The single biggest difference between single-player and online multiplayer games lies in their social systems. Online social gameplay encompasses PVP arena competitions, PVE dungeon raids, friend networks, guilds, mentorship systems, and much more.

As a turn-based strategy game cross-playable across both holographic pods and mobile devices, Turbulent Spring and Autumn had received an immense amount of care and attention from its development team during the design of its social mechanics.

At its core, however, it was a turn-based card-collector game focused on unit development. Xie Yunfan had no intention of clogging up the experience with marriage systems or sworn-kin intimacy networks—those were features tailored for massive fantasy MMORPGs, not a strategy title.

Still, an online game naturally required a proper Friends System.

The Friends System in Turbulent Spring and Autumn was exceptionally rich in functionality. Friendship Points earned through it could be spent in a dedicated Friendship Shop to redeem a wide array of free materials and items.

The main sources for earning Friendship Points included teaming up with friends to run dungeons, completing Guild Quests together, and sending daily Stamina gifts to one another. Weekly caps were put in place for each activity, which greatly reduced the pressure on players to grind continuously.

In addition to standard social interactions, there was a Support System. Every player could designate one Support Hero in their friends panel. Anyone on their friend list could borrow that unit to clear challenging story quests.

This feature was an absolute godsend for both free-to-play (F2P) players and newcomers.

For instance, if a player failed to pull a top-tier DPS unit at the start, but someone on their friend list had pulled a Solar-tier hero like Bai Qi or Wei Qing and leveled them up to maximum potential, they could simply borrow that hero for difficult stages.

Whenever a borrowed hero was deployed in battle, both parties earned bonus Friendship Points.

After adding a batch of friends upon reaching Level 10, the streamer Uncle Flying Bear quickly stumbled upon this “F2P Paradise.” He opened his Support Hero interface—and was immediately greeted by a sea of glittering, golden Solar-tier heroes.

Among them was a player with the handle “Gacha God Incarnate,” whose support slot featured a max-skill Han Xin. Just how much did this whale love Han Xin to pull four duplicate copies right at launch to max out all his skills?!

Another player named “Healer Main Only” had placed a max-skill Bian Que in their support slot.

When duplicate copies of Bian Que were drawn, they didn’t unlock a ultimate skill, but instead upgraded his Skill 2—”Resurrect an ally and restore Bian Que’s own HP by 50%”—into “Resurrect an ally and immediately reset them to their Initial State.”

That phrase—Initial State—was filled with strategic tactical depth. It was far more powerful than a simple full-health resurrection.

Certain heroes had passive traits with descriptions that triggered “When entering battle” or “At the start of battle”—conditions that defined their Initial State.

Take Zhuge Liang, for example. His passive read: “At the start of battle, automatically summon Kongming Lanterns and Wooden Oxen/Flowing Horses.” That meant if a max-skill Bian Que revived Zhuge Liang after he fell in combat, Zhuge Liang wouldn’t just return at full health; his Initial State would be refreshed on the spot, instantly summoning new Kongming Lanterns and Wooden Oxen to the field!

The same logic applied to any hero who gained specialized buffs upon entering combat.

Flying Bear stared at his friend support list and sighed in admiration. “F2P players can just add a bunch of big-spending whales, borrow their overpowered heroes for free, and farm Friendship Points at the same time! This Support System is ridiculously generous. If you ever run into a brick-wall stage, you can just borrow someone else’s hero to push through.”

Yangfan Studio had truly pushed their “no forced monetization” philosophy to the absolute extreme.

If this Support System remained usable during large-scale seasonal events, F2P players would easily be able to sweep every reward tier available—a level of generosity almost unheard of in other gacha titles.

For the big spenders, placing their heavily invested, top-tier heroes in the support slot acted as a public showcase. It was essentially a prestige spotlight to brag to their friend list: Come look at how absurdly strong my hero is!

Flying Bear closed the Support System tab and clicked into the Friendship Shop.

