After completing the first level, Karine changes the parameters of the firing range so that she can practice what she sees as a weakness. Especially since she will have to fight opponents from behind cover with either a QSZ-92 or a QBZ-191 often. Honestly, I am not sure if I can last very long as a streamer if I keep streaming this game! While, in MMOs, you can still amount to something on air without any real need for high-end gameplay talent, in FPS, “git gud first and stream later” is a common strategy for would-be streamers. So I must get better at the game or I will bite the dust on air!

The question becomes: is the QBZ-191 bugged when firing it from behind cover? Because she seems to be unable to fire it properly from behind cover, irrespective of what the cover is.

“I don’t expect much, but maybe I should try playing the multiplayer modes!”

And the multiplayer maps for the FPS portion include a Luoyang unfinished condo tower and the central business district of Guangzhou, to name those she actually ends up playing. She scores a few lucky shots on the QSZ-92 in Luoyang, which is somehow more accurate than the QBZ-191 at point-blank. However, in the Guangzhou CBD, which, as a map, is much more favorable to longer ranges than the Luoyang unfinished condo tower, she needed to either fire the QBU-10 or the QSZ-92 to hit anything.

“Why is the assault rifle less accurate at point-blank range than a pistol?” Karine rants, while sending a ticket to the manufacturer for the lack of accuracy of the QBZ-191.

Then she turns her attention to the second level of the game, which takes place on the northbound Guangshen Expressway. The car chase across Guangdong teased in the trailer, where the player needs to evade the hordes of angry homeowners, and hope that the player’s car, a Hengchi 5, reaches the Guangzhou CBD.

“For some reason, this level reminds me of Operation Heathrow’s first boss...” Karine comments as she gets used to driving the Hengchi 5, which handles like a SUV.

“This is nothing like Operation Heathrow’s first boss, Karine!” Adèle comments in the stream chat, before realizing that angry homeowners are attempting to run into her.

I wonder if there’s a way to force the angry homeowners to collide their cars against each other, or skid, Karine’s mind goes into overdrive as she drives the car in what feels like night in the game. Kind of like friendly fire in MAA.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

But as she approaches Guangzhou’s city limits, Karine intensifies the speed of merging into lanes, with angry homeowners hot on her tail, in hopes of causing them to collide.

“Is this game full of chinoiseries?” Caroline asks, on the stream chat, while she hears the noise of two angry homeowners’ cars being smashed into each other, too preoccupied with chasing Karine around on the highway.

“The game might be made in Quebec, but it definitely bears Chinese influence” another follower comments on the way driver behavior is modelled.

While two of the homeowners’ cars cause a traffic jam on the Guangshen Expressway, Karine gets bogged down in a traffic jam shortly after entering Guangzhou’s city limits. And then uses the QBU-10 to pick off angry homeowners.

This is making me wonder why this game’s developers even made the game around post-pandemic Evergrande. That car chase level in Guangdong makes me feel like I’m driving through Highway 40 in Montreal itself… Adèle keeps to herself. The trailer teased fights in an unfinished condo tower in Luoyang, are they referring to a level in the game’s story, or just a multiplayer map? If the former, how many gameplay hours does it take to get to Luoyang?

In the weeks to follow, each new build of the game includes more features being tested. Such as the infamous political loyalty system, which is affected by how players deal with the campaign’s events. And even new cosmetics that have, hopefully, no real bearing on gameplay. And, a rarity for horror games, loans and insolvency.

Especially when the game seems to make the angry homeowners more interesting than simply “I bought a condo, I expect it to be finished, or get money back”. And also dive into the context allowing Evergrande to grow to the size it did. In the end, the game proves very cerebral for a horror game, at least narratively.

So while the open beta phase seems a little protracted, it was enough for Karine to improve her gameplay skill, especially in the FPS component, and the bugs are fixed as they are found by players. Let’s hope that Evergrande’s manufacturer won’t go bankrupt; prolonged beta testing is often a red flag for a game. Also, for some reason, even though most of the story would work just fine without necessarily having to center around Hui Ka Yan, the devs somehow saw fit to change the player character go from being an independent board member to being a stand-in for Hui Ka Yan…

By then, Karine became known as Miss Bankruptcy among the game’s community.

And, to horror game lovers, Evergrande appears to be a breath of fresh air because there doesn’t seem to be that much in the way of what players deem unnecessary, except maybe a system or two but that doesn’t amount to padding the game. The Luoyang unfinished condo tower quickly proves to be a favorite of the player base, in both campaign and multiplayer modes.

Yet, as she plays and streams the game, Karine can’t help but to think of whether Hell’s real estate market, on MAA’s world, will suffer the same fate as the Chinese one.