Official platforms provide stable download speeds, and the download progress bar steadily increases, but it still takes some time.

Qiao Liang grabbed a can of sugary soda from the refrigerator and sat in front of the computer, thinking about playing something to pass the time. But he couldn't help checking the progress bar every so often to see how far the update had progressed.

"This feeling... it's like dreaming back to ten years ago..."

Qiao Liang remembered when his family spent a fortune to buy a computer when he was in elementary school. The screen was small, the tower was huge, and the dial-up internet connection had a pitifully slow speed of less than 100k. Even loading images on web pages was slow, and it was limited in both data and time. You had to be careful, or you'd exceed the limit.

Back then, Qiao Liang had to be very careful with his internet usage. He would search for guides online and write them down in a notebook before trying to beat the levels he was stuck on in single-player games.

Later, they got broadband, and the speed improved a bit. Qiao Liang started downloading games online. At that time, with a speed of a few hundred k, sometimes he had to download games of more than ten gigabytes, which often took several or even dozens of hours.

Qiao Liang's mood back then was exactly the same as it was now. He always had to check the download progress every so often.

The moment the game finished downloading, he would be very excited to install it, then enter the game and see the beautiful game CGs... that was the most wonderful moment.

Back then, Qiao Liang had to use all his cunning to play computer games without his parents finding out, always worried that he would be caught and scolded.

But later, he became independent and became a game up host himself. He played so many different kinds of games that no one cared whether he played them or not. And so, he lost that feeling of excitement.

Often, he would buy a game, leave it untouched, and forget about it, or only play the beginning and never pick it up again.

He hadn't experienced the feeling of cheering the moment a game finished downloading for a very, very long time.

But this time, for some reason, he suddenly had that feeling again!

The current time felt like sneaking into the study to play computer games in the middle of the night without his parents finding out—that kind of tense and expectant feeling.

In Qiao Liang's impatient mood, *Mission and Choice* finally finished updating!

But Qiao Liang noticed that although the update was complete, the background was still downloading.

This was because the current dozens of gigabytes of content were the game's basic content, including the game itself and the first two or three story segments.

In order to ensure the best viewing experience, although the quality of all the videos could not reach the level of a movie theater, the quality was basically ultra-high-definition Blu-ray quality.

But this also meant that the video took up a lot of space, even about the same as the game itself.

In order not to make players download too much content at once, the production team deliberately separated the two downloads. The subsequent video content was downloaded in the background, and players could start the game in advance.

During the game, the subsequent story videos would be downloaded.

The updated *Mission and Choice* icon had no changes, and the game details page had no changes. It was still the original old-fashioned, pixel-style promotional pictures, and those very awkward slogans.

Qiao Liang even suspected that if some players had automatic updates turned on, they wouldn't even notice that *Mission and Choice* had updated such a large package if they didn't look closely.

But this made Qiao Liang even more expectant of the game!

Qiao Liang calmed his excited mood and entered the game.

The original, very trashy *Mission and Choice* had no opening CG at all. After entering the game, it was directly a very rough title screen, with only a few simple options such as Start Game, Load Game, and Settings.

And after starting the game and entering the first chapter, it was just a PPT-like picture, with a few lines of text simply introducing the story background, and then it directly entered the game screen.

Even in that era, this attitude was very perfunctory and outrageous. After all, games of the same period were also mosaic-style, but at least there would be many CGs in the opening and during the game.

Even games like *Fantasy War* had very high CG levels at the time, which looked amazing in that era, and even crushed new games several years later.

But the updated *Mission and Choice* was completely different!

After a black screen and a few logos, a pair of closed eyes appeared on the screen.

The eyes were closed, but it could be seen that the eyeballs were moving quickly, the eyebrows were slightly frowned, and fine beads of sweat were oozing from the forehead, as if experiencing a terrible nightmare.

Qiao Liang was stunned.

"This CG level is too high, right?"

"It's no different from a real person!"

Qiao Liang had seen some 3A masterpieces that invested heavily in CG production, and the pores on the characters' faces were clearly visible.

But he had never seen anything this clear!

The next second, the camera zoomed out, and Qiao Liang saw the person's entire face.

"...Isn't this Lu Zhiyao!"

"This isn't made to look real, this is real! This is not CG at all, it's a movie!"

Looking at the hibernation pod in the picture opening automatically, and Lu Zhiyao sitting up, Qiao Liang instantly understood. No wonder it was so real, this was not CG at all!

"That is to say... President Pei put the movie into the game?"

"Doesn't this mean that buying the game is equivalent to getting the movie for free?"