The moment the store opened, a short side-story cutscene automatically began playing, recounting the famous historical tale of the “Friendship of Guan and Bao.”

This narrative centered around Guan Zhong and Bao Shuya during the Spring and Autumn period. The two had known each other since childhood; Bao Shuya deeply admired Guan Zhong’s talent and understood his noble character. When they went into business together as young men, Guan Zhong came from a poor family, so Bao Shuya voluntarily gave him the larger share of profits. Later, Bao Shuya recommended Guan Zhong to Duke Huan of Qi with unyielding conviction. Convince by his argument, Duke Huan appointed Guan Zhong as Prime Minister of Qi, forging a legendary, heartwarming bond of mutual trust and deep friendship between the two men.

System Notification: Obtained 100 Friendship Points.

System Notification: Friendship Points can be redeemed in the Friendship Shop for various resources and heroes.

Flying Bear chuckled live on stream. “So the heroes you can redeem in the Friendship Shop are literal lifelong besties! Honestly, after watching that cutscene, I’m kind of touched—next time my bro asks me out to eat, I’m definitely making him pay the bill.”

The chat stream exploded with question marks and laughter:

— “Wait, that’s your takeaway from a heartwarming story?!”

— “A truly unique way to express deep emotional resonance!”

Flying Bear blinked as he scanned the inventory. “Holy crap, the Guan Zhong card you can redeem in the Friendship Shop is a Solar-tier card?! Let me check his skill set… Propriety, Righteousness, Honesty, and Shame? A four-tier situational support card! For a Solar-tier card that costs zero real money, his kit is actually really solid. With the weekly point cap, it’ll take about a month of casual playing to exchange for him.”

Because he was available for free redemption, it meant every single player in the game could eventually acquire him. This Solar-tier card was bound to become a staple sight in the PVP Arena down the line.

The accompanying Bao Shuya card was a Lunar-tier unit whose raw utility matched the average performance of his tier. However, when paired in the same lineup as Guan Zhong, the two unlocked a special “Guan-Bao Bond” synergy buff. Both cards were well worth farming for.

Beyond unit cards, the Friendship Shop offered a wealth of progression resources—card level-up materials, Manor upgrade items, and a monthly limited-stock “Solar Shard.”

Solar Shards could be used to unlock skills on specific Solar-tier heroes without pulling duplicate copies. Heroes like Cao Cao or Zhuge Liang, who typically required multiple duplicate pulls to unlock their powerful Skill 3, could now be gradually upgraded completely free of charge.

In addition to the Friends System, the game’s social framework featured a comprehensive Guild System unlocked once players reached Level 10. Players could either found their own guild or apply to join an existing one.

Flying Bear looked at his stream chat and asked, “Any guilds out there willing to take in a casual player like me?”

A flood of chat comments immediately shot back:

— “Just make your own guild, Bear!”

— “Yeah, build one for us viewers!”

True to his self-imposed rule of never spending real money on microtransactions if he could avoid it, Flying Bear said, “Let me check the requirements first. Do I need to buy a guild charter from the cash shop? Oh… nope! You can just use regular in-game Copper Coins sent from the main story line. Super convenient.”

Flying Bear promptly established a Level 1 Guild and named it the “Lazy Salted Fish Sanctuary.”

A barrage of join requests flooded in instantly, and the member cap was reached in the blink of an eye.

Guilds possessed their own dedicated Guild Headquarters—a shared social instance where both holographic pod users and mobile players could hang out in real time. Since most players had hit the day-one main storyline level cap and had nothing better to do, everyone casually gathered in the guild grounds to hang out and chat.

Thanks to the cross-platform real-time sync, mobile players saw standard phone-rendered character models, while holographic players walked around in fully rendered, ultra-realistic 3D avatars. The entire space felt vibrantly alive.

The guild hall was buzzing with activity.

As players wandered around exploring the grounds, they stumbled upon an impressive structure named the “Hall of Heroes.” Upon stepping inside, they noticed a large notice posted on the wall stating that the Huaxia Heroes’ Tournament would officially launch on October 15th.

