We got invited to the launch party for Strinova, the ambitious and recently-launched anime-styled hero shooter by independent developer iDreamSky. Before hopping into our Strinova interview – make sure to check out our preview for the game!

While finally getting our hands on the game, we naturally had some questions for the team and how they came about such a fresh and unique take on the genre. Without further ado, get our entire interview below:

Niche Gamer: What kind of updates can players expect in terms of narrative expansions or new gameplay features in the next year?

iDreamSky developers: The updates that players can be expecting will be around a couple of things. One is new characters, a new character means a new story and an expansion of the whole world and the lore. second, obviously, would be updates that would be surrounding new game modes, which we have just explained on stage.

That we are launching new game modes. The third group will be features, and features would not be coming as it would become as a form of update, but would be more progressive and it would be surrounded by a major pillar.

One is the competitive side, which is around team building, tournaments, supporting community tournaments, supporting even bigger tournaments like world championships and so forth. And then on the other side is to help players to explore that casual side of Strinova, which is content creation, how to be featured, how to join in into the fan art, fan base, and to turn the passion into something that they can live off.

NG: Will future updates prioritize community feedback or introduce experimental ideas?

iDreamSky developers: We see ourselves, other than providing and entertainment value, we’re providing a service. So listening to the community is always the normal thing that we do. Me and my team, even the executive team, get involved into looking at community feedback, both Discord and on Steam other outlets that we currently have.

We have to limit our outlet because there is way too many outlets, then we’re drilling down too many comments. But ultimately we prioritize community feedback in our future development pipeline, because now the game is online already. So it’s time that we can actually listen to the community feedback.

But obviously from a creative side, we still believe that, you know, some level of creativities have to come deep down from our emotions as the game developer. What we truly believe in, what we truly love like, for example, Bai Mo, as Alan has explained, draws from his inspiration of Killer Bee (Naruto).

NG: Are there any plans for crossover events or collaborations with other games or franchises?

iDreamSky developers: Yeah now we’re hearing very, very different ideas, so we’re still thinking about it, but definitely that would be something down the road. We would definitely do it in 2025.

NG: How do you plan to balance free updates versus paid content in the games life cycle?

iDreamSky developers: As a competitive game, our paid content is mainly surrounding skins, not like pay-to-win type of games. That’s the reason why we really want to make an anime shooter is because most anime games leave a feeling or an emotion or a norm that it seems like most anime games are pay-to-win games.

Some games are about buying new weapons and if you get that you get better. In Strinova, you get prettier, you get more things to show off, but it doesn’t mean you get better, right? and that’s why we believe that there definitely is a subset of anime fans that wants to have a game that is not pay-to-win.

NG: How does the current matchmaking system account for players skill gaps, and are there plans to refine it?

iDreamSky developers: We have already taken down region lock already. Given that, we do hear from players that they don’t want this feature. And we work very hard to overcome the challenge of regional locks to ensure that technicality and also from a working balancing point of view is still on a certain fair playground.

In terms of matchmaking, We are actively listening to our community back, but given our experience working in China for almost a year already, and plus on top of that, our team also has experience working on competitive games, we have applied most of the standard matchmaking mechanisms onto a matchmaking system.

We don’t believe that this is the ultimate answer to everything, so continuous updates and continuously monitoring how metric the system is. So we have to be constantly looking at how our players upset has changing, and also how our user base is changing to apply to the proper mechanism to ensure the match is as smooth as possible. Some of them have actually played multiple betas, or some of them even have played with VPNs and played the Chinese version. As time progresses, it will stabilize, like bronze guys are really bronze guys, silver guys are really silver guys.

NG: Will there be matchmaking adjustments for solo players versus like the premade group?

iDreamSky developers: That is already applied. So, if you are playing solo, you would match up with other solo players. and if you have a five person team, you’d be matched with other five player teams.

NG: Are there plans to introduce new matchmaking tears or seasonal ranking systems for the competitive modes?

iDreamSky developers: We don’t want to do too many different rank systems, because if we start doing that and we are diverting our resources and that we in turn affect the matchmaking time. And obviously no one likes to be in matchmaking for more than like a minute.

But as we go when we have a bigger player base, we might open up as we go, the player base does sustain multiple leagues or a rank system. In terms of expanding the current rank system to even more levels, and even creating more micro levels, or nano levels, yes. That is definitely something that in China we already did over the past few motnths.

NG: What steps are being taken to combat cheating and maintain fair gameplay?

iDreamSky developers: So, we have two things that we’re doing. One is that we have applied the same anti-cheat system, ACE, which is from Tencent, is a kernel level anti-cheat system, which has been performing quite well in China. We are also fine tuning it for the international market and so far, it seems like it’s working.

But obviously, we have a second layer that is dynamic and monitoring systems of players’ activities inside the game. And the third is obviously player reporting. So when we combine all three together, we are constantly monitoring how the player is performing inside a game. If we see any odd or abnormal activities, we start looking into that, so if we see this player is actually doing something that the game’s anti-cheat system is not catching, we act on it.

On the other hand, we are also looking at the player reporting system, which if a player is not cheating, but he’s playing in just a very, very depressed way which affects other players’ experiences, then we also look at that and behind that we have a system which will combine all this evidence and all of this data is upset to match with these players how they match make in so.

NG: Are you guys going to consider a console version or if it was just going to be PC only?

iDreamSky developers: Look forward to the end of 2025. Most likely Q3 or Q4 2025.

NG: Will there be crossplay between console and PC players or like something like that?

iDreamSky developers: There will be cross progression. so we’re not going to ask players to buy things again. Your account will be carried over.

So, when we launch mobile or console, you can then decide like, you have time to play on mobile, you play on mobile, if you have time to come PC, you play on PC, if you’re at a friend’s house, you play on console. In terms of cross play, cross matchmaking, we more see it as the control input to ensure fairness in the game, as it’s more important.

NG: How do you envision the competitive scene in the first few years?

iDreamSky developers: As much as we can imagine as far as we can get to. I mean even before we want to train over in 2024, we already feature in the E-Sports World Cup, which is pretty much the highest we can go. How do we create an E-Sports environment and the tournament scene that welcomes more players to be games..

I think personally as a sports player and also as an E sports team owner multip when he sports team. The current east force ecosystem, which I see have evolved a lot since when 20 years ago. But still, I think given what have evolved in the past two decades, you know, there’s influencer that which I, you know, broadcasting is now a profession.

With all these things we can that is fluctuated over and that and over games. how do a game that have an e sports potential be more embracing a bigger um crowd of community? If you really look at how current sports game is, it’s still very, very the pyramid on the top is still very, very small triangle. So how do we make that triangle bigger? I think that’s the question that we have. that we are trying to solve internally, uh what kind of system should we put in place? What kind of ecosystem fundamental should be created to allow more people to be playing professionally or semi-professionally?

NG: Thank you so much for your time! We’re very excited to play more of Strinova!

Strinova is now available to play worldwide as a free-to-play game on PC (via Steam, the Epic Games Store, and direct download).