"Or buying the movie is also equivalent to getting the game for free?"

"Uh... something doesn't seem right."

"That doesn't matter, but mixing the movie and the game together, will there be problems with the plot rhythm?"

After all, Qiao Liang had played many games, and when he saw this approach of combining games and movies into one, he was instinctively a little worried.

In fact, some foreign companies had used live-action shooting to make game CGs, but that was some years ago.

Moreover, most game companies did not adopt this method afterwards. Since it did not become mainstream, it means that this method has problems.

For example, the game's plot is fragmented, and the plot of each chapter may be divided into more than a dozen segments, and the connections between them are not close. They all select the most exciting segment of the plot to make CG.

As for the middle part, it can be filled with game content.

But the plot of the movie must be continuous, which naturally conflicts with the game plot.

"Maybe it's an excerpt from a portion of the movie?"

"But it's also quite wasteful, and I always feel that it may be difficult to deal with in detail."

"It would be acceptable for an ordinary game company that doesn't pay much attention to it to do this, but Tenda has always been striving for perfection in details, and President Pei shouldn't allow such small flaws to exist."

"Or is there a better solution?"

The plot was wonderful, and Qiao Liang didn't have much time to think about these messy things. These thoughts just flashed through his mind, and then were temporarily sealed up.

The high-definition esports display and gaming headset, although not the most perfect viewing experience, were definitely not bad.

Qiao Liang was quickly completely attracted by the game's plot.

The CGs of other games basically play a regulating role. Due to budget constraints, they are generally not very long, mainly to get players into the state as soon as possible.

But this plot of *Mission and Choice* was obviously very long. It was not an excerpt of a small segment of the plot, but was seriously telling a complete story.

After Qin Yi accepted the position of commander, Aeeis introduced him to the various functions of the console, including the observation ball, touch screen, and surrounding holographic images.

After Qin Yi officially started operating, Qiao Liang's computer screen seamlessly switched to the game screen.

Without a game title, no plot chapters, and no story synopsis, Qiao Liang found himself naturally substituting into the role of Qin Yi.

Aeeis's voice continued, but this time it became instructions for players to operate.

Aeeis did not directly use words such as "mouse", "keyboard", or "controller", but vaguely said "rotate the view", "select the troops", etc. This was to prevent players from getting out of the game.

Instead, a simple icon prompt appeared on the screen. For example, when it was necessary to select troops with the mouse, a simple mouse shape + arrow outlined by white lines would appear on the screen to prompt players to perform related operations.

The overall UI was almost completely consistent with the UI in the movie, and the freedom of the viewing angle was also very high. Although it was completely incomparable to the holographic image in the movie, compared to other games with a locked god perspective, the entire picture would appear more grand after zooming in.

The plot of the first level was very simple. It only guided players to get used to controlling the game's perspective and watching the simulated image of the United Fleet encountering the Zerg and collapsing.

After the game content ended, it seamlessly switched back to the movie content.

The original screen operated by the player became a movie screen, showing the previous content in a more grand way.

However, the actions in the game process were more free, and the time was much longer than the movie time, so it did not feel that the plot was repetitive, but strengthened the impression of the plot in the player's mind.

Then, the second plot and battle, the third plot and battle...

Qiao Liang discovered that the *Mission and Choice* game seemed to be different from other games.

In other games, the main body of the game content is the main thing, and the plot CG is interspersed in the game content to play a decorative role.

Looking back at *Mission and Choice*, the plot movie actually runs through the whole process and strings together the entire story line, but the content of the game is interspersed in it to become an embellishment.

The difference between these two approaches is that the former gives people a strong sense of paragraphs, and each chapter and level is actually relatively fragmented, and the connection is not very natural.

Some games even have to load and read bars for new levels, which is even more unfriendly to players.

But *Mission and Choice* makes people completely feel the fragmentation between chapters and levels.

This is like the method used by many story-oriented 3A masterpieces.

The traditional way is to read the bar when the scene is transformed, but these story-oriented 3A masterpieces will do some special processing during the transition in order to make the player's experience more continuous, such as tunnels collapsing, the protagonist crawling in a narrow cave, etc. At the same time, read the content of the scene, and the reading screen will never appear.

And *Mission and Choice* obviously did such a treatment, playing a plot movie between two levels, and the loading of the next level has been completed while the players are watching the movie.

Then, through the clever arrangement of the plot, the connection between the movie part and the game part is very perfect, and the player does not have any abrupt or unnatural feeling.

Although he has not yet touched the real battle part, just the game experience at the beginning has made Qiao Liang feel that this new *Mission and Choice* is completely different from all previous RTS games!