The guild chat channel immediately blew up with theories:

— “Is this Hall of Heroes a Guild PVP system?”

— “Looks like a late-game guild war event! Each guild gets to deploy 18 heroes in battle… that’s 3 full teams (Team 1, Team 2, Team 3)! Isn’t this just a playground for mega-whales?”

— “Can our entire guild even scrape together 3 decent fully built teams combined?!”

— “Hahaha, us F2P casuals will just sit back and watch! We’re here for the vibes anyway.”

Since the feature was still locked, players could only speculate for the time being.

Alongside the Guild Tournament, individual player Arenas were scheduled to unlock one month after launch.

With the game having just hit public beta, most players hadn’t even memorized all the hero card skills yet, let alone mastered competitive PVP mechanics.

The official operations team had structured the content pacing step-by-step: during the first month, players would focus on clearing the main story, getting familiar with the roster, learning core battle mechanics, adding friends, joining guilds, and discussing team comps together.

In the second month, individual PVP Arenas would open, allowing competitive players to dive into turn-based tactical strategies. In the third month, large-scale Guild PVP events would launch, expanding team compositions to 3 full lineups. At that point, players would need to balance not only individual hero synergies, but also strategic team placement and tactical baiting.

For instance, should you deploy a weak sacrificial fodder team first to burn through the enemy’s long-cooldown ultimate skills, allowing your second and third core teams to clean house? Or should you run a hyper-defensive stall team first to drain the opponent’s patience?

Turbulent Spring and Autumn offered incredible depth—not only did it feature rich casual gameplay, but its competitive modes brought a fresh, intellectually engaging spin to the genre.

Even though players were currently capped by storyline level gates, everything revealed so far left the community brimming with anticipation for future updates.

On the second day of public beta, official analytics from Qihang confirmed that the 24-hour player retention rate for Turbulent Spring and Autumn had reached an astounding 80%. Looking at those metrics, Xie Yunfan finally let out a long breath of relief.

Gamers in this parallel world had long held the bias that turn-based titles were boring, passive “stand-there-and-take-hits” snoozefests with zero mechanical skill. Yet in truth, turn-based combat was one of the most classic, enduring genres in gaming history when executed with depth.

This collaborative effort between Yangfan Studio and Qihang had completely shattered the gaming community’s deeply rooted prejudice against the turn-based genre.

Countless players across social media openly admitted: We got slapped in the face, and we love it.

As a veteran producer, Xie Yunfan was an absolute master at leaving “content hooks” to tease player curiosity. The game was packed with subtle easter eggs, hidden lore teasers, and locked game modes that left players squirming with anticipation, begging the dev team to drop a multi-gigabyte expansion pack immediately to release all the upcoming content.

Discussions about the game dominated the internet. Across Weibo Super Topics, ACFun video edits, streaming platforms, and RED, any post tagged with #TurbulentSpringAndAutumn saw its view count surge exponentially.

It was undeniably a runaway viral hit across the entire network.

This was a level of genuine organic traction that no amount of paid marketing or astro-turfing could ever replicate.

Casual players chatted eagerly about visiting each other’s custom Manors; competitive players spent hours theorycrafting team compositions; and lore enthusiasts were completely hooked by the cinematic main story.

Following the conclusion of the Spring and Autumn chapter, the story moved seamlessly into the Warring States era, building toward the grand saga of Qin Shi Huang sweeping across the six states to unify China.

The arrival of Qin Shi Huang, Ying Zheng, left countless players hyper-ventilating with excitement. He was the legendary figure who ended centuries of chaotic warfare, unified the Huaxia continent, and established the mighty Qin Dynasty.

His grand imperial procession cutscene was visually breathtaking.

Seeing such an iconic historical figure, many players immediately began asking on forums:

— “Why isn’t this character in the gacha pool?!”

— “First Emperor Ying Zheng unified the six states—he’s way too strong! How would they even balance his kit?”

