Therefore, the original intention of the entire Bluebell Flower organization was to preserve, transmit, and share magical knowledge, and incidentally fight against the church to the end.
The entire backstory was discussed in multiple meetings with the people in charge on Odin's side.
For a while, the head of the Blue Star's story team would suddenly fall into deep thought while looking at the information provided from the other side.
He often exclaimed, "What a detailed worldview! From epic myths to everyday details, everything is so complete. It saves us so much work! I almost thought that Odin, the Great Demon King, traveled from the era when bluebells existed."
This was obviously a joke, but many people felt a deep connection to it.
There are also a few employees on Earth who are obsessed with Earth's ancient culture. Their clothing, manner of speaking, and habits make them seem as if they have traveled from Earth's past.
The initial story will be reworked multiple times, eventually becoming the story outline that is gradually presented to the player.
It's like Blue Star Studios taking samples from a famous cathedral in real life and recreating it in the game, but adding an additional ruin underground for players to explore more excitingly.
As the main storyline unfolds, players will gradually learn about the bluebell's past, the assassins' creed, and the efforts made by all the wizards.
The knowledge of astronomy began with the Ptolemaic wizards and was gradually passed down to Copernicus—a process actually accomplished by Odin, the assassin predecessor of that time.
In the game, players will witness Odin's phantom carrying out missions, which serves as both a tutorial for players and a unique narrative approach.
Then, in the game, this baton of knowledge will be passed from player to more wizards such as Bruno, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton through various missions.
Players will get to know each wizard and then see how each of them ends up.
Copernicus died of illness, Bruno was burned alive by the church, Galileo was sentenced to life imprisonment...
But the heliocentric theory will eventually arrive, just as the sun shines on the earth, irresistibly from the dawn onwards.
This is the power of civilization!
The ending of "The Way of the Assassin" will also be when the protagonist (player character) grows old.
By then, the protagonist had become a master assassin of the Bluebells, having experienced the main quest about the Astronomy School, as well as many other side quests, becoming a battle-hardened grandmaster.
He will finally embark on a ship journey to the newly discovered "New World".
He firmly believed that there, the seeds of civilization would sprout, and then be enlightened by great wizards...
Perhaps, he will also see more traces of his predecessors, just as Odin once did.
The entire worldview thus became a closed circle.
The main storyline of "The Way of the Assassin" is magnificent and based on the profound meaning of "knowledge enlightenment and civilization inheritance", which can make players feel a sense of mission.
In fact, many employees were suddenly filled with enthusiasm after reading the script outline.
"That's right, that's how our civilization has been passed down!"
"The seeds of knowledge were not extinguished in that dark Middle Ages. Waaah, I suddenly feel that those scientists were really great."
"It's both thrilling and heartbreaking. Ah, it's truly an epic story... Suddenly, I feel that Odin's eyes are really suited to be such a senior assassin. He gives off the feeling of someone with a story to tell."
"Quick! Give me a computer! Give me a job! I feel like I have to study hard to save the world! We can't be so complacent about the civilization our ancestors sacrificed their lives for!"
A good story is one that can inspire you.
The story of "The Way of the Assassin" combines past history with a fictional worldview, making history thrilling, romantic and exciting, perfectly demonstrating the phrase "derived from life but higher than life".
Blue Star Studio was then highly motivated and began working on the beta version.
They made a linear narrative game called "Blue Star Apocalypse," where the entire story follows a single main plot, and players progress through the map step by step without any missions being ordered out of order.
They also made a completely open-world game called "Mortal Souls," but that game didn't have a main storyline. Instead, each NPC's storyline evolved over time, and players would only gradually learn the truth of the world—so there was no set order for the quests.
Assassin's Way is Blue Star's first attempt at a semi-open world game.
The protagonist will be free to choose whether to do the main storyline or side quests. Even if they complete a stage of the main storyline, they can suddenly stop and do another quest.
In this way, when the protagonist is not in the main storyline, the actions of certain NPCs will have to be "temporarily frozen" to prevent situations where, when the player returns, they have already been burned at the stake by the church...
Moreover, the question of how open this world should become is quite a headache.
The initial design of Mingyan was that players could freely traverse the entire city map, but could not leave the city where the mission was located.
Players can interact, trade, and even clash with designated story NPCs, but cannot interact with ordinary civilian NPCs (i.e., extras).
Players can decide how to complete a mission, whether it's a face-to-face assassination (using Musou attacks), an aerial attack, or a poisoning assassination... but they cannot decide the outcome of the mission.
In other words, the task must be completed, and the target must ultimately die.
If the completion rate is too low, it will be considered a "mission failure", and the entire mission status will be reset, as if the protagonist never did it.
During the beta version development phase, studio members would often finish a task and then call on everyone to test it together.
This isn't a formal testing process; it's more of a daily routine of "version testing" to ensure that today's version doesn't have any major problems.
Then, during this time, the designers discovered that many questionable things were happening even among their own employees—
Someone actually attempted to massacre the entire city!
"This is outrageous!" (The designers screamed.)
Since ordinary players can't communicate, he looks like an AI robot, so killing him doesn't make him feel guilty... But that can't be a reason for him to kill anyone he sees!
How can it be acceptable for a great inheritor of knowledge to turn into such a devil?
The designers were exasperated and added an extra setting: assassins are not allowed to indiscriminately kill civilians. Killing one civilian will reduce the mission completion rate by 5%, until the mission fails and everything starts over!