For a full 15 minutes, both sides fought back and forth, neither giving ground, creating an extremely tense and exciting atmosphere.

Many viewers even felt surprised—had 15 minutes already passed so quickly?

Chen Sha was an excellent commander, but the opposing commander was equally skilled. Clearly, the opponent was also likely one of the players who participated in Heavenly Fire Studio’s internal testing.

As the game’s popularity increased and the player base grew explosively, more players would master the game mechanics, and more would become capable of serving as commanders.

In the early stages after the game’s official launch, some matches might be one-sided due to differences in commander skill levels. But over time, the strength gap between opposing sides would naturally narrow, making battles even more intense and exciting.

When the match ended, Chen Sha’s teammates and livestream viewers all seemed to want more.

“That was so thrilling! These large-scale battles are truly exhilarating!”

“The hail of bullets really gives you the feeling of being on the front lines. It’s even more immersive than the large-scale campaigns in some single-player games!”

“Indeed, this is a completely different concept from other FPS games where an entire match only has a dozen or twenty people in small skirmishes.”

“This game seems to rely not just on shooting skills but also on brainpower. You really need some military knowledge to play well!”

“The time was a bit short, I wasn’t fully satisfied yet.”

“It’s a pity we couldn’t directly attack the enemy’s main base to win. It was just a continuous tug-of-war.”

“That shows the matchmaking system is well-designed! It’s interesting when both sides are evenly matched. If we had pushed straight to the enemy’s main base, we might have had fun, but the other side would have had no enjoyment at all. Over time, players would gradually leave this mode.”

“Playing this feels a bit like the 40vs40 large battlefields in Fantasy World. It reminds me of the glorious days a few years ago when I followed the national team to grind military ranks in battlefields…”

The general feeling was that the second phase of combat resembled the large-scale battlefields in Fantasy World.

However, compared to large battlefields in MMORPG games, Bullet Hole 2’s mode had certain improvements.

MMORPG battlefields basically had no balancing mechanisms—both sides would start when they had 40 players each, but the differences in equipment, skill, and command between the two sides could be worlds apart.

Therefore, these types of battlefields rarely featured evenly matched, intense battles, and comeback victories were even rarer. There were basically only two situations.

In the first situation, both sides would collide at the most crucial strongpoint in the center of the map. The losing side would generally lose motivation and start to play individually, while the side that captured the key strongpoint would methodically win the battle.

In the second situation, both sides would go their separate ways, rushing straight for the opponent’s base, both trying to save time and compete for speed. Whoever killed the enemy general first would win.

Matches where a team at a disadvantage refused to give up, staying united to find comeback opportunities, were as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns.

But Bullet Hole 2 was different. This game didn’t assign factions from the start, but first went through 15 minutes of intense combat to eliminate and screen players, then redistributed the factions, ensuring both sides had similar strength.

When evenly matched, both sides could see hope for victory and naturally wouldn’t give up.

Moreover, FPS games differed from MMORPGs. In MMORPGs, no matter how powerful a player was, they could at most handle two or three opponents. Against players with equivalent equipment, even one-on-one fights might be difficult to resolve. Therefore, in MMORPG battlefields, individual players could hardly change the battlefield situation, easily leading to disorganization.

But in FPS games, killing or being killed happened in an instant. A powerful squad could instantly change the battlefield situation, filling the entire battlefield with uncertainty. Even at a disadvantage, players wouldn’t lose heart but would continue to organize attacks.

Furthermore, players’ actions in seizing strongpoints and defending strategic locations on the map would always differ in objectives and processes each time, continuously bringing fresh experiences that wouldn’t become boring.

Although large-scale team battles might face the problem of “what if there aren’t enough matched players,” the epic feeling brought by these large-scale battles was definitely incomparable to small skirmishes with twenty or thirty players!

Infiltrating enemy lines under a hail of gunfire, operating deep behind enemy lines, dancing on the edge of a knife—this was far more thrilling than mindlessly competing in gunfights in deathmatch mode!

Chen Sha and his squad went on to experience the other two modes.

There wasn’t much to say about Deathmatch mode—it was just straightforward shooting. Its main purpose wasn’t just to provide players with a fast, direct combat mode, but also to help players better adapt to weapons and become familiar with terrain, preparing for the other two modes.