While streaming the Qin chapter, veteran streamer Liu-ge analyzed live: “If Qin Shi Huang were released as a Solar-tier card, what would his ultimate even be? ‘Sweep Across the Six States’—an un-dodgeable AOE blast that wipes the entire enemy team in one turn? If so, his power scaling would be completely broken!”

He paused, adding with a sigh of regret, “I honestly love his character design so much. It’s such a shame he’s not in the banner pool. I wonder if they’ll add him later down the road?”

As it turned out, you could never predict the mind of Producer @LittleSailboat—

Qin Shi Huang wasn’t placed in the card pool because he was designed to be a Story Campaign Boss!

The final stage of the Qin Chapter presented a notoriously brutal boss encounter.

It was only when players reached this fight that they truly experienced the ruthless tactical difficulty a turn-based strategy game could dish out. Qin Shi Huang possessed high base speed, astronomical critical hit rates, and devastating full-field AOE attacks. Countless players were wiped out in a single turn, crying on forums as they searched for stage guides.

— “Help! I’m hard-stuck on the Qin Shi Huang boss fight!”

— “Are there any Jing Ke mains out there who know how to pilot him? I have no idea what I’m doing!”

— “I brought two full healers and I still can’t survive his burst damage!”

Historically, Qin Shi Huang’s unification of the six states brought long-term stability and unified national development. But to the conquered citizens of those six fallen nations, he was the ultimate tyrant—a ruler whose life countless assassins sought to take. Among those assassins, none was more famous than Jing Ke.

The “Jing Ke Attempts to Assassinate the King of Qin” stage recreated this historical event.

To fit the story narrative, Jing Ke automatically joined the player’s party as a forced guest hero, leaving five customizable slots for players to build around him.

The system-provided Support Jing Ke was provided at Level 80 with maxed-out skills. Yet even with a max-level guest hero, players were still getting wiped out repeatedly.

Even top tactical streamers like Liu-ge, Xia Kucao, and Flying Bear found themselves hard-stuck on this stage. After dying over and over again, everyone retreated to figure out the underlying puzzle mechanics.

Liu-ge gritted his teeth on stream. “I don’t care what it takes—I’m not going to sleep tonight until I beat this boss!”

Flying Bear stroked his chin, intrigued. “Now this is interesting. Let me dissect the boss’s attack patterns.”

Streamer Xia Kucao had participated in the closed beta. He clearly remembered that this stage hadn’t been nearly this punishing back then.

After wiping twice in a row, Xia Kucao carefully analyzed the fight: “They definitely tweaked the mechanics for public launch. Since Jing Ke’s assassination attempt is historically fated to fail, we don’t actually need to kill Qin Shi Huang—we just need to push his HP below 50% to trigger the story cutscene. The problem is that Qin Shi Huang’s AOE damage is insanely high. After taking two waves of his AOE attacks, our whole team is left on a sliver of health, and his third AOE guarantees a full party wipe. Worse, as a story boss, he’s completely immune to hard CC like Stun or Sleep.”

He tried setting up a stall team consisting of three healers—Fan Li, Bian Que, and Liu Bei—alongside Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and the system-provided Jing Ke for single-target damage. “Let’s test if we can brute-force tank through his burst with three healers.”

He retried the fight multiple times, but every single attempt ended in a full party wipe right around the 60% HP mark.

Xia Kucao frowned in thought. “No, there’s definitely a core mechanic we’re missing here. Let me read through the skill descriptions again.”

In reality, lower-level player-owned DPS cards dealt negligible damage against Qin Shi Huang’s high defense. The sole source of real damage output relied entirely on the max-level guest hero provided by the system: Jing Ke.

The remaining five party slots existed primarily to activate Formation Buffs.

This stage automatically applied the “Eight Gates Golden Lock Formation,” which granted the entire team a massive defense boost.

If any party member died, the Formation Buff broke, making the remaining team members far easier to wipe out. Without the formation active, Jing Ke couldn’t even survive a single AOE blast from Qin Shi Huang, no matter how many healers were spamming heals on him.

