After hiding for many years, Shanghai Zhulong finally returned to the single-player game field with his orthodox sequel to the "Aujian Qitan" series, and announced the first trailer PV on August 17, 2025.This work can also be regarded as the latest answer for the veteran domestic manufacturers to stick to the stand-alone field for 18 years.However, although "Auntaka Sword" shows Zhulong's significant technological progress and distinctive style changes, whether this game can really inherit the core essence of the Ancient Sword IP, while meeting the current players' increasing expectations, let's talk about it today.

Shanghai Zhulong's new single-player work | The first trailer for "Ancient Sword"

Naming innovation and world outlook expansion, deep into the underworld's journey

Although the new work "Aunt Sword" abandons the traditional convention of naming digital suffixes in the series, Zhulong clearly emphasizes that the work is still rooted in the grand world view constructed by "Aunt Sword Qi Tan".Under the unified world view structure, the narrative map of this work boldly expanded to the mysterious and treacherous underworld field.In the game, the player will take charge of the authority of the Underworld, shoulder the heavy responsibility of conquering the dead souls, and thus embark on a journey deep into the underworld.By integrating the essence of ancient Chinese myths and legends of strange stories, "Ancient Sword" intends to create a more heterogeneous oriental fantasy world.This kind of exploration results that organically integrate the boundaries and depth of the worldview into a novel and unique and logical narrative experience is an important issue facing Zhulong's attempt this time.

Audiovisual evolution empowered by UE5, the balance challenge of beauty and weirdness

Relying on the technological empowerment of Unreal Engine 5, "Ancient Sword" has achieved a visible leap in the creation of picture expressiveness and narrative immersion.The official real-time preview PV clearly shows more precise scene modeling, dynamic light and shadow effects, and cinematic lens scheduling.With his profound accumulation in the field of national style art, Zhulong is committed to cleverly integrating the unique tension of hidden crises in the visual presentation full of oriental poetry.But what is worth pondering is that the overall style is significantly tilted towards the treacherous direction, and the high threshold posed by UE5 technology itself to players' hardware performance will inevitably bring more difficult optimization challenges.The ability of "Ancient Sword" to reach a wider player group is closely related to its ultimate market response.

Clarify action adventure RPG positioning, wide linear narrative focus on immersion experience

Before this, Zhulong had specifically clarified that the positioning of "Ancient Sword" is not a soul-like game or an open world, but an action-adventure RPG that tends to be a "wide linear" structure.The core of its design lies in a clear main plot, supplemented by a large number of cinematic narrative performances, and embedded with rich side tasks and areas for exploration. The game allows players to plan exploration trajectories based on their own pace, meet NPCs of different colors and delve into their background stories. Various actions are intended to seek a balance between narrative driving and player freedom.Under this "wide linear" framework, the scale of the boundary, the substantial depth of the side task content, and the substantial incentives that can be obtained by exploring behavior will also affect the player's immersion depth and experience satisfaction.

Eighteen years of precipitation and global ambitions, opportunities and challenges coexist

Since its establishment in 2007, Shanghai Zhulong has always focused on developing high-quality domestic stand-alone games as its core concept and has been committed to the field of domestic stand-alone games.The series of works of "Au Jian Qi Tan" is a reflection of this persistence. As its orthodox single-player sequel, "Au Jian" carries the mission of continuing the series' independent narrative tradition and telling new stories.It is particularly worth noting that Zhulong clearly expressed the strategic intention of global distribution this time - hoping to push the game experience that integrates Chinese culture to the world stage.

Looking at the current situation, in the increasingly fierce global action RPG market, facing the different aesthetic orientations and potential cultural barriers of international players, whether "Ancient Sword" can successfully break through with its unique Chinese aesthetics and narrative characteristics, and whether the player expectations accumulated over the years can be fully satisfied, both of which constitute the severe challenges it faces.This "unsheathed work" that embodies the hard work of Zhulong for many years, its market response and artistic value will eventually be waiting for the joint test of global players and markets.