Why Character Design is about more than just Style

[@Lyre-BS]

Concord looks like a live-action Netflix adaptation of itself.

[@rachi7629]

This is actually so on point. These designs clearly look like they were made for tv, not for games. It's not just realism, it's a toned down, mute kind of realism that we would see in TV to cut costs.

[@MarcAlcatraz]

💀💀💀💀

[@Masterge77]

It's what happens when every Triple-A game tries overly hard to look like a Hollywood movie, especially since these games are largely made for investors and shareholders who don't even play video games because they're 70+ year old boomers who still think video games are stuff like Pac-Man and Galaga because they think anything more "realistic" somehow causes real world violence.

[@Techno_Bunny433]

diabolical roast

[@justadragonnamemarcus1751]

💀✋

[@insertenombreestupidoaqui3259]

The characters radiate this "ultrarealistic mario" energy that is so uncanny to me, its like they are cosplaying characters that dont exist

[@Zeonis]

NINTENDO HIRE THIS MAN

[@kms4829]

Perfect description

[@JeeblyWBush]

@@Zeonis HE'S USING UNREAL ENGINE IN ANY WAY HE CAN!

[@CouchCit]

Exactly. I fell like they never made a decision on which direction the art was going in. Cartoons? Realistic? Why not both?

[@polinttalu7102]

That's why I think the problem lies in the art style, not the design themselves. Maybe if the graphics was more cartoony it would've fit. But no, they had to make it realistic

[@LucidTheDM]

Concord looks like a fake game that you might see see the annoyed teenager character playing in a movie.

[@mechanwhal6590]

A bad movie

[@THExRISER]

It's really funny how this game became a case study about what NOT to do when making appealing character designs.

[@DavidJoshua-zc8df]

Certainly something to be made an example out of in future character design and color theory classes.

[@S-treme]

This game probably will become easy reason of bad design in class design.

[@ericfrancisco6615]

Tell that to the Concord artists who's bold claim that these designs were made with "passion and love" on their Twitter. I highly doubt the credibility of that claim.

[@buggart]

​@@ericfrancisco6615of course they're made with passion and love. They modeled the characters after themselves!

[@talkingtakotaco8611]

The designs didn't necessarily ruin the game, but the game is just a inferior product at a higher price. It can't compete with other hero shooters in the market. The character designs and political messaging is basically like... whatever the negative version of icing on the cake is. It's a bad thing on an already bad game, and at a bad price.

[@Zectifin]

the lizard guy looks exactly like someone said "what if we made Yondu a green lizard?" and stopped thinking.

[@Gettles]

And the rocket girl was like a first attempt at a female doomslayer.

[@Tank_lover]

"Eventually, the developers stopped thinking."

[@A3319]

Also being afraid to give aliens(?) non-human faces

[@saddlerrye6725]

It's one of my biggest pet peeves when alien designs follow the idea of "a human but green!" "a human but with animal ears!" "a human but big!". It's just boring.

[@3volution636]

@A3319 My thoughts exactly. If they had the faces look more cartoony looking. It would have worked better. The Green alien dude works except for his weird ass face....

[@manguymanfellaman]

That Pharah comparison really hit the nail on the head. A person who flies should look like it. Pharah looks like a bird, with wings and a jetpack. Echo looks like a moth. Mercy has angel wings. Juno is wearing a full astronaut suit with massive boots on to fly with. There is nothing in the concord character that even comes close to being something recognizable to someone whos never seen them before. Its common knowledge that birds and angels fly. Not rocks with a smear of read on them.

[@flynnfarron]

I mean, heck, if they wanted to make a character that can fly but forego giving them wings, they could have used Sigma as an example! A character that can fly/float because they can distort and control gravity! It's crazy how easy it is to base a character around a theme, but this game just...legitimately couldn't be bothered.

[@TheGhostgodzilla]

I will take even a jet pack if they still wanna go for something so BORING. But hey what the heck do I know about comunicating a playstyle via character design.

[@maidframe]

I mean the soldier and scout from tf2 don’t really have anything additional to convey that they have air mobility other than their body structure and weapon.

[@TheFoolishSamurai]

@@maidframe Aerial combat isn't exactly core to their (stock) kit, more of an extension of the in-game tools that allow for it

[@blob5907]

red*

[@blampfno]

Unironically, the character design in Concord looks like someone hit the 'Randomize' button 3 times in a character customization menu and then just saved the result.

[@asheru2649]

It’s like they used the warframe randomizer took then used the most biege and hideous colors ever then never put on a single accessory or notable skin then just left it like that

[@whosaidthat84]

That's the best description yet 😂

[@jonathangarcia7730]

I mean... they clearly used metahuman character creator to create them so... that may be entirely possible :')

[@adil9499]

More like Randomized AI Character, I think...

[@dootdoot3065]

Idk, I think that's giving it too much credit. At least when you hit random you'll probably get a much more colourful result (for better or for worse).

[@RocketChickArt1]

When the rule 34 artist don't want to use your character models, you know you've made something ugly.

[@isaacfrand3824]

I have no words. This is by far the best and most hard-hitting insult I’ve ever heard.

[@mariawhite7337]

Some of them are gonna be that. The alien chick with a tail might make it in.

[@003thezg3]

​@@mariawhite7337 honestly I"ve seen way worse on rule34.

[@sheik_link]

@@mariawhite7337 There are probably a couple of Furries on the dev team, so that's why she is one of the few kind of cute characters in the game.

[@003thezg3]

@@sheik_link yeah the Ramona rip-off girl is not that bad looking compare to the rest.