In other words: All six team members needed to stay alive to maintain the defensive formation, while Jing Ke slowly brought down the boss.

Xia Kucao read through Jing Ke’s passive and active skills line by line, until his eyes suddenly lit up. He made a bold tactical gamble: “Jing Ke’s critical hit chance scales inversely with his remaining HP! The lower his health, the higher his burst damage. What if we keep his health at a critically low threshold on purpose and block him from receiving heals?!”

He immediately swapped out Bian Que and brought in Cai Huangong—a utility card that applied anti-healing debuffs.

His new setup consisted of two team-healers (Liu Bei and Fan Li), one utility debuffer (Cai Huangong), and three DPS units (Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and guest Jing Ke). Since Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were under-leveled and dealing tickle damage, they were basically there as “stat sticks” to trigger the iconic Liu-Guan-Zhang oath synergy buff.

The battle commenced.

Qin Shi Huang possessed the highest speed stat on the field and acted first, launching a heavy AOE blast that instantly knocked the entire player team into red health.

Xia Kucao’s units retaliated with a round of basic attacks. Then, Cai Huangong applied his Anti-Heal debuff directly onto Jing Ke. Liu Bei and Fan Li then used their team heals to restore the rest of the party’s health, while Jing Ke’s HP remained completely unhealed due to the anti-heal debuff.

Turn 2. Qin Shi Huang acted first again. Thanks to the previous turn’s team heals, the rest of the party barely survived his second AOE blast without losing a unit.

Meanwhile, Jing Ke’s health bar was sitting at a terrifying 100 HP.

Watching that paper-thin sliver of health, Xia Kucao’s heart nearly jumped out of his throat. “Thank goodness this is a max-level guest Jing Ke with a huge base health pool! If this were a low-level Jing Ke from our own inventory, he’d be dead ten times over.”

During Turn 2, the other heroes continued to deal minimal scratch damage.

Finally, it was Jing Ke’s turn to act. Xia Kucao unleashed his burst combo.

Skill 1 (Passive): No Return — Jing Ke acts with unyielding resolve. The lower his HP, the higher his Critical Hit Rate and Critical Damage.

Skill 2 (Active): Dagger Revealed — Jing Ke draws the dagger hidden within the map and strikes a single target, dealing 400% base physical damage. Damage doubles on a critical hit.

Because Jing Ke was sitting at near-zero HP, the attack triggered a guaranteed critical hit.

In the very next second, a massive crimson damage number flashed dramatically across the screen:

-58,000!

The live stream chat went completely silent for a second before exploding:

— “HOLY SHIT?! A max-level Jing Ke deals THAT much damage?!”

— “58,000 DAMAGE ON A NEAR-DEATH STRIKE?! MY GOODNESS!”

— “As expected of a Solar-tier card… his single-target burst is insane!”

— “Keep in mind this is the max-level system guest card! A Jing Ke built by casuals won’t hit anywhere near 5,800 right now, plus he’s super fragile and easy to accidentally kill.”

— “Managing health thresholds on an assassin hero like this requires precise control! That’s so tricky!”

Xia Kucao confirmed his theory was working. On Turn 2, he cleared the anti-heal debuff and healed Jing Ke to keep him alive.

Turn 3: Apply Anti-Heal to Jing Ke and unleash burst damage.

Turn 4: Cleanse anti-heal and top up health to survive the next AOE.

By repeating this precise rotation over three cycles, Jing Ke single-handedly carved through Qin Shi Huang’s health bar. The team’s overall health remained constantly in the danger zone, with Jing Ke hovering perpetually on the verge of death.

Anti-heal -> Burst -> Heal to survive -> Anti-heal again…

After three tight rotations, Qin Shi Huang’s HP finally dropped below 50%, triggering the story cutscene and ending the fight!

After grinding for over an hour, Xia Kucao had finally cracked the stage!