Originally, the players in the squad and the viewers in the livestream didn’t have high expectations for these two modes, but surprisingly, Survival mode brought everyone a great surprise!

After reading the introduction to Survival mode, everyone initially thought it was just a stripped-down version of Classic mode—just take the first half of Classic mode, cut off the second half, and make some basic numerical balancing adjustments.

But after actually playing, they discovered that although the two game modes seemed similar, the gameplay had huge differences and felt completely different!

Relatively speaking, Classic mode focused on the faction war after the first 15 minutes, so the initial 15 minutes of gameplay was mainly for players to prepare for the later faction war, with no pressure.

Therefore, players had a relatively relaxed mindset when playing Classic mode, with very frequent engagements.

After all, they just needed 100 people to die quickly to enter the next phase. There was no point in dragging it out—those who survived would fight in the faction war, while those who died would quickly start the next match.

Although some people would deliberately play it safe to reach the second phase, these players were relatively few.

But in Survival mode, the players’ ultimate goal changed—they needed to survive as long as possible. This essentially meant the game mechanics encouraged players to stay alive longer.

As a result, the number of players choosing to play it safe increased dramatically!

In other words, except for some resource-rich hotspots, the intensity of combat in other locations actually decreased.

However, this didn’t reduce the game’s fun; instead, it made the game more thrilling and diverse!

Because everyone was cautiously playing it safe, no one would easily expose themselves. So players had to be extra careful when entering a new area—no one could be sure whether enemies were hiding behind a door.

Although there were small portable radars, enemies could also choose between optical camouflage and radar invisibility, giving them a high success rate for ambushes.

Many skilled players were more likely to fail in Survival mode than in Classic mode because there were too many lurking bastards!

This created a “dark forest” feeling—everyone had to weigh whether there were other hunters nearby before firing, and everyone felt like they were being watched when entering a new area.

To speed up the game’s pace, Survival mode had an exclusive mechanical army invasion mechanism. Every so often, mechanical armies would continuously attack from the periphery toward the center.

For players, they could either collect resources and hold out against the mechanical army at strongpoints until the last bullet, or run inward, forced to fight other squads to the death.

Different players had different approaches to these choices, resulting in varied enjoyment.

As for whether players preferred Survival mode or Classic mode, it depended on different players’ tastes.

Classic mode had larger scenes and more intense battles, giving players an epic feeling, but the combat process could sometimes be formulaic. After all, most commanders would focus their operations around those important strongpoints, and most people would make similar judgments when facing the same situation.

Only commanders with unique thinking and imaginative command artistry could create classic campaigns that were completely unexpected, but such commanders were rare and couldn’t be sought out deliberately.

Moreover, in Classic mode, players could respawn after death, so points were calculated based on performance at the end, making the joy of victory less intense.

Survival mode might not have as many large-scale scenes, but players couldn’t respawn after death. It would never be formulaic for players; every decision had to be carefully considered, and the sense of achievement from surviving until the end was incomparable.

Fortunately, Bullet Hole 2’s three modes weren’t conflicting but rather independent and complementary to each other.

If players got bored with one mode, they could switch to another. Although this game only had three modes, its playability could completely rival FPS games like Sea Fortress, which had several modes!

Viewers in the chat also became active—just watching Chen Sha play seemed very interesting!

“Looks so fun, downloading it now!”

“This is the first time I’ve seen an FPS game with such a large map and multi-player interaction. It seems like it would be quite interesting!”

“The main thing is that this game also streams really well. The parachuting, scavenging, and combat all feel fresh every time you watch. The half-hour game time has good pacing, and the streamer can still chat with viewers. It’s the perfect streaming game!”

“Does this game have a Fire Kirin?”

“I’m a bit worried about this game’s monetization model. As we all know, Heavenly Fire Studio and Longyu Group aren’t very trustworthy. Having them distribute this game makes it hard to trust…”

“It’s okay, this game also uses a skin monetization model, and the prices aren’t too high! Although it’s a bit more expensive than GOG, this is an FPS game after all, with more detailed character models, so the price is completely acceptable.”

“Have Heavenly Fire Studio and Longyu Group changed their ways? They’re not trying to milk players for money anymore? That seems unlikely…”

“Hah, how could they not milk players? It’s just that the game hasn’t been online for long, so it hasn’t shown its fangs yet! Just wait—if this game really becomes popular, those pay-to-win events won’t be missed!”