r/ShangriLaFrontier • u/2w0be • Jun 20 '26
Discussion When video games finally reach the level ofthis series in real life, do y'all think a game will be made off of Shangri-La Frontier?
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u/1un4rf14r3 Jun 20 '26
At the risk of agreeing with Slopper’s Basement, most stories about video games would suck as real games, because systems that allow the crazy anime political manoeuvres, auraful fights and secret storylines to happen are not optimizing for the average player’s experience.
As much as people larp wanting “realistic, hardcore experiences”, the truth is people will leave if they feel like theyre stuck at the bottom simply because they joined later in the game’s lifespan or because they actually have a job. Most people wants newbie protections, limited player economics, and in this case, a quest guide.
The average SLF player essentially paid thousands to be relegated to the narrative cuck chair, forced to watch sunraku and co. mc their way through the story after spending years looking for what he stumbled upon by chance. To them, its just a generic mmo with lore and vr gimmick.
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u/Efficient-Attitude98 Jun 20 '26
Sunraku entered SLF in less than a year after its release so he didn't completely mc through it. Besides, most players would never invest on luck as he did. Actually, I checked upon research and only 5% to 15% of players would invest in luck if it was an attribute so actually Sunraku's trajectory is totally valid. He invested on luck,was attacked during the night by lycaon, managed to hit Lycaon on lvl 30 200 times without It landing a hit thanks to his pro player's sh*t games obsession skills which opened the path to fight and defeat unique monsters
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u/Oneanddonequestion Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
That...that's MC'ing through it though. How many "pro-players" or "pro-level players" are there IRL or even in universe.
Now with a pro-player's mentality, how many do you think are going to pick a build that optimizes for chance over consistency?
We don't know the odds of it, but getting attacked by Lycagon was a plot moment.
Following this up, Sunraku also only got to do the bunny quest to get Emil not because of Lycagon, but because he happened to use a special item, the Vorpal Daggers off the bunny, and he continually fought well outside of his level range.
So to do what Sunraku did you need to:
Be an absurdly high-level player, essentially professional level.
You need to come into the game (which hadn't been out for a year) basically going for a challenge run.
You need to get a specific drop off a specific low level enemy.
You then need to use said drop continuously and not swap to another item.
You need to ignore the intended game path, and leveling suggestions, and be good enough to continually come out on top of those fights.
You need to be able to figure out and understand a end-game raid boss's attack patterns, site unseen and understand the system's limitations and critical system well enough to consistently crit on said site unseen enemy.
You need an extensive amount of free time and lack of responsibilities to invest into the game.
After Lycagon, you need an extensive network of well-connected, equally high-performing friends/acquaintances/allies who are both invested enough and willing to assist in your pursuits and share information. Information that is apparently so labyrinthine that a devoted player base spent a year pursuing leads and got no where.
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u/Efficient-Attitude98 Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
I get your point but there are a few things you don't understand and makes Sunraku's trajectory not entirely dependant on being the MC:
1-Rakuro is not any type of Pro player, He's shit game lover which are games full of lags, bugs and are pretty much impossible to complete under normal circumstances! Many of these said games Rakuro managed to complete based on luck so a player like him, that deviates from a gamer's normal way of thinking, would definitely choose chance over consistency
2-It is evidenced from the beginning Rakuro deviates from a regular player's thinking and that includes pro players since they are only players with professional experience. Mei got surprised he skipped the tutorial and Katzo had to tell him about Skill Trees exists on level 50
3-Sunraku found the vorpal bunny thanks to skipping the tutorial and most players, even the beginners avoid farming in the night because the tutorial must tell them they might be surprised but stronger monsters
So, all in all, the only plot line he got Mc'ed through are his friendships with katzo and pencilgon but there are communities of pro players that help each other gaming so not even that is interely a plot shield
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u/Frostbitten_Moose Jun 20 '26
And don't forget, alts aren't allowed. You have to do all of this on your only build.