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Xia Kucao smiled brightly. “Looking back, the execution isn’t actually that complicated once you understand the mechanic—you just have to think outside the box. The system gives us a max-level Jing Ke for a reason; we’re meant to abuse his low-HP passive. The Anti-Heal card given during the main story isn’t just for debuffing enemies—in specific situations, you can use it on your own teammates!”

Applying an anti-heal debuff to your own Jing Ke forced his HP bar to stay at its lowest limit, allowing him to hit his maximum damage multiplier.

This single boss encounter not only let players experience the tactical brilliance of turn-based combat, but also subtly acted as a masterclass tutorial on how to pilot Jing Ke.

After clearing the stage, countless players realized just how high Jing Ke’s ceiling was—and promptly rushed to the gacha banner to pull for him.

One had to admit—the game planners were absolute geniuses!

Xia Kucao quickly compiled his stage guide and posted it online:

“This stage relies on Jing Ke as a single-core hyper-carry. The guest Jing Ke provided by the system is Level 80 with maxed skills—at our current level, he’s the only one who can deal meaningful damage to the boss. The optimal lineup is: 2 Team Healers + 2 Stat-stick Formation Enablers + Cai Huangong (Anti-Healer) + Guest Jing Ke.”

“If you bring three team healers, you won’t be able to lower Jing Ke’s health bar easily, which drags out the fight. The core loop is simple: apply Anti-Heal to Jing Ke for one turn, burst while at low health, then heal him back up to survive. Repeat until the cutscene triggers.”

Floods of stuck players rushed to his Weibo post to comment:

— “I couldn’t beat it for the life of me! Thanks for the guide, copying this setup right now!”

— “Thank you so much, heading back to retry it now!”

— “Bro, a whale friend of mine spent tens of thousands of yuan and brought a full team of Solar-tier cards and still wiped multiple times! Who would’ve thought the secret was this simple?!”

— “Anti-healing your own Jing Ke?! I would’ve never thought to debuff my own unit!”

— “This game really proves you can’t just brainlessly auto-battle through bosses with money. Strategy is everything!”

— “Now I’m even more excited for future story bosses!”

Over on Liu-ge’s stream, he used a completely different tactical approach.

He brought Prince Fusu in his lineup, running a stall composition: 3 Healers + Jing Ke + Prince Fusu + 1 Flex Support, slowly grinding down the boss over more than twenty turns. He discovered that using Prince Fusu against Qin Shi Huang yielded unique secret interactions.

As Qin Shi Huang’s eldest son, Prince Fusu’s Skill 1, “Remonstrance to the Throne,” reduced Qin Shi Huang’s attack power when cast on him, drastically improving party survivability.

As long as the team stayed alive, Jing Ke could slowly wear down the boss without relying on risky low-HP burst setups.

However, this method was less accessible for casual players who hadn’t invested in multiple healers.

All in all, Xia Kucao’s high-risk, high-reward strategy remained the easiest blueprint for players to replicate.

The Qin chapter gave players a thrilling taste of deep tactical gameplay.

Next up, the narrative transitioned into the iconic Chu–Han Contention era.

The rivalry between Liu Bang and Xiang Yu was rendered with incredible dramatic flair. Among the stages, the legendary “Feast at Hongmen” quest presented an exceptionally tense survival objective: Protect Liu Bang and help him escape safely.

A max-level Liu Bang joined the party as a temporary guest hero.

Simultaneously, Zhang Liang and Fan Kuai—two key historical figures deeply tied to the Feast at Hongmen—also joined as system-assigned guest teammates. That meant players only needed to bring three units from their own roster to fill out the six-man squad.

Enemy Chu commanders would focus-fire Liu Bang relentlessly throughout the fight. Players had to bring reliable healers to keep Liu Bang’s health topped off, while making full strategic use of guest units Zhang Liang and Fan Kuai.