[@ocean037]

The issue that I noticed watching this video is that in Overwatch all the characters look and feel like the main character of their own story, meanwhile in Concord, they ALL look like side characters. They are all like Yamcha from DBZ.

[@ethanfreeman1106]

That's an insult to Yamcha. Despite being demoted to a side character shortly after debuting, he actually had his own arc, memorable dialogues, a cool character design with an actual personality and a solid identity in the series. He's a good side character. These concord characters feel like the side characters who support the supporting characters of their own reality, and even then they do a piss poor job at that and just take up space and screen time that would've been spent showing literally anything else 😂

[@ethanfreeman1106]

TL;DR you can meme Yamcha for being boring and useless, and that's actually memorable. But concord characters won't even make it into the memes!

[@thebossbrothers123]

Don't do Yamaha dirty, or ruin Toriyama's legacy by comparing this trash to Yamcha. Yamcha's design is objectively memorable with his many scars and odd hair. He is like the ONLY Z FIGHTER with scars😅. Yamcha gets sidelined not because of his design but because of his lack of agency in the Dragon Ball series, in-fact people, REMEMBER TO WEEP FOR YAMCHA, because he looks cool but is so sadly useless. Funny enough these characters are USEFUL in their series but so repulsive you do not even want to see how useful they can be!

[@AnthonyAnalog]

Nah. It's literally just Tracer. That game is also dead if she doesn't exist. 😂

[@gustavoh.70]

Yamcha catching strays for free

[@xenomorph4053]

I cannot emphasize how vital Overwatch's characters were to the game's success. Overwatch's characters are integral to every aspect of it's success and it's why so many people keep going back to it years later.

[@BlazeMakesGames]

Yeah like not to mention that despite Overwatch having a more cartoony artstyle, a lot of their characters look a lot more functional than these characters do. People actually wear armor and have aspects of their designs that help justify their abilities. And then people in Concord look like they just grabbed some random clothes and went out to go fight. Plus overwatch also pulled on a lot of superhero tropes, making their characters look aspirational so that people would not only be able to tell what they do based on their outfit, but also in some sense want to *be* that character and do what they do in the same way that people wanna be like Superman or Spiderman and whatnot. And that helps drive sales

[@coolio6855]

Yeah... The characters...

[@DarkDemonXR]

The super power Blizzard has or had to make charismatic characters is over 9000, same level to f up their game sadly.

[@BenFoster-cx4em]

lefties are porn addicts. that's why overwatch was successfull

[@kobold7466]

yea..also why source filmmaker got so many downloads after its release

[@jcama2412]

one of the things I absolutely hate about Concord's character design direction is that they look like bad live action adaptations of a potentially better cartoony/stylized design.

[@matthewmosier8439]

The game looks like a cartoon, though. The colors are way too plentiful to be considered realistic for a shooter

[@armintor2826]

Exactly. They have that Polar Express hyper-realistic appearance and its super uncanny

[@furwerkstudio2057]

@matthewmosier8439 Hate to tell you this but, all video games are cartoons.

[@Sviorr]

This is a very neat summary 👍

[@The90sDoggoGaming]

Yeah like a really bad cosplay.

[@eruk4678]

Concord’s characters are like the game. Poofy and balloony with no sharp corners and only inoffensive pastel colors. Character designs straight out of Corporate promotional art.

[@tortillasconsal4441]

You're so absolutely right, I was about to say that. They feel so clean and sleek and dull like a regular office work. Not a peek or personality or detail that would say something about the characters, and when they try it feels like a costume The art feels like screencaps from a 3D Modelling student making their final project. Just make it look good enough so the teacher can see the creases of the clothes but that's it

[@xXx_Regulus_xXx]

if they had gone all the way and made Corporate Memphis: The Game that would have at least been out of pocket and weird enough to talk about for longer than two weeks

[@blastlightstar]

​@@xXx_Regulus_xXxi really, _really_ wanna see that game now. spread your vision.

[@ewoklord-726]

It makes me wonder if they even understand character design. I mean, this is a shooter, a game where you want to emphasize intensity, and action. Rounded corners don’t invoke intensity, pastel colors don’t invoke action! It’s designed like a game for children, but is supposed to be a game for teenagers. It makes no sense.

[@GloriousSwordHorse]

Soldier 76 looks like a future warrior, Teo looks like he's wearing second hand football pads.

[@WolfyboiRTCT]

Teo looks like he's ready for a paintball or airsoft match.

[@joseaca1010]

He looks like he wanted to do a TRON cosplay but gave up 1/3 of the way through

[@looper7159]

He looks like he auditioned to be in starfield on a budget. And starfield’s visual design isn’t even that great to begin with

[@chantakzee]

I've NEVER played overwatch, I've only watched snippets, but when you mention SOLDIER 76, I look at the roster and can safely guess who is the soldier guy.

[@tokidensetsu]

Teo looks like a Colonial Marine cosplay (Aliens) made on a budget of $20...

[@malcolmliang]

Concord : if I asked an AI to generate a hero shooter with color scheme of literal animal defecation

[@BlazeMakesGames]

ngl, this game's art does feel like what would happen if you asked an AI to make characters for a game. You know, on account of the fact that as I've already demonstrated before, GAI is incapable of actually understanding the fundamental meaning of anything it does or says

[@MahouShoujoTomato]

To be fair, I think AI would have done a better job...

[@jacobnoelle8428]

​@@MahouShoujoTomato maybe not a better job but the designs could have been more interesting.

[@MahouShoujoTomato]

​@@jacobnoelle8428 Yeah, it could have at least given them some better ideas to go off of.

[@lavorz170]

This is what happens when you hire agenda driven skill less hacks to make characters, they don’t care about what’s good they just care about what they themselves like.