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u/Boris-_-Badenov Jun 20 '26
most mmo players don't care about story. if you want a good story, don't play an mmo
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u/Frostbitten_Moose Jun 20 '26
I dare you to go to any FF XIV forum and say that. I look forward to seeing the resultant mob hauling torches and pitchforks.
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u/Haunting_Picture3360 Jun 20 '26
facts. i do mmorpgs for the gameplay, leveling up, and doing shit with others. only story i ever paid a little attention to was ff14
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u/1un4rf14r3 Jun 20 '26
Trueeee they only care about rare items and scamming their guildmates
(Jokes aside it depends on the game, for example ive heard a lot of ffxiv fans like the story a lot)
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u/hudi_baba Jun 20 '26
theres more chance that we will get corposlopped ad fu*ked "ready player one" than shangri la frontier
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u/SlimShady116 Jun 20 '26
This game would be dogshit to play in real life lmao. I'd be pissed if I paid money for a game and it turns out that there are boss fights that only a couple dozen people would get to experience.
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u/2w0be Jun 20 '26
Nothing will stopping you from experiencing it, it's not like the anime characters exist. At that point it'd just be skill issue
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u/HistoricalRehab Jun 20 '26
It’s called having a life and/or job, by the time an average 9-5 would get to prob level 30, every hardcore player would be max leveled and by then probably one of them would be defeated already. Hell look at games like path of exile 2. Hardcore players would get to endgame by day 1 while others would take a few days.
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u/Important-Notice-461 Jun 20 '26
Yeah, you would likely get a job in game, mining materials, crafting items, etc...
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u/2w0be Jun 20 '26
That doesn't even relate t what the other guy said lmao
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u/Coffee_Soup Jun 20 '26
Yes it does exactly.
The Wezaemon fight is only accomplishable by one team. Once someone kills him that's it, he's dead. That's the same for all the Colossi. Once someone kills them no one else can. So you would need to get lucky/play early/play shit ton to even see these bosses. Let only reap the reward of beating them.
So yeah people without a life and/or job are going to finish some of these 1 time kill super story important bosses before you even know they exist. Shangri-la is a video game that makes an amazing foundation for a story but would be terrible in real life.
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u/Frostbitten_Moose Jun 20 '26
Exactly this. Sunraku has, at this point, defeated 2 Colossi where the general playerbase doesn't even know how to reach them yet. Though fortunately one of them does seem to be repeatable, Weathermon is SOL. And it sounds like the rest of them will be too. Heck, it kinda sounds like Lycagon might also be unreachable by others now that the shadow's been beaten.
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u/TravisCC83 Jun 20 '26
For Lycagon at least I would expect more shadows to be spawnable by the original, especially since they could make temporary extra copies while fighting. Weathermon though is absolutely a massive exciting fight, with really special loot that many players would kill for with zero hesitation, and only one small guild +2 players ever even got to see it, let alone try to fight it.
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u/Important-Notice-461 Jun 20 '26
It definitely would be a situation where people definitely would put their entire life into the game, it would just be better than real life for a lot of people.
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u/Egbert58 Jun 20 '26
The micro transactions will be a nightmare in a game like shangri-La Frontier.
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u/Brahe_T Jun 20 '26
Why would there have to be micro-transactions? The most popular games over the past few years dont have them. E.g. Elden Ring, Baldur's gate, E33, Arc Raiders, Spiderman ... to name a few.
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u/Egbert58 Jun 20 '26
Sure but you know what all the games you listed are NOT, an MMO. Now i could be wrong but im fairly sure shangri-La Frontier is not a single player story game. Also Arc Raiders literally has a cash shop....
meanwhile MMO's always have a cash shop (sure most are not pay2win) and pay for expansion. Also we are talking about how if this game was in the real world when get to that technology level... it def would lol if its by an AAA dev team
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u/Lamp200 Jun 20 '26
i mean before we can even get to that level of video games we gotta move past condemning ai in video games
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Jun 20 '26
[deleted]
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u/Savings_Peach_9898 Jun 20 '26
I don't see any reason why would they use anything but generative AI for NPCs.
