Strinova Launch Event + Interview: a 2025 Must-Play

After being released in China on February 1st, 2024, Strinova made waves in the competitive shooter community. Developed by iDreamSky, Strinova is a competitive anime shooter with a mechanic called “Stringification”, introducing a whole new level of strategy and fun into the genre. It was released globally on November 22nd, 2024 for Windows PCs, with the developers planning on a release for mobile devices, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series consoles in 2025. iDreamSky was kind enough to invite me out to Los Angeles to participate in the Global Launch Event, as well as interview Jeff Lyndon and Alan Zhang, the President/Co-founder of iDreamSky and the Vice President of their R&D Center + Executive Producer respectively.

It was pretty exciting to get an invite to the launch event, because even before the email popped up in my inbox, I was already relatively familiar with the game and had been enjoying it. I remember seeing a video about Strinova’s CN release in the late spring this year, and it really caught my attention. Not only because of the anime style, but the gameplay and gunplay looked very fluid and fun (and after playing it, very addicting). I immediately had to look up if it was getting a global release, and I kept my eye on it ever since. The beta launched worldwide a few months back and after playing it I was hooked. Strinova feels similar to other games you’ve played but at the same time incredibly unique. Being able to go from 3D to 2D at the press of a button (as well as climbing walls/navigate the map like in “The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds”) adds so much depth to how gunfights are approached and mixes up the formula and genre incredibly.

The Launch Event was from December 9th to December 10th, but I attended on the 9th. I was greeted by the venue and event staff, got to sign a big canvas for attendees, and had an absolute blast meeting some other attendees and the amazing staff of iDreamSky. We got to sit down and enjoy playing the game with opportunities to participate in games and get some snacks and beverages while attending. As an added bonus, they sent us home with very nice merch goodie bags as a thank you for attending. Naturally, I got home and set up my Kanami acrylic stand on top of my PC case.

After a brief period of playing Strinova, Executive Producer Alan Zhang and President Jeff Lyndon came up on stage to discuss the principles and inspirations behind the development process of Strinova. They spoke about their values and what brought them into game development, including anime like Naruto and One Piece, while including games like Overwatch/Call of Duty, and TV shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, specifically mentioning the teachings these things had on them growing up and as they got into the scene. Additionally, they spoke a bit about future plans, how they plan on handling updates, and had even dropped an update mid-presentation to remove region-locking of games, allowing you to play with people all over the world instead of in a regional data center.

Of course, after getting to experience the event for a couple hours, before my flight home I had the wonderful opportunity to sit down with Alan and Jeff for an interview and ask a few questions about Strinova. I asked at first what the main inspiration behind Strinova was, to which Alan responded: “The primary inspiration and concept of Strinova was going from 3D to 2D, which is how we came up with Stringification”. Jeff added on and said this: “If we’re talking about inspiration, Alan and I grew up with lots of great anime and cartoons, as Alan just mentioned. Slam Dunk, One Piece, Naruto, Transformers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It really inspired him that anime’s about being brave, as well as having teamwork and finding your spark. There’s also playing competitive games, like Valorant or Apex or Overwatch. It’s a perfect blend between the two. When you combine the two loves that me and Alan have, anime and shooting, we had to find a way to combine them to make an anime shooter, which led to the birth of Stringification.”

I followed up that response by asking how they felt about Strinova being compared to similar games in that competitive shooter genre, given there’s quite the contenders in that space. Alan and Jeff had this to say: “The shooting genre is very mature. It’s been here for 20, 25, even 30 years now. So of course we had to get the fundamentals right, the feeling of the guns, the maps, the modes, how you shoot, how the guns spread, etc etc. For us, the biggest difference we have is the Stringification, which adds a whole new dimension to the game. And also, we increased the TTK with the introduction of Stringification so that players can react better and highlight capabilities of movement and dodging bullets. So in a situation like where we’re playing demolition, it’s like playing Counter-Strike. Even with that, the game plays very differently with the higher TTK and Stringification. In the future, we’re gonna be working on new gamemodes centralized around Stringification and the longer TTK, and executing skills.”

Of course, since it’s an anime shooter with quite the cast, each character having a unique moveset, I had to ask Jeff and Alan what the thought process is like going into designing a character’s abilities and weapon type. When a game has characters with teleportation, radars, buff fields, etc, alongside each character having a unique weapon, it really makes you curious what the design process is like. This is what they had to say:

“When we create characters, it starts with emotion before we go into the technical parts of it. When we go into a character with emotions, we look at what anime characters have inspired us and we use that to help create these characters. So, once we have the inspiration and the team has aligned that this will be the next character, we’ll start creating the concept of the character. Based on the lore, world story, what kind of guns and powers they have, it’s a combination of things to decide how this character will really be designed.”

In a time in gaming where popular shooters are drifting away from realistic depictions of firearms, I was curious to ask them if they use real firearms as a way to get ideas for the characters, to which Alan and Jeff responded:

“So, when we started on the original game in the design phase, due to the fact we wanted the player to relate to the game faster, we made guns that draw reference from the real world, or what they’ve played before. When you start playing the game, you know that this looks like a shotgun, or an AK, or this looks like an M4. And it’s easier for players to understand how the gun behaves. Spread, you know, the recoil. As we progressed, since we’ve launched for about a year in China and now globally, the community feedback is coming to us. The characters are very ‘wow, imagination’, right? So we wanted something even more unique, more crazy, even more wild, y’know? So that’s the direction we’re leaning onwards and seeing how far we can push this initiative to really show players something that has not been seen before.”

Now, when it comes to the lifeblood and future of a game, that depends on player retention and sometimes what else becomes of the game, whether that’s other forms of media, more merchandise for purchase, etcetera. My final question to Jeff Lyndon and Alan Zhang was simple: where and how do you see the future of Strinova? As a fan of the game, it was only a fair question to get into the minds of the creators and see what the future holds. A simple question, but a fun one that I felt was a nice way to end the interview opportunity that was graciously provided to me and Gaming-Age. This is what Alan and Jeff had to say on the matter:

“So, one of his [Alan] wildest visions is to see how we can merge MOBA elements. Seeing as Strinova merges a higher TTK with the team-play system and the robust hero system, it is in his vision, in Alan’s goal, to explore the different gamemodes that leverage the positions/classes of characters to play together. It allows us to push that a little further than other hero shooters can. We believe that, you know, the growth of the game will be supported by launching more characters, and the whole game’s designed around these characters, these roles, and these heroes. Emphasizing our creativity around teamplay and with each other will be the path we’ll go on, and we hope that we can create a new genre within the ESports competitive view, where it even further emphasizes that MOBA-like feel to our shooter.”

It was truly an incredible experience to be able to witness and hear from the leads of the game to really get a deeper understanding of the driving forces behind Strinova, as well as what they plan to do with it as time passes ahead. If you’re a fan of hero shooters or more competitive shooters like Counter-Strike and Valorant, I cannot recommend Strinova enough. Maybe it’s because I’m an anime fan, but the artwork and style are amazing and lend themselves to a very smooth performance on PCs with varying hardware capabilities. With smooth as silk gunplay, intense action, and an emphasis on working with your team to secure kills and make the best usage of all your abilities, it combines the best of other games in the genre and condenses it into a stylish anime shooter. And once more, I’d like to extend an absolutely massive thank you to iDreamSky and the team working on Strinova for the opportunity to fly out to Los Angeles and stay down there for a night to participate in the launch event. It was my first time covering an event for Gaming-Age, and I had an incredible time. Everybody was incredibly nice and helpful, and it left me very excited to get home and continue playing the game.