[@Wezdenn]

"She's holding a giant rocket launcher. So what kind of stealth character does that?" Venom Snake: Well Shit

[@iponce2]

It's technically still stealthy if you merc everyone at once 🤓☝️

[@bensmith8682]

They’re called Sappers.

[@PvtMartin78]

Get me my GEP gun.

[@ED-gw9rg]

9:58 My sibling commented "she could be modelled after an insect, like a housefly" and I can't help but think that, yeah, insect wings would 100% redeem the design. Flying characters ARE annoyingly agile at times, lean into that!

[@corpsenymph4644]

That’s brilliant, the red window of her helmet totally looks like it could be a fly’s eye. Adding the whole “annoying insect” idea to her character gives her personality too, like a sort of mischievous vibe. Man, so many missed opportunities…

[@TheGeckoNinja]

lol see how easy that was to improve the design? and they spent years on this game, and no one thought to try that idea out?

[@queendiamond770]

I hope your sibling is an artist or picks up illustration cause that is genius

[@democard1199]

​​​@@TheGeckoNinja They're too busy to please their tester (lgbtq, sjw, feminazi, etc), now they see the end of the road after insult their customers.

[@MrTomEdo]

@@TheGeckoNinja I feel like nobody gave anyone the money to think about that. They probably hired 3D artists and just told them to model their generic OCs without an art direction.

[@SmithOfGear92]

Looking at Daw at first glance, I would've never known that he was a medic. Nothing about his design screams "Medic"; he's just a guy in a blue jacket.

[@TheSonOfDumb]

A very heavy guy in a blue jacket, you could say.

[@averymccoytarnished6782]

Which if it were a real life medic, would actually be a massive functional problem.

[@someguyontheinternet2399]

A white jacket with a red cross would easily fix that

[@Perdix64]

@@someguyontheinternet2399a Red Cross ANYWHERE could’ve helped him.

[@SantaClawztheSamurai]

Daw's a medic? I thought he was a Discord mod

[@ToonLinkHox]

"Take this _lizard guy_ for example..." HE'S SUPPOSED TO BE A LIZARD???? I THOUGHT HE WAS A *TREE,* those looked like bark and branches to me

[@callmecharlie4250]

I didn't even notice the scales, I just thought he was green

[@eri-chan3124]

Me too dude, all of these characters have this problem they don't look like what they were supposed to be, they look like a vague and boring version of themselves ​@@callmecharlie4250

[@brettzolstick989]

I thought he was just a spikey guy lol

[@zerog.knight7122]

Ithought he was a dragón because how much he liked the Hot sauce in that scene

[@tigrisparvus2970]

Cactus

[@Mysterynovus]

The photorealism of this game really sets it back artistically. The characters look like Gucci or YSL models given guns and left to wander on nondescript space rocks.

[@redninja3056]

Honestly stfu the photorealism has nothing to do with it god you guys are pathetic

[@afterthefact6708]

Stylized is almost always superior and holds up through time!

[@killsode4760]

I'm not sure how great of models they'd even be!

[@MuraCasardis]

Yeah so many of them just look like actors in costumes rather than actual characters.

[@singularityraptor4022]

Actually you nailed it. It feels like the characters were designed by a costume/fashion designer rather than an actual character designer.

[@zach4968]

My dude over here straight up looking like an iguana in a life jacket definitely aint helping

[@AlteredNova04]

Ironically, that goofy design probably makes him the most visually interesting and memorable character in the game. It might not be a good design (because I still don't have any clue what his gameplay style might be), but at least it's not bland.

[@TheGallantDrake]

​@AlteredNova04 idk man, he looked like a character from Guardians of the Galaxy to me. No joke I saw him and thought he was from a new Guardians of the Galaxy game before learning what Concord was.

[@mothichorror446]

If he looked more like an actual iguana it would be a significant improvement

[@MusicoftheDamned]

​@@TheGallantDrakeHa. Nice to know that it wasn't just me who felt that way. I imagine that's doubtless what the clueless execs that got this game stuck in development for 8 years intended.

[@Z0ink1nat0r]

Artist here: If they leaned heavier into the "Spaceman" thing with Roka that would've fit with the fact that they fly(like a rocket) and the fact that they can slam into the ground(like a meteor). Instead, though, it felt like they didnt want to commit too hard so we get this weird...pseudo-spaceman that looks like an Olympic swimmer put on a space helmet.

[@edwardteachbornonabeach9715]

i was just thinking this im so glad someone else thinks so. Roka could have had some cool 60s retro astronaut look, or something like Uraraka's design from MHA (esp with her gravity quirk kind of being spacey) . lowkey want to redesign all the characters now

[@Rondart]

One of the most memorable bosses in Metal Gear Solid 3 was The Fury, a guy wearing a whole ass space suit with a big huge helmet AND jetpacks also that stonking flamethrower you can make your designs semi-realistic but DAMN give us a tell or something

[@JMPants]

It's even funnier when you think how badly it's gotta hurt seeing people rather play as a monkey than any one of their characters.

[@talkingtakotaco8611]

To be fair though. That monkey is looks cool and does cool things.

[@EmperorSigismund]

That's because the nature of Monkey is irrepressible!

[@morgan3392]

For a second I thought you were referring to Winston from Overwatch. And it made me think: there are genuinely way more people playing as Winston right now than playing Concord.

[@MicrobiusBlue]

​@@EmperorSigismundMust get my DVD box set out and watch again 😎

[@EmperorSigismund]

@@MicrobiusBlue I haven't seen that show in 20 years but I'll NEVER get that theme song out of my head.

