Supercell's New Boat Game - The Experts Weigh In

[Music] we were talking about Neil Long's article cuz he like kind of went deep into what was happening at supercell where roomone was going from space ape and all of a sudden this thing pops up and they were like supercell is teasing a new title called boat game it must be a working title and I was like what on Earth is this I only could find a trailer it like it's super secretive small Alpha Testing but try to get some information it was described as an Innovative player experience with strategic Naval battles exploration and multiplayer elements and some of the feature sets are character customization loadouts skill trees sailing mechanics Island exploration and multiplayer on foot third person shooting elements that's as much as I got the trailer was super vague was it not give me any idea

of the proper gameplay but maybe I was looking at the Long Trail I don't know Phil what did you see about it I've actually played it how did you play it are you like I got you're the VIP group Al I got I got into the alpha the key is not to use your deconstructor fun email um that's how I'm in the alpha for uh project rise well listeners actually don't know right now but Mishka is offscreen yelling battle Bay repeatedly if you remember roio's ill- fated project this one I think is different than battle Bay for a number of reasons it actually takes a lot from Moco which is the RPG that they've been testing for a while and if you actually remember a while back ilka and one of his letters talked about the need for supercell to get games into the hands of players faster even when they're a little bit rougher Paul Graham of course is famous for saying you know if you're not embarrassed to ship you ship too late and I think they've really taken that advice to heart and this is a much earlier game much earlier game than I think we've seen a lot of supercell games it definitely is again taking a lot of those Moco assets maybe the supercell engines flexing a little bit they have a Path of Exile Style skill

tree with a bunch of different nodes which is pretty interesting you're able to add gear to your boat and upgrade it you're able to add gear to your character and upgrade it the loop is kind of interesting what ends up happening is you spawn into a Social Hub you boat into these different shards or these worlds it's almost like a servered instance you explore The Shard you will find missions and you'll try to complete those missions while you're in The Shard when you complete a mission you'll get a chest you take the chest back to your boat and then you go back to the main Social Hub and you'll open the chest with the locksmith and you'll get some rewards very MMO is it's probably one of the more ambitious titles I've seen from supercell I think again the engine's really flexing here they've really been fascinated with more sync PVP onscreen virtual analog sticks in their last releases Squad Busters brawl Stars flood rush to some degree U they keep they keep moving in this direction which I find interesting they've kind of backed away from kind of the more tactical you know Clash mini everdale to more real time action which I found pretty

interesting this is like a PC game this is like a Guild Wars game it's really bizarre it looks like it yeah it doesn't doesn't even seem to be belong in Mobile if you had told me this was super I wouldn't have guessed to be honest I think what they're seeing especially with brawl stars because the brawl star audience is so young that the first device that I think a lot of younger people have is their mobile device right this is where they're doing their gaming at home right it's not just on the go I'm gaming at home and I'm having longer sessions and so I think you're seeing more traditional experiences come into play I mean Roblox is the greatest example of this right and so this to me is them gearing around that generation is like for Mobile's going to be your first device you're going to have more intensive real time cohesive experiences that you don't need to have three minutes it's not about filling the gaps anymore in your life I think that was the original freet to-play thesis right is that I'm on the elevator I'm playing Candy Crush I'm on the train I'm playing merge Mansion whatever it may be it's filling the dead space in your life and

I think this is much different this much different approach I don't know if this text or is your name it says bod MCB faces speedier cousin it was born to be fast it'll do anything its cousin can do but faster the IP is kind of fun you know it's a little whacky I mean I think the I think the IP is gonna go over I think the IP was pretty last minute but that's it's kind of funny I mean that's very on brand for them the playful funny quirky style very cartoony it's not set in The Clash universe that's the other thing I'd point out it's good to see them expand characters right correct I'm GNA just say this I don't know why I sit here and try not to bag on supercell but this game just is is a complete mismatch of markets right so multiplayer MMO style games where you're leveling up characters is not the right match for the Western markets like that's does well in Japan Korea that doesn't do well here this like just Roblox seems to do pretty well

not this is not Roblox this has a similar ux you're causing the problem by suggesting that Roblox is similar to this it's not right Roblox is completely different experience for a different audience correct the similarity is that about 80% of roblox's audience is on mobile that's where the similarities end in in my opinion here I'm only referring to the uxx of Roblox where you're using 3D worlds and 3D space to move between different locations rather than menu based interaction it's the only analogy of making the Roblox nothing else no that's that's not not the analogy I would make it's going to have some challenges getting any type of scale here particularly monetization wise interesting to see what their monetization strategy is going to be if it's just like cosmetic like it's over no there there's real power score here like the whole game is based around power score the whole game is geared around it this is this is an RPG this this is obvious RPGs are aren't they like super super challenged right now yeah just look at MMOs forget RPGs

collection based like upgrade Evo games are all the do extremely well but every other RPG like the MMO style RPGs are disaster like anybody can look at comps and see that this game is not well suited for the current market you have to believe like some like real leap of faith that tastes are going to change in this Western Market which Chase Haven changed for the last like 10 years you know it's really quite bizarre well let's keep going yeah I thought you know it's early right now we'll have more data next week but the split faction reviews are coming in and they are coming in hot and if you're not familiar with this game this is the new title from hazelight which has done a lot of co-op games most almost exclusively co-op games if you remember it takes two was their last title and Joseph feris yeah it was it was an absolutely great game unravel also a great game they just have made Banger after Banger it's embarrassing how good they've been at this also Swedish Studio naturally and one of the things that was pretty interesting and one of the podcast he

revealed is that of the 23 million sales for it takes to 50% of them originated in China which I was pretty shocked to see and so let's see if split fiction on when it's on PC is able to Garner a large Chinese share Fable delayed to 2026 not a shocker not really quite sure if Microsoft can make games anymore but we'll see if they ever get this thing out right and when I say Microsoft I mean Studios that they have not acquired so anyway yeah we'll see I'm kind of excited like Like Fable is an old school like RPG that they just have not been good at like executing against but yeah we'll see how they can pull it off if I remember the trailer got really negative reviews maybe that plays into it I don't remember exactly what it was I think the look at some of the characters I mean look at the end of the day Microsoft makes lots of mistakes and one of their biggest mistakes is they don't really know how to manage Studios which is evident by what they did to Halo the only Studio that's actually done quite well is Forza right which seems to

execute pretty well but not Bethesda Bethesda is an own Studio that their their own entity right okay I'm talking about their internal Studios that they've acquired before Bethesda basically pre Bethesda pre Activision [Music]