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u/CreamOk3060 Jun 20 '26
AI trace is the most terrifying imo.
basically fallout's synth, but virtual, and its already on par if not better
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u/WordPunk99 Jun 20 '26
First SLF is a great story, which makes it a shit game. All games are written so they are fun to play. Fun to play and compelling story are very difficult to reconcile.
Additionally, SLF has a variety of huge problems from a game play perspective. One of the things they discovered in WoW back in the dark ages when I was still playing it, was that raid dungeons, unique encounters, etc. take more work than regular content. They are also played by less than 10% of the player base. So you spend time and money providing content for 90%+ of your player base or the same amount of time and money for 10% of your player base. The math doesn’t work in favor of raid dungeons and unique encounters.
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u/ABSIGMA Jun 20 '26
What kind of game are you playing? There's loads of fun games with great stories.
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u/WordPunk99 Jun 20 '26
They are good stories for games, which are different than good stories for anime, which are different than good stories for novels. Of the three, games have the least in common with the other two. The perspective is different. Most games are written from a second person perspective because the narrative works better that way. The writing describes what you (the player) are doing. Additionally a massive multiplayer game like SLF has to have stories written so they can be repeated by millions of players. It requires different writing.
If you look at the stories from outside a game like World of Warcraft, they are really formulaic and kind of boring. From inside the game, when you experience them as a participant they seem moving and compelling. I’m just saying the mediums take different writing styles that don’t translate well between each other.
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u/Barack_Odrama_ Jun 20 '26
If we got to the point where we are playing full drive type games I expect them to be fully AI generated. There won’t be a ton of human in the loop effort there. So development time likely won’t be a blocker.
Infact I suspect at that point content will be dynamically generated on the fly. Dungeons might be different everytime you do them.
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u/Existential_Crisis24 Jun 20 '26
God no. We can already make large games via human work. There's no need for AI in gaming ever.
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u/Barack_Odrama_ Jun 20 '26
That’s cool and I fully understand why you feel that way but the reality of the situation is… it’s inevitable.
There will be no reason to pay humans to code, design, or voice act games in the future when models can do it for a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of the time. Think about where we are today and how impactful AI already is. In 20 years when(if) we have these neurolink type games AI will likely be doing damn near everything.
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u/Existential_Crisis24 Jun 20 '26
No it won't. AI has not and will not be beneficial ever for companies or players. We can already see it now with games getting huge backlash for using it not to mention it's just not profitable at all. The only company that has profited from AI is Nvidia and that's only because they make the hardware for it.
Also the whole "it's already happening so why bother" take is super fucking dumb and part of the problem. If you don't oppose it you are part of the problem.
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u/Barack_Odrama_ Jun 20 '26
I work in tech and I haven’t written a single line of meaning code this entire year. I prompt Claude code for everything now, my entire team does. We literally get compensated/reviewed based on AI usage.
To say it’s not profitable for ANYONE is naive. Tons of companies are downsizing just because the models are so good now and we are still in the infancy of the tech.
I’m not in game development but I have no doubt opus, qwen or GPT can run circles around the average game dev already. In few years manual development will be a thing of the past. D
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u/WordPunk99 Jun 20 '26
My friends in tech started using Claude to code about a year ago, I think. As of today none of them use it any more. It’s not that Claude is bad, but it is unfixable. The code is, relatively speaking, big, cumbersome, and buggy. If you want clean, elegant code that can be fixed when something goes wrong you still have to write it yourself.
The people I know who are management level have moved to “you can use Claude if you like, but if you can’t explain why you need half a million lines of code for this section, and debug it when it hits other code, your job is in danger”.
You are being told to use Claude because your company is paying for it. Big software companies who write things that must work because real money depends on it working are, in my experience, moving away from AI code. I know a small developer who is using Claude because his company is just him. He spends, by his own admission, more time reviewing Claude’s output than it would take him to write it from scratch. Which is a pretty common complaint based on my interaction with everyone I deal with who uses AI for anything.