[@tni333]

Yeah the designs are bad but I think what really kills this game is that it enters its genre at least 5 years too late, does NOTHING new or interesting within that genre and then has the gall to charge 40€ upfront when its competitors are free. It’s like they never asked themselves during the 7 years development how they could stand out in this very competitive market.

[@MorbidEel]

It reminds of me of what was said about Anthem. Apparently during development of that game comparisons to their competitors like Warframe and Destiny was not allowed. Something similar could have happened. Some people have "well that is them and we are different" sort of attitude.

[@KUR1ST0]

Meh. Multiplayer shooters are eternal. This one just sucks in a handful of key ways.

[@Mossymushroomfrog18]

I think another big factor is the seemingly nonsense names. Like I can barely remember a single name mentioned other than Teo because that’s a real name that exists, the rest sounds like baby babble. Additionally they say nothing about the characters, which you see everywhere in gaming. • Heavy? Big guy, big weapons, heavy weapons expert. • Sombra? Spanish for shadow = Spanish speaking stealth character. • Winston? A smart guy. Put on a gorilla? That’s a smart Gorilla! • Phoenix? Fire character that can revive himself. • Jinx? A crazy character who revels in chaos. Compared with: • Roka? Idk a rock person? Some sort of tank? An alien? • Daws? Jaws like a shark? Or maybe someone who’s chill? • Teo…? A… guy? They just fall completely flat.

[@devilishjester7718]

Roka because of her rokat boots I guess

[@ethanfreeman1106]

Compare this to the Japanese culture where they spend millions of years trying to decide the name of any new character, be it novel, manga, video games or in real life 😂 that's just how much effort they put into crafting the soul of each individual and their connection to the world around them, fictional or not. Names with actual meaning and implies great depth that helps portray or convey something about the characters and their stories are always more interesting to learn about. But we don't even have to go that deep. A little bit of MMO roleplaying on throw-away accounts I've made over the years even produced much more memorable names than these. My hecking Sims characters that were made just to be experimented upon or trapped in an underground pool had better names than these. The people who "designed" these characters had worse naming sense than fking ChatGPT. 😂 On that note, let's not even get started on the name "concord." I'm not a native English speaker but wtf does that even mean? I don't care about what it means so don't actually tell me, but the only reason I've managed to remember that word is because I've seen people repeat it enough. It's so bland and uncharacteristically immediately forgettable. It sounds like a word you'd see in normal everyday life but you never actually use because there're a million better alternatives that are more fun to say 😂

[@vb1280]

Roka because of her rocket...I think? Like, what do you call an female rocket? Roka? Rocketa?

[@PanagiotisPolitis-bl9xj]

You're not wrong he is just a guy

[@raifencharles3680]

​@@vb1280 MISSile lmao

[@superbnns]

Every character in this game looks like a cosplay version of the real thing

[@candrink]

Yes, the irony is that the strive towards realism actually made it even more like bad cosplay

[@cosmicspacething3474]

Except Cosplayers do a better job

[@gabrielegagliardi3956]

Those fat cosplay guys, "morbidly" obese posing like Duke Nukem and wearing a blond wig. Obviously making "war battles" noises like "whaaaaa" and showing two mozzarellas for biceps. That's the level.

[@shakirashipslied9721]

Cosplays sold as cheap halloween costumes.

[@lucamonticelli267]

Art direction is critical in a game like that, because the hero game shooter is not a growing space and was extremely saturated years ago, anyone who is interested in playing a hero shooter right now is playing one, so asking to play your game should also mean giving reason to stop playing overwatch or TF2 or whatever hero shooter. This is the same tale of lawbreakers

[@BlazeMakesGames]

ah yes, "The Dark Souls of Shooters" lol. Yeah I recall that game having a fairly uninteresting art style as well despite some cool looking mechanics

[@shoukaiser]

I have been trying to remember the name Lawbreakers for DAYS to describe Concord lol... Which says A Lot

[@doddynuryanto3800]

Yup, i brough that game, lol The gameplay actually solid. Fast paced and more agile, but in character design they are not interisting enough, every Hero looks the same

[@captainstroon1555]

A hyperrealistic artstyle severely limits character design when it comes to the availabe shape language. It's like writing without using the letter E. While that works great for grounded works, like military shooters for example, hero shooters need their heroes to stand out and be as distinct from each other as possible.

[@nonymouswisp8176]

Not to mention it tends to age better

[@kawabatayuri]

Even a "realistic" military hero shooter like Siege still incoporates gimmick design so that the characters dont look bland. Jackal is character that uses tracking visor helmet to locate enemies footprints, and almost all of his animation or artwork will emphasize or put highlights on his helmet because thats his quirk. A lot of other characters are designed like this too. Putting a subtle touch on their quirks and abilities but not too obvious to the point it becomes pushy

[@Cold_Cactus]

This game broke rule 34... Let that sink in

[@phucjack6270]

When the internet don’t want to sexualize them you know you done fuck up.Compare to Juno from Overwatch 2 who have much better design have rule 34 art of her in matter of hours before she even release officially to the game

[@MagcargoMan]

Rule 34 is a meme anyway.

[@decilence6184]

​@@MagcargoMan memes reflect on reality

[@a_kuma]

To the devs it means they succeeded. They want to avoid the male gaze after all.

[@isaacfrand3824]

Not even public transportation, not even garbage cans, have avoided rule 34… and now I need some bleach and therapy. Somehow there’s p-n of trash cans but not these characters? I don’t even know what to say. That’s just… that’s just not possible.

[@bryantm82004]

It's not that the characters are diverse. It's that they are boring, ugly, and completely forgettable.

