Darkfall art director interview: realism and character design

Way back in 2001, Razorwax (now Aventurine SA) announced the development of Darkfall, an MMORPG that will feature unrestricted PvP. Six years later, the said game is still in private Beta testing. Its painfully slow development might have put off some online gamers, but the hardcore PvP players don’t mind the long wait. As new info trickles in, interest in the game was revived.

Darkfall Art Director Henning Ludvigsen further made things interesting by talking about the game’s area and character design. You have to admit that a character’s facial variations, weapons, equipment, and hairdo (definitely!) add to the game’s appeal. It’s important for characters to have that cool factor to make players want to play. Even Orks and Dwarves need their beauty makeover some time.

The Darkfall creative team focused on making the characters look more realistic – no bright colors and odd shapes. It’s also just fitting to make items and structures look “worn and gritty” to add to the effect. Female characters wouldn’t look like they were taken from the covers of Maxim. They have to look the part of ass-kicking warriors. Male characters, on the other hand, were given a heroic look, so don’t go looking for characters that look like they’ve been taking extra shots of steroids.

As Darkfall is set in a world that’s about to end, the graphic style presents that of an atmosphere of decay – from architecture down to the props and items.

When asked about the biggest challenge as far as art goes, Henning said, “The terrain of Agon definitely sticks out as the biggest and foremost challenging part for us because we wanted to model and texture the entire world by hand.”

Way back in 2001, Razorwax (now Aventurine SA) announced the development of Darkfall, an MMORPG that will feature unrestricted PvP. Six years later, the said game is still in private Beta testing. Its painfully slow development might have put off some online gamers, but the hardcore PvP players don’t mind the long wait. As new info trickles in, interest in the game was revived.

Darkfall Art Director Henning Ludvigsen further made things interesting by talking about the game’s area and character design. You have to admit that a character’s facial variations, weapons, equipment, and hairdo (definitely!) add to the game’s appeal. It’s important for characters to have that cool factor to make players want to play. Even Orks and Dwarves need their beauty makeover some time.

The Darkfall creative team focused on making the characters look more realistic – no bright colors and odd shapes. It’s also just fitting to make items and structures look “worn and gritty” to add to the effect. Female characters wouldn’t look like they were taken from the covers of Maxim. They have to look the part of ass-kicking warriors. Male characters, on the other hand, were given a heroic look, so don’t go looking for characters that look like they’ve been taking extra shots of steroids.

As Darkfall is set in a world that’s about to end, the graphic style presents that of an atmosphere of decay – from architecture down to the props and items.

When asked about the biggest challenge as far as art goes, Henning said, “The terrain of Agon definitely sticks out as the biggest and foremost challenging part for us because we wanted to model and texture the entire world by hand.”