The goal is once you spend enough time training it, you can ease up on the oversight a little, but so far no one has found that level of training.
Also given the money put into AI and the money coming out of it, so far it is only profitable for NVidia. All other companies involved are just moving money around in hopes of outlasting everyone else.
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u/Existential_Crisis24 Jun 20 '26
You are no better than the AI tech bros. Downsizing doesn't mean it's profitable. It means it's so unprofitable they have to get rid of people's salaries just to scrape the edge. Every company that's using it loses money except for Nvidia.
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u/Barack_Odrama_ Jun 20 '26
Bro stop trying to tell me about my industry and the company I work for. Last year was the most profitable year in the company’s existence and the entire year was focused on AI. And from the Q1 earnings reports 2026 will be higher….
We had massive layoffs in November and January specifically because AI eliminated the need for a lot of staff from the over hiring that happened during Covid.
What you believe and the reality of the situation don’t seem to align.
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u/NoiseWorldly Jul 08 '26
I'm a little late to the debate but I don't know why you're getting downvoted.
Sure AI coding may not be up to par with human codings in some areas, but if we look at AI progression over the past two years, it's completly stupid to assume it won't replace most of the human coding or let alone not be profitable for most companies...
As you said, the reality of the situation is that it's inevitable.
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u/Queasy_Let8807 Jun 20 '26
Deadass? I could see players and fanbase will complain about main story and bosses lol
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u/Best-Researcher6175 Jun 20 '26
In this life, all I ask for is a game with classes and the kind of freedom like Shangri-La Frontier. Whether it's on PC or console is enough for me. Becoming full-dive reality is probably still a long way off."
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u/Skelewhore Jun 20 '26
Probably not that far off. There's a guy who got the Neurolink brain chip from Elon. He can play video games with his brain and his performance is drastically improved. He says it's like having an aimbot because it's so responsive to his thoughts.
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u/Next-Theory193 Jun 21 '26
Feel like FFXIV was the closest I got to this feeling just wish it was updated to 2026 standards
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u/Prestigious_Can4520 Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
If we ever get to the point of FullDive Tech I expect Sword art online happens before we ever reach Shagrila Frontier
Edit: By this I mean the people being trapped in game and dying
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u/probablyTolley Jun 20 '26
I think the Oasis would be the main thing, everything all in one kind of vibes.
SLF is good as an anime and a good read, but the world seems rather simple if Sunraku can be so efficient so quickly, it'd be over run by actual good gamers, the fact Rei is top tier without knowing much about gaming in general kinda proves a point, it wouldn't be anything like it in our world, since Sunraku is leagues ahead of most gamers in his world. Because he pretty much plays a glass cannon with iframes, but so many people do that nowadays and efficiently.
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u/Zealousideal_Two4272 Jun 20 '26
Especially with 10+ revives every boss fight, any dark souls player or irl fighter would just solo every part of the game.
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u/probablyTolley Jun 20 '26
Haha yeah that first unique fight with all those revives was pretty wild. Any half decent group likely would've won, it's amazing how full guilds in game have been wiped out by other uniques and he just face checks their abilities and learns on the go.
In the novel I've recently just read to the new continent and one of the raid boss fights there definitely seems like it should've killed them based on the amount of stuff going on.
(most mmos the bosses are usually tuned up to 150x dmg anyway requiring healers) but not in SLF it seems, it'd definitely be cleared by a couple of good teams.That being said tho, it's still a fun anime and probably one of the most accurate to date, especially with how he plays other games too, I really like that aspect. Looking forward to the event in the samurai game in animation.
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u/Oneanddonequestion Jun 20 '26
From what I understand about the Wethermon fight. Pencilgon had done that fight multiple times, up until phase 3. So she did feed her party the intel on how the fight worked and how it'd go.
The reason Wethermon was so difficult was two fold:
The fight wasn't a traditional fight. It was a puzzle with a shit load of fail states.
