Nov 4, 2022
Age of Darkness: Final Stand - loathey
As the poster child for Age of Darkness: Final Stand and our first hero, we needed to make sure he did a good job of representing the world for all the players that were going to engage with the game for the first time. We have Perry, our Project Art Lead, to walk us through the journey on how Edwin as you know him came to be.
What were the art goals for Edwin?
We wanted our first hero to have an easy barrier to entry into the world of AoD, leaning into a warrior archetype and not overloading the player with an overcomplicated design. He draws inspiration from well known characters like Geralt of Rivia and Beric Dondarrion, and plays into our core themes of Light vs Dark, while still not overextending too deeply into the lore we’re building. He also needed to be something that was quite distinct from the roster of units we had in the game at the time, so we really accentuated parts of his design to help with his silhouette, like the oversized collar and a large greatsword.
Early concepts for Edwin
How did you concept and experiment, and eventually land on the final design?
Initially Edwin had a full face helmet, with the intent that the player would be able to project themselves into the character if they wanted. But early after getting this version into game and playable he just wasn't eye-catching enough, and did not stand out as one of your most important characters in relation to the game around him.
Early character iteration with helmet
With the importance of our Hero characters, we really needed to push the silhouette and design behind Edwin and make sure he stood out among the other units he would be surrounded with during gameplay.
Something that really helped here was taking inspiration from games like Warcraft where Heroic and story relevant characters are typically quite oversized in comparison to a group of standard soldiers.
After we realised the helmet version wouldn’t work we continued to experiment with how he should look. Edwin has a very significant impact on the Lore and story we’re creating for the world of AoD, and this directed a lot of our decisions behind his design:
Edwin’s a righteous, yet defiant knight who has served under multiple monarchies. He utilises his flame and combat skill to defend the wronged and is aligned with the disciples of fire and light. You can read some of his backstory here.
What he wears, having a military-esque apparel as well as considering how that would interact with the world around him, such as the studded arm braces to help prevent attacks and being able to fend off enemies.
His facial details, such as the burn over across his face, and subtly glowing eyes. How he interacts with his own abilities in game, being able to alight his giant sword, create large impactful bursts of flame to decimate the Nightmares, and empower the other soldiers around him.
That’s it for today’s behind the scenes look. We hope you enjoyed getting some more insight behind the art for our first hero. Tell us if you would like to see more of these in the comments below!
As always, if you come across any bugs or crashes, please report them to us either through the Steam forums, our Discord server in the ‘bug-reporting’ channel or using the in-game bug reporting tool.
AoD Discord - Join our official Discord server
AoD Website - Official Website & Blog
Twitter - Follow us at AOD_FinalStand
Facebook - Like Our Facebook Page
Reddit - Join the r/Age of Darkness: Final Stand community
YouTube - Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel
Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.
Speaking of which, you can also chat with our team and ask them questions on our official Discord server here!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1426450/Age_Of_Darkness_Final_Stand
What were the art goals for Edwin?
We wanted our first hero to have an easy barrier to entry into the world of AoD, leaning into a warrior archetype and not overloading the player with an overcomplicated design. He draws inspiration from well known characters like Geralt of Rivia and Beric Dondarrion, and plays into our core themes of Light vs Dark, while still not overextending too deeply into the lore we’re building. He also needed to be something that was quite distinct from the roster of units we had in the game at the time, so we really accentuated parts of his design to help with his silhouette, like the oversized collar and a large greatsword.
Early concepts for Edwin
How did you concept and experiment, and eventually land on the final design?
Initially Edwin had a full face helmet, with the intent that the player would be able to project themselves into the character if they wanted. But early after getting this version into game and playable he just wasn't eye-catching enough, and did not stand out as one of your most important characters in relation to the game around him.
Early character iteration with helmet
With the importance of our Hero characters, we really needed to push the silhouette and design behind Edwin and make sure he stood out among the other units he would be surrounded with during gameplay.
Something that really helped here was taking inspiration from games like Warcraft where Heroic and story relevant characters are typically quite oversized in comparison to a group of standard soldiers.
After we realised the helmet version wouldn’t work we continued to experiment with how he should look. Edwin has a very significant impact on the Lore and story we’re creating for the world of AoD, and this directed a lot of our decisions behind his design:
Edwin’s a righteous, yet defiant knight who has served under multiple monarchies. He utilises his flame and combat skill to defend the wronged and is aligned with the disciples of fire and light. You can read some of his backstory here.
What he wears, having a military-esque apparel as well as considering how that would interact with the world around him, such as the studded arm braces to help prevent attacks and being able to fend off enemies.
His facial details, such as the burn over across his face, and subtly glowing eyes. How he interacts with his own abilities in game, being able to alight his giant sword, create large impactful bursts of flame to decimate the Nightmares, and empower the other soldiers around him.
That’s it for today’s behind the scenes look. We hope you enjoyed getting some more insight behind the art for our first hero. Tell us if you would like to see more of these in the comments below!
As always, if you come across any bugs or crashes, please report them to us either through the Steam forums, our Discord server in the ‘bug-reporting’ channel or using the in-game bug reporting tool.
AoD Social Links:
AoD Discord - Join our official Discord server
AoD Website - Official Website & Blog
Twitter - Follow us at AOD_FinalStand
Facebook - Like Our Facebook Page
Reddit - Join the r/Age of Darkness: Final Stand community
YouTube - Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel
Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our Discord server.
Speaking of which, you can also chat with our team and ask them questions on our official Discord server here!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1426450/Age_Of_Darkness_Final_Stand
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