Fan Kuai was a Lunar-tier unit. As a founding general of the Han Dynasty who originally worked as a butcher, his in-game character model was imposing and fierce, wielding a massive broadsword. He operated as an attack-speed-based multi-hit DPS, unleashing rapid blade flurries that left players mesmerized.

Zhang Liang, as a Solar-tier card in the standard gacha pool, boasted top-tier utility with a incredibly unique kit design:

Skill 1: Strategic Foresight — Grants a targeted ally an Attack Power buff.

Skill 2: Decisive Victory from Afar — A single-target hard CC ability that locks onto an enemy target. All allies are forced to focus-fire that target during the next turn, while the target is inflicted with a mandatory ‘Fear’ debuff.

This skill was the in-game equivalent of pointing at an enemy and declaring: “We’re all jumping you next turn! Are you scared?”

The enemy was indeed terrified—units suffering from the ‘Fear’ debuff were completely paralyzed and unable to perform any actions.

Moreover, the base hit rate of this control skill was absurdly high!

Skill 3: Retire After Success — When an ally slays an enemy, Zhang Liang and that ally enter a state of ‘Seclusion’ together, becoming immune to all crowd-control effects for one turn.

He was indisputably the premier single-target support card in the game, possessing incredible synergy when paired with Han Xin.

Although Han Xin did not appear during the Feast at Hongmen storyline, Zhang Liang paired brilliantly with Fan Kuai.

Many players hadn’t managed to pull either unit yet, but the campaign stage provided system-guest versions of Liu Bang, Zhang Liang, and Fan Kuai, giving everyone a hands-on preview of their kits.

Players couldn’t help but gush on social media:

— “Zhang Liang’s hard CC animation is so damn cool!”

— “His control utility is unreal!”

Predictably, another massive wave of players rushed to the gacha pool to pull for Zhang Liang.

Streamer Liu-ge, who had spent heavily on day one to unlock the entire character index, had spent the past few days focusing purely on story progression without diving deep into every hero’s individual mechanics.

But as he pushed further into the main campaign, he realized that almost every major narrative chapter featured system-provided Support Heroes.

From Jing Ke in the Qin Shi Huang fight to Zhang Liang, Fan Kuai, and Liu Bang in the Feast at Hongmen—this design served a dual purpose: on one hand, it allowed players to experience iconic historical battles with lore-accurate heroes; on the other hand… it was a brilliant, irresistible gacha showcase!

Once a player personally piloted Jing Ke and witnessed those massive 58,000 damage critical hits, or experienced the game-changing crowd control of Zhang Liang, they couldn’t help but fall in love with their kits.

Yangfan Studio never forced players to spend money.

Instead, they used clever, narrative-driven gameplay showcases to make players genuinely fall in love with different heroes, tempting them to voluntarily open their wallets.

A game producer who forced players to spend money through artificial paywalls would be criticized for greed.

A game producer who made players eagerly hand over their money out of genuine appreciation was a rare sight in the gaming industry!

On its launch day, Turbulent Spring and Autumn topped the grossing charts across both mobile and holographic platforms simultaneously.

Day-one revenue spikes were expected, as heavy spenders naturally dropped large sums upfront to pull cards. Yet on day two, it remained firmly at #1.

Day three… it still held the top spot.

Even after a full week post-launch, it remained anchored at TOP-1.

What was going on?!

Evidently, low-spenders and F2P players had finished reading the story, tested out the hero mechanics through campaign guest slots, and eventually succumbed to the temptation of pulling on the gacha banners. The standard banner featured a Wishlist System, allowing players to select one specific hero per week for a massive drop-rate boost.

Combined with overwhelming positive word-of-mouth, a steady stream of new players kept joining the game every day. Consequently, Turbulent Spring and Autumn’s revenue did not experience a sharp drop-off after launch, maintaining an exceptionally stable, high-level trajectory.

No matter how the daily figures fluctuated, it sat comfortably at the #1 spot, unflinching and secure.

Competing game studios across the industry could only stare in disbelief and frustration: Are you guys just going to camp at #1 forever and never come down?!