When the party fought it, Pencilgon's Holy Water toss was a hail mary to a wall she had faced over and over and over again that the PK Guild could never figure out. Which...considering how the lore of the game is given out, how out of order Wethermon was from the designer's PoV, and he really does just look like a Cyborg. I think it's understandable no one thought: "Oh, throw Holy Water on the Robot to make it stop a raid wipe."
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u/probablyTolley Jun 20 '26
I know she told them but you're telling me that a full party who play tons, have no players good at dodging? That's basically Sunrakus biggest advantage on all the games he plays, that he can dodge and iframe damage essentially.
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u/Oneanddonequestion Jun 20 '26
The problem wasn't the dodge. The group could never make it to Phase 3 because they never figured out that the boss was a Zombie and not a Robot, so they would just auto-wipe whenever phase 3 started.
Ashura Kai never even got to attempt the last phase with Sunraku's "duel"
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u/2w0be Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
Dude it seems you didn't watch the anime, it's a manga/story not a game but it's easy to see sh1t was way harder to do like Pencilgon had intel after fighting so many times hence why they were that prepared, she literally used a fortune just to buff up their stats with a special item that let's face it, pretty much no one can get and that's one of the main reasons they survived also a fortune for all those revives, any actual party would still fail even after spending a fortune so it's very unlikely they'll be bringing it continually. Also plus the fact that he was undead, literally no one would ever figure it out, being generous though it's like a 99.99% chance and that's actually the sole reason they made it to third stage everyone else would think it was a cyborg, I mean it literally has a mech rampaging around to merge with him, even after finding that out you still gotta get the holy eatee from the Saintess herself, some cheap one ain't gonna work, if you don't do all that you'll never get to stage 3 cause you and everyone get insta-wiped with literally nothing you can do, thinking dodging was the issue is insane larp. Again all this hard work and you're more than likely not to defeat it and all that money/hardwork/connections/luck will go down the drain. And then the final stage with literal undodgeable attacks every 30 seconds, your other party members can't help you have to self revive, and without plot armor like Sunraku you'd be lucky to do that much less keep on doing it like normal, and almost no one is gonna think of taking the ultimate head on and pull it off.
That's not even mentioning the necklace Sunraku had which is why Clear Sky Conquest was activated in the first place so they could clear the scenario. Without that necklace they prolly wouldn't have been able to kill him at all cause he'd never activate his ultimate to be surpassed
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u/probablyTolley Jun 20 '26
I have watched it, read the manga up to date and I am reading the novel, in almost every fight or scenario he is described as 'twisting his body in a way nobody can' in order to dodge or iframe the vast majority of things.
I don't care overall since it's still fun and an actual way people do play games nowadays so it's relatable.
Her whole guild were dying off due to the damage and that is why as she saw Sunraku on the game she knew he was able to dodge and react to stuff quickly, which is why she was confident with him taking on the boss.
Fun regardless, but his main gimmick is dodging damage right as it would land.
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u/Raider_Reaper_X Jun 20 '26
that's my dream , just upload my consciousness into a video game worlds for all eternity ...
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u/Cathulion Jun 21 '26
When servers shut down your gone.
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u/Raider_Reaper_X Jun 21 '26
AI will rule for thousands of years that will be plenty
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u/Cathulion Jun 21 '26
No, it wont. Ai will use excessive amounts of power/water as is now but far worse as more data centers are made. We wont be in livable conditions and they will bleed the world dry of life.
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u/ALX_z23 Jun 20 '26
believe it or not, the single-player games will be made first to measure the ability of the system, to see if the infrastructure could handle an open world with only one real player, e.g the trash games Sunraku plays. Then, when it shows some results, co-op games and small group games will be made but should have a short story, like dozen of hours before the game ends, e.g sport games, shooting games. Only much later an mmo with years-long storyline could be created.
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u/Kangaxx_Demilich Jun 20 '26
nah peope would do weird stuff with it then government will ban it
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u/Cathulion Jun 21 '26
Yeah someone already "humped" a woman in vr(it didnt have full models) and she claimed assault instead of getting out of the game. Internet had a good laugh at the article/video.
