I love what has been happening in the industry over the last couple of years, especially with Naughty Dog. It’s just inherent that a 3D game is less accessible than a 2D game mechanically speaking. We’re trying to open it up because we know that it’s going to be a bigger challenge for others out of the gate without actually having enemy encounters or anything like that to add on top. That’s one of the bigger changes here out of the gate offering a variety of difficulty levels because of all those new aspects, because of the different focus here in this game from combat to more of the traversal and exploration. This game requires a bit more on the mechanical side of things to navigate just by virtue of the camera and then you toss in the speed, you toss in the big giant boss creatures, you toss in all these other elements and it can become a big ass challenge that even the easiest version of it can be difficult. I love that look but it’s used because it’s a little simpler and easier to deal with in general for smaller teams that don’t have the luxury of the tech artist or graphics engineer because those things are difficult jobs for very talented people and this is quite a step beyond flat-shading. And that means that it’s like turning elements off from the rendering pipeline typically to get the lower stylized look. You see the smaller indie games that are flat-shaded. It’s not the same as something that’s flat-shaded. All of the industry is really biased towards PBR and the tools that are created and the pipelines that are there and the way that everything intercepts and what the engines are built around, so you have to do a lot of heavy lifting to go against the grain for that and get this kind of stylized more cell-shaded cartoonish or hyper colorful flat look. It’s certainly challenging to have a non- PBR workflow.

You know, a lot of very talented folks working on it to get the look that we got out of it. We’ve had a lot of really talented people on the team on the graphics and engineering end of things, tech-art and environment art, et cetera.

Download solar ash