat performance, which changed how players approached encounters. Killing multiple dinosaurs without taking damage could build combos and increase the points earned, which could then be used for weapons, ammunition, upgrades, and useful supplies.
That one system completely changed the rhythm.
Players weren't merely surviving dinosaurs anymore.
They were becoming good at killing them.
Zaboru smiled.
"It makes sense too. The first game teaches people to fear dinosaurs. Then the sequel lets them fight back."
And because the first Dino Crisis had already built a strong audience, Zaboru had little concern about the sequel selling well. There were already pre-orders from players who had been waiting for it since the first game ended.
But the third release was the one Zaboru had personally changed the most.
Silent Bomber.
The original concept itself was already cool.
The player controlled Jutah Fate, a heavily trained operative capable of placing bombs directly onto enemies and environments before detonating them remotely. Instead of relying on normal guns, the game's combat revolved around attaching explosives, creating combinations, moving quickly through enemy attacks, and blowing everything apart at the correct moment.
It created a fast and aggressive action game where positioning mattered constantly.
But when Zaboru began developing this world's version, he decided the structure could become something much more interesting.
Silent Bomber became another experiment with roguelike design.
Scurge: Hive had already introduced ZAGE's earliest major attempt at bringing roguelike concepts into a modern action game, and Zaboru wanted Silent Bomber to explore the idea from another direction.
The story campaign still existed.
Jutah still had his mission.
The game's characters, setting, enemies, and main progression were still important.
But missions were no longer always constructed as completely identical experiences.
Certain combat zones could change their layout between attempts. Enemy combinations could vary. Elite enemies could appear unexpectedly. Some routes could offer different risks and rewards, and optional rooms could contain temporary upgrades, resources, or powerful abilities that only lasted for that specific run.
Players still improved permanently over time, but each operation also allowed them to build Jutah differently.
One attempt might heavily strengthen the range of his bombs.
Another could increase the number of explosives attached simultaneously.
A different run might improve defensive movement, elemental bombs, chain explosions, or abilities triggered when several enemies were destroyed together.
The basic combat system remained easy to understand.
Move.
Lock on.
Plant bombs.
Escape.
Detonate.
BOOM.
But the roguelike structure encouraged players to experiment with how they reached that explosion.
Zaboru had been especially careful not to turn Silent Bomber into something where dying erased everything and forced the player to replay the entire story from the beginning. He knew that kind of structure would be too extreme for many players in the current industry.
Instead, individual operations behaved almost like contained runs.
Failing meant losing most of the temporary enhancements gathered during that mission, but story progression, unlocked equipment, major upgrades, and certain resources remained permanent.
That created tension without making failure feel like several hours had simply been deleted.
And because levels could vary, repeating a failed mission didn't always feel exactly the same.
Some players might discover a different upgrade early.
Others might encounter a tougher enemy formation.
Sometimes a dangerous optional section appeared with a powerful reward waiting at the end.
The result was a Silent Bomber that kept the original game's explosive action while also giving players reasons to replay missions even after completing them.
Zaboru grinned.
"This one might confuse people at first."
Roguelike design was still extremely new to the wider mainstream audience in this world. Scurge: Hive had already started introducing people to the concept, but there was no established formula yet. Players couldn't simply look at Silent Bomber and immediately say, "Oh, it's that kind of game."
They had to experience it.
And Zaboru liked that.
Oddworld offered something strange and artistic.
Dino Crisis 2 offered something familiar but faster and more aggressive.
Silent Bomber experimented with an emerging game structure.
Three ZEPS 3 games.
Three completely different experiences.
And thanks to ZEPS 4 compatibility, they weren't even trapped on old hardware.
Zaboru leaned back while watching the first sales reports begin appearing on his screen. Dino Crisis 2 naturally moved the fastest due to the reputation of the first game, while Oddworld and Silent Bomber were already generating curious discussions from players who hadn't expected ZAGE to release three notable ZEPS 3 titles in the middle of all the ZEPS 4 excitement.
"Hehehe... good."
Everything seemed fine.
Zaboru didn't need to interfere with the launch.
Instead, another thought had been sitting inside his head for several minutes.
He stared toward his computer screen, then toward the equipment nearby.
YouTube was becoming increasingly important.
Livestreaming was growing.
And after watching creators like ROCKSLEY receive so much attention from simply talking honestly about games, Zaboru couldn't help wondering what would happen if he personally interacted with players more directly.
He scratched his cheek.
"Hmmm..."
Zaboru stared at the streaming setup.
"Should I do a livestream...?"
He remained there, still contemplating the idea.
To be continued.
Please give me your power stone and if you want to support me and get minimum 50+ advance chapter and additional 1 chapter a week for 4$ considering subscribe to my patreon patreon.com/Zaborn_1997
Or buymecoffee https://buymeacoffee.com/Zaborn_1997 which same with patreon
current Patreon/buymecoffe chap 1454