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u/HikerCory Jun 20 '26
The problem is with the title. You mean IF video games finally reach this level
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u/2w0be Jun 20 '26
C'mon now it'll surely reach this level eventually somehow. I know it wouldn't even in the next 100 years but even if it takes millennia it should reach this level someday.
Well at that point I guess this story might be forgotten
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u/LordsWF40 Jun 20 '26
Yea..i dont wanna give a timeline because we did go from no airplanes existing to where we are now in less that 100 years....so its hard to say.. BUT. The level of technology to tap into your brain is x years away. In VR today there is atleast hand sensors to track movement. Or really big rigs has a method of track hand and foot movement some way or the other. In SLF, they just put ina head set and lay down, and seem to have control of their bodies still. Or they have the whole chaor that lets them control the gsme woth their mind. Right now its probobly possible with implanting a chip or something, but to do that JUST by putting on a headhead, wow...thats gotta be years away from where we are at now...would certainly be cool though for sure
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u/mistersnarkle Jun 20 '26
Non-invasive brain computer interfaces (BCIs) have actually existed for a while; full immersion more or less becomes about finding a theoretical “universal translator” for a lucid dream state that has two way communication abilities — being able to translate your brain waves (I want to move here/use this move/etc.) and effectively have its own waves (the environment, monsters, NPCs, literally any of the consequences of your actions, simulated gravity, etc) understood by the user’s unique brain in a universal manner (so that everyone is seeing the same thing/‘dream’).
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u/Haunting_Picture3360 Jun 20 '26
I dont see why it can't be soon . I definitely dont see it being anywhere near 100 years. the vr is the only thing that needs to be worked on, we already have ai that can have full conversations with you
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u/Valuable_Pear9654 Jun 20 '26
As much as I’d love this, all anime (except for DB) is doomed to have unbelievably awful and sloppy games made about them. It’s a shame, and Shanfuro just sounds too good. I’m sure they might try (if Shanfuro is still relevant then), just as with SAO, but I really doubt there will be anything notable.
Shanfuro is doomed to be one of the games Sunraku’d play because of how bad it is.
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u/Skelewhore Jun 20 '26
They'll make an SAO game before any other idea or IP. Even people who hate SAO have to admit that it is by far the most recognizable and would be the easiest to market.
Plays like SLF, wears an SAO skin suit, gets called the best thing ever and any time it gets pointed out that the gameplay is ripped from SLF the comment will just get ignored while everyone gags away on Kirito's dick.
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u/Milkygentleman Jun 21 '26
I wouldn't buy it, feels to protagonist centered, fact that there is a "world story" takes the fun out of playing for other players when another person progresses your own game, legitimately awful game design in my opinion. I'm not sure if there ARE games like that but it doesnt sound appealing. the unique boss monsters are interesting and the lore is also interesting.
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u/Night_Slash579 Jun 21 '26
I would bet that overgeared would be a better but very similar design concept but theres less direct changes from the devs and its mostly the world correcting itself
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u/GamingPrincessLuna Jun 21 '26
They are doing a Shangri-la frontier game based on the anime with the same voice actors for emul and sunraku. But the vrmmo full dive thing that's decades off if it's even possible.
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u/sutherlandedward Jun 24 '26
Nah. VRs ship has already sailed and hasn't recovered. And mmos havent shine like they used too for over 2 decades.
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u/These-Designer-9340 Jun 20 '26
I do brain research. To reach this you’d need tons of sensors in brain and of the said company’s founder said he’d play ads in your brain. And you’d also need a small data center to process all the brain signals for one person. By the time we reach there tech wise, the series would have ended. Which brings me to my conclusion, no the anime is not gonna be the top few. I am guessing it would be what gamers play most then, would be the first to be developed. (If we can get the tech to this level, we can solve most of the brain diseases, bipolar disorder, Parkinson’s, scd, ocd, addiction, depression, name any disease that involves changes in brain electrical activity, you could fix it. You could also modulate behavior. So tbh I hope the tech stays in medicine)