[@shadowmetroid18]

They have zero charisma about them. The tf2 heavy has so much charm about him which makes him so iconic. Reaper goes all in with the edgy appearance and it's endearing. Concord characters look like extras from guardians of the galaxy.

[@mr.crowjo_3933]

Aaaaaand also some gamer gate 2 moments here, they not just ugly, they purposely ugly

[@AntSugar]

Yeah Overwatch has a really diverse cast but the characters are actually appealing

[@koshetz]

Absolutely agree, they have the androgynous male mushroom alien and old woman named "Duchess" both concepts that could make a very interesting characters YET both designs are so unbelievably boring like how you mess up such an easy ideas for fun character design like this?

[@yarpen26]

In fact, the popular understanding of the term diversity is exactly the opposite of what it actually means. Diversity implies differences, real life-impacting difference, not just the texture of your skin. Pitch Black with Vin Diesel was diverse because it featured Muslim characters that actually worshipped Allah. Today's entertainment just puts a scarf around the head of a white SF college student, paints her dark or black and calls her diverse.

[@ratoh1710]

18:08 Blue and gold is also a combination used a lot in classical Egyptian art so it also helps convey her Egyptian heritage.

[@soundrogue4472]

2:30 simple to point out; 1. Boring designs 2. Conflicting designs 3. Ugly designs and 4. a lack of personality to the designs, not even an issue of just boring

[@pawcattywilse55555]

don't forget, insulting gamer for not buying this shit (yes that is also won't be good too)

[@mrbluebell2735]

Anti aesthetics and dysfunctional design. Cornerstone of ZentraDei design. Purposeless and ugly.

[@maximedorion9244]

Still cannot believe they made a main character's entire personality about liking hot sauce.

[@soundrogue4472]

@@maximedorion9244 wait WHAT!

[@solouno2280]

@@maximedorion9244 as Mexican, I felt insulted

[@BaconGold790]

The designs really are baffling. I'll humour what you asked I tried to have a guess at what role Haymar played in the game. Keep in mind I am going in blind, but have an advantage in studying visual communication. My first thoughts were that she was some kind of ninja inspired assassin. Her colour pallet is fairly muted, with grey making up the majority. The little splashes of colours in the dark scarlets and gold draw the eye away from the face, so there does not seem to be a single focal point in her design. The materials of the cloths seemed to reinforce my assumption she was some kind of stealth character due to the matte materials. This is a character who does not seem to want to be noticed. The clothing is fairly plain looking, and aside from the very basic golden beads, is not very pragmatic, lacking visible pockets. Her hair appears to be done up at the back but parted at the front, and flowing down either side of her cheeks, framing her face like a hood would. Essentially obscuring it from any angle except the front. This is a fairly common style for evoking someone who is aloof, but active. Think female assassins or action heroines who are athletic. All in all, they seem like someone who is well suited to disappear into the shadows, drawing weapons only when close enough from concealment (from where I do not know). Gameplay wise she communicates having an average, if not slightly slender hit box. This would stay in line with the idea that she is focused on speed to close the gap. The lack of armour suggests that she has very low health mixed with the clothing looking slightly like gambeson makes me think she is melee focuses. However, I would not be surprised if she had some ranged weapon based on throwing knives or blades or perhaps a quiet weapon like a crossbow. __________________________________________ Well, I gotta say I was not expecting a fireball throwing sorcerer, but at least I kinda guessed the crossbow...eh that's a stretch. It feels like the designers were too afraid to lean into the motifs most associated with each character. As if being anything like the stereotype was a bad thing. Being a fire mage and having something fire related, whether by colours, or visual effects or even giving her a burning staff would have been a good move. Stereotypes exist for a reason, leaning into them doesn't mean you have to be bound by them. Take the Pyro from TF2. His deal is the flamethrower, which is his character is modelled in mind with, like some sort of barbaric instrument of metal coming out of his hands (because it is). Subtle design ques like the fact that his fire suit is meant to subliminally conger the mental image of a flame in your head. The bright red of his suit shows through near his head and shoulders, but is covered by ash and burnt grim the further down you go, creating a colour gradient similar to a flame. These are just basic things far smarter people than me have thought of when trying to convey an idea visually. Finally, it's worth mentioning but, the last thing they needed was developers pouring fuel onto their own fire and burning what little good will they had left.

[@Valkbg]

I thought it was melee character since she has clothes similiar to medieval Europe meshed with Asian clothes. The sleeves being so high would help in CQC as so that her opponents dont use them against her. The leather sleeves looked a bit like generic fantasy bracers a bit. That or she looked like from high society. That would be the only thing that would even hint to a Sorcerer IMO.

[@zoicaras2992]

"As if being anything like the stereotype was a bad thing" RIGHT on the money. Feels like almost every design comes off as trying too hard to subvert stereotypes which leads to absolutely no visual clarity, cohesion and a mishmash of bland ideas... seemingly almost AI generated lol.

[@berniecat8756]

I thought she'd be a melee swordswoman. Expected her to pull up with a Katana.

[@EmperorSigismund]

My question is what does the woman with the glass box on her head do? All I can think of is that she reminds me of Space Cadet from Paradigm so my only guess is that she snorts lots of space dust.

[@ARStudios2000]

You got me.with the ending fire puns hahaha

[@TheKartana]

Based on Haymar's character design, and the lack of visible weapon, I would guess she can.... Pull out a red lightsaber and do force pushes

[@noonenowhere877]

Actually I think it is related to the diversity but not in the fact that the characters are diverse. It’s the mindset that went into them being diverse. The devs wanted to subvert and break rules that other games laid down. That’s why the colour pallets are weird and the characters don’t tell you what they are at a glance. They broke rules that they didn’t understand the reason for. They decided to be subversive but forgot to be practical.

[@Stothehighest]

A classic Chesterton's Fence you mean? All the devs saw was, the "stereotypes is Xyz so to subvert expectations were going to go with Qb3!" And then being angry that no one understands their "clever subversion" even after we explain that xyz flows in a known pattern and we can't make sense of their logic.

[@TheGallantDrake]

Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it. You can't properly subvert what you don't understand.

[@cordlc]

People keep bringing up Overwatch like it's a counter-point to this diversity nonsense, without realizing that Overwatch is not at all "diverse" in the same way. The DEI mindset exists for the purpose you mentioned, to combat stereotypes. Guess what Overwatch does? Nearly every character on release reinforces some sort of stereotype.

[@btrymusic]

Subversion for the sake of subversion, how subversive!

[@TheGallantDrake]

@cordlc right, but notice how people who were represented by said stereotypes generally didn't mind? The characters had reasons for being the way they were.

[@Chan0art]

The lack of artistic stylization makes the characters look like cosplayers at a sci-fi conventation. On a graphical level, the game actually looks great. However, their push towards realism instead of stylization does more harm than good.

[@Chan0art]

Ah just got to the part where he talks about the realism lol

[@cosmicspacething3474]

Except Cosplayers can do a much better Job than this

[@nuttystardragon6722]

Realism could work too but they seem to not lean more into it enough Utility point and some cool engineer feels give more charm But too bad they didn't lean into anything enough

[@dem7556]

Good graphics is kind of a downside in this case, lets you see how awful the characters are in greater detail

[@TheParagonIsDead]

The game, besides the characters looks insane hood especially with style and design.

[@FicoosBangaly]

Mario is a fat, middle aged, short king, Italian American plumber. Which on paper is like the worst thing ever. But every detail was created to complement game design. The mustache, the red and blue overall. All of that was to make the character readble and to have it pop. If you think about it he's character design would be considered insane because everything about him was influenced by game design requirement with no regard to realism.

[@maximillianlylat1589]

I think a factor that also helps make mario appealing is how "cute" he's drawn and depicted in games when the graphics improved overtime.

[@adriansalinas6755]

"Short king"?

[@Letsagomammamia]

I mean, he's canonically 25 years old,but otherwise, yeah

[@margarethmichelina5146]

Also, Mario has a personality, he likes to jump, he's a goofball and he's also can be a fighter (how many times he whoop Bowser's ass?)

[@Letsagomammamia]

@margarethmichelina5146 that's right!

[@christopheroldfield1066]

What people like and wear says a lot about them. I don't get the sense that the characters dressed themselves... if that makes sense.

[@dr.cheeze5382]

they all look like mainstream actors wearing makeup and costumes.

[@JoeOvercoat]

That explains it nicely.

[@Mark-sd4hv]

A lot of JRPGs have this issue

[@raven75257]

We live in a world where there are people who believe that fashion doesn't exist and beauty is completely subjective. This game is what happens when those people are allowed to design characters

[@TheTwinkelminkelson]

"What kind of a stealth character has a rocket launcher?" //flashbacks to Soi-Fon.

[@Mastashad160]

Yeah, that was my immediate thought too hahaha.

[@christiangonzalez6945]

Bleach its "idiotic" The rule of cool supersedes any other rule, on bleach, even the rule of "this doesnt make sense" is secondary to "cool colors make my characters feel powerfull"

[@EmperorSigismund]

A stealth bomber, that's what. Now there is a starting design point for a stealth character with a rocket launcher.

[@TheTwinkelminkelson]

@@christiangonzalez6945 Hey. Don't you diss Bleach. Sure, it's trash, but it's MY trash.

[@TheTwinkelminkelson]

@@EmperorSigismund That's... Actually a good point.

[@TheSto11c]

The characters look like background characters in a bar scene (or any public area) from the Guardians of the Galaxy .

[@blizzardgaming7070]

Guesses for 'Rocka' based on design. Helmet looks like an astronaut's Body suit implies high mobility Red visor suggests danger Rocket launcher suggests high damage The character looks like a high mobility dps. Pretty spot on for role but nothing about the design suggests flight or conveys how slow they actually move. Guesses for 'Heymar?' based on design. Cloth instead of armour suggests they're not frontline Pink is a very non threatening colour The character looks like a backline support How the fuck is that a fire wizard, the trim's pink not red. Orange trim with flame paterns would have been mich better

[@aquamarinerose5405]

Yea, I'm kinda surprised that Rokka's design seems pretty decent as telling what she is, though at the same time the Rocket Launcher does so much of the heavy lifting for it. Though my first instinct was specifically "Rocket Jumper" thinking like TF2 soldier but then thought about things like Pharah and Dragoz

[@the_senate8050]

They could have just made the flames pink! It would have been a way to set the character apart. Look at the less lethal pyromancer from Tactical Breach Wizards, kinda generic compared to the other designs in that game, but green fire makes him still stand out

[@fattony3736]

​@@aquamarinerose5405 I was guessing something like TF2 soldier as well. They should have given roka wings if she was gonna play like pharah

[@apharys8921]

@@the_senate8050That'd be cool. I'd go a step further and instead of just shooting pink flames it could be something like fiery pink butterflies with unique mechanics like chasing people down or surrounding them like a shield, then have the rest of her outfit reflect that theme. Right now she looks more like a monk than anything else, never would have guessed she's an offensive caster.

[@kerricaine]

My first thought for the second one was she's dark colored, light armored, and her outfit is very oriental styled with the red trim and gold beads, so I assumed she was a ninja type character like genji

[@Stevexupen]

"Why shouldn't art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world" - Pierre-Auguste Renoir

[@Jared-gx1dp]

I think ugly art has it's place, but like all art it's got to be working towards a goal. These characters want to be liked the same way the characters from overwatch want to be liked. But the designs just don't work. I don't actually think they're ugly. Just not very exciting.

[@barrupa]

Even ugliness in art is welcome if it is used for a purpose, or if the ugliness says something relevant about the piece's message or if it contributes to the feelings and thoughts it aims to evoke. Heroes in a hero shooter should be attractive to the player. They should make the player resonate with them and want to pick them as class. They should be appealing not just in aesthetics but also in their personality, and all such attributes should be reflected on the character's role in the game. The healer should look like and behave like someone who's a healer, and so on. It's almost as if they saw the masterclass in design that is/was TF2 and other games and decided to throw it all in the trash for the sake of pushing their character designs for their designs' sake, not for what they would do to improve or enhance the experience.

[@Electric0eye]

​@@Jared-gx1dpthat's the issue. The art in Concord wasn't made for any of artistic expression, it was made to meet quarterly income statements. It's not that it's unpleasant, it's that it doesn't say ANYTHING at all.

[@mrosskne]

@@Jared-gx1dp its place.

[@OVOgooner]

Common catholic W

[@ti-lo5hy]

I'm just in awe of how catastrophic this game failed. Every aspect of this case boggles the mind.

[@BlazeMakesGames]

It really is an unprecedented level of failure

[@Felipevije]

art director really dropped the fucking ball here. amazing how only a couple guys can bomb a whole game

[@Wounded_Asclepius]

I refuse to believe this game had any art direction.

[@AlekseiValkov]

The fate of any direction following design by committee. Those allergic to any leadership face this inevitable outcome.

[@S3nCh4n]

Big companies and directors surrounded by yes-men is so toxic. I can already see the whole art department surrounded by toxic positivity

[@MorbidEel]

All it takes is one person.

[@lanabanana5626]

Succeed if their goal was most boring real life presentation lmao

[@spookynomnoms6751]

Apparently it was stylized but they ended up giving it the Sony realism treatment which made the characters look like bad cosplayers

[@JustxLiving909]

I think this game was like this before Sony bought them

[@owenlee7146]

Tbh I doubt that at least not in the mid development process. That would demand too much redo.

[@Coconut-219]

To be fair, no level of 'art direction' could save the deeply rooted issues here...

[@NDenizen]

Oh no, it got the Fuse treatment

[@cordsman]

Where’d you hear that

[@ilyatepeyolotich6459]

This looks like a movie tie-in without a movie

[@scarletsletter4466]

😂 this games characters look too realistic to have such goofy stylized outfits. There’s literally a Chinese auntie in a purple p1mpsuit & a guy that looks like he lost at lasertag & then went to Jazzercize & has only 1 shoulderpad

[@MacSmithVideo]

It's like they purposely made it as ugly as humanly possible.

[@Hunter-jo8ud]

They made them like the humans are all ugly and fat.

[@KaminariHouse]

That award goes to 'Cruelty Squad'. This just sucks because the peeps in charge had no clue what they were doing😅

[@tomekk.1889]

The green man is genuinely horrible

[@tonk5711]

They did it on purpose, so nobody will be offended

[@svartrbrisingr6141]

its a woke game so of course thats what they did. got to make everything ugly and unrelatable. thats what the woke crowd wants.

[@wetoyono]

11:38 i was like alr he's exaggerating a little bit, she's obviously a ninja/stealth character... and the he goes "fire wizard".

[@malohn2068]

What is the first thing that makes you want to play a game? News flash its not the gameplay. Its the draw and appeal and thats how it looks and feels. Overwatch was hype as shit due to its characters, not its gameplay but the gameplay was good and kept people invested. Concord looks like shit but i bet it plays fine but i wont risk 60 dollars.

[@BlueBD]

The cover draws you in. The gameplay keeps you there. It's not a book, the visual are a Big part to games. Games are first and foremost a Visual medium.

[@noonenowhere877]

I feel like the fire wizard character just needed to have more obvious fire symbolism what she’s wearing kinda looks wizard-like if subtle, it just needs to have more ember-like colours and for the character card to actually show the weapon and element gimmick. A lot of these characters would have benefited massively from someone who actually understands colours and how they can communicate things to an audience. My first thought when I saw Concord characters was that the artists were some form of colour blind.

[@vxicepickxv]

The first thing is hearing about it existing. You can't get a thing if you don't know it exists. The first time I heard of this game was a "Fewer than 100 concurrent users on Steam" article.

[@bfgfanatic1747]

I wanted to play Hi-Fi Rush before I even knew it was a rhythm-based character action game simply because the art style and character design were so good.

[@BlueBD]

@@noonenowhere877 The Colorists for this game is horrible. It's almost all Cyan, Purple, and Beige. , on pretty much everyone. like wtf.

[@Zarzar22]

Culture, cohesion, and credibility. Do they have a familiar culture? Are they somebody you may recognize as having seen or met before? This makes characters likeable, relatable, memorable, and quickly groupable for consumers. It helps them quickly grasp this person's archetype according to their experiences, which is especially important when doing a game in space where you need to make characters that we (earthlings) understand. Are they cohesive? Do they all fit into a similar aesthetic that binds them all together. You can have a motley crew but they must all be bound by the art so that they dont look unpleasing and messy. Tf2's operatives all have a basic colored shirt, utilitarian pants, and then some kind of outerwear element to show what they do (heavy has bullets, demoman has grenades, engineer has a hard hat). Overwatch also rallies around a futuristic superhero approach. Their getup signifies what they do and who they are trying to come across as as a hero. Finally, are they believable? Is there a story or utility to their look? Would you believe they grew from a child into their current look all along an explainable path and thus ended up with their fashion and style? Concord has so many characters that lean almost too far into their look where it comes across as a character made in a lab, not somebody who either chose their own clothes or was given a uniform. The races of each character are all different and you lose the faith that this universe has a functioning society. Universes like Warhammer, Halo, and even Overwatch have clearly defined the select few archetypes that exist, and then create multiple characters within each of those to further expand on individuality. If each character in your game is the only one of their race, you lose a lot of the cohesion I mentioned earlier, and thus the universe becomes hard to believe because of the randomness and inconsistency between those "living" in it. Concord fails on nearly every front, whereas games must only succeed in a SINGLE one of these to create a roster that fans are willing to invest themselves into. Not every game or universe fills all of these criteria, but the one or two they choose, they nail.

[@Claritism]

All of this could've been resolved if they just made a PvE story based game with a added FPS gamemode later. This game needs it's world building up front and center.

[@EatWave]

The Concord characters looks as if they got dressed in the dark while strolling through a costume shop.

[@SiliconSlyWolf]

You don't have to be an expert in artistic design to feel something is dazzling or bland, that's built into our brains (and yes, some individual opinion as well). It's up to the expert to be able to determine how to build a character around human nature, so that people will find it appealing and not bland.

[@BlazeMakesGames]

yeah one of the worst counters to someone disliking something that I always hate, is the defender going "Well you're not an artist so what do you know?" as if I need to be a chef to know that a food I ate tastes bad. Like I said, maybe some people can't articulate the reasons very specifically, but anyone can have an opinion on something regardless of expertise

[@tomekk.1889]

​@@BlazeMakesGamesThat's interesting because in the video you said that just saying something looks bad isn't enough. Maybe the ohrasing was off but you seem to have a different opinion here

[@mrosskne]

@@tomekk.1889 No, there's no contradiction. You don't have to be an artist to identify bad art, and "bad" isn't useful criticism.

[@vinny985]

as an artist i wanna add that feedback from non artists is actually VERY important when designing for an audience for this very reason, if you’re not making art just for yourself. it’s very easy to get stuck in your own head when designing, but if you make a ninja looking character and tell everyone it’s supposed to be a mage, they’re right when they say it looks bad lol

[@kielbasamage]

As an aside, thanks to Guardians of the Galaxy, vaguely Science Fantasy with quirky characters is a tired, skin and bones cow with a calcified, shriveled udder, and everyone is swarming it for the very last atom of milk. Much like WW2 FPS games way back when.

[@Arindam1262]

Imma be real, the only think I could think about Roka's design was 'burlesque doom guy'

[@Dante45p]

people found the animation teasers and they look so much better its clear the game wanted to have a 70s scifi or french comic vibe but sony force them to go hyper realism

[@fithianmt7468]

Nailed it on the head the designs look like they were going for a Moebius style but were held back to appeal towards the warzone demographic

[@arkbien9303]

​@@fithianmt7468Pity. I think that it would have had a better chance if they were able to have a more stylized design instead of what they used.

[@Skycube100]

Dude, you may not be an artist, but I hope that you're not ashamed of that, since the points that you've made in this are spot on.

[@ExaltedUriel]

15:30 Something I think really drives the point home here is that just from seeing in 5 seconds that Infernus' "reload" is him fanning his hand because it got too hot made me instantly like the character more than hours of Concord gameplay ever could for any of its characters, that's super clever and making sure characters are animated with some personality might be even more important than the design itself.

[@ShuberFuber]

It is also a subtle explanation on why a fire wizard needs to reload. There's a pretty high probability that the animation was there in early playtest and someone asked "why does he need to reload?" And the most clear answer to that is "because his hand got hot" and once they added that animations people stopped asking questions. A bit like how Portal has long fall boots. Playtesters asked why Chell doesn't break her leg, so they strap a pair of fancy boots and players stopped questioning things. Players are willing to suspend a lot of disbelief if you at least show that "yes, we are aware this may not make sense, so here's a handwave".

[@bloodyidit4506]

None of the characters are at all identifiable as a stereotype like "fireman" or "policeman" would be in real life. A sniper needs a long gun and needs to look sharp-eyed. A medic needs to look like paragons of healing. A soldier needs a uniform. A spy needs to look sneaky or suave. All of this seems like it's AI generated, like they slapped in (guy from space Featured on Artstation:1) and called it a day. To this day I do NOT know what the hell any of them do from a glance. In Overwatch I know what Widowmaker does as a sniper with her gun and sniper visor gear, Soldier 76 does by being a boring call of duty guy with his cyber visor and bulky football physique, and what Tracer is because she's in running gear and has small weapons and leg focus in her official art. Worse yet, they're all in freaking pastels. Pastels! The colors you use for BACKGROUNDS to keep attention off them! Hell I know exactly what each TF2 guy does just from looking at them, their attitude and weapon.

[@cecilharvey2005]

Another thing about TF2 as well is that the characters are designed to be easily identifiable if you just saw their silhouette.

[@FrahdChikun]

I bet they're all in pastels because they don't want to hurt anyone with sensitive eyes. Why would people with sensitive eyes be playing games in the first place?

[@shoukaiser]

AI would have made dramatically better, readable, interesting character designs is the sad part ... As an artist, animator, designer, world builder. This was just bad choices made and then directed to workers, who either were so excited to be working or have a job they didn't say anything, or fought against all of their gut instincts and 'made what the client wanted' (not the audience, the people paying)

[@MoyaneisZen]

They design healer character lookslike he is about getting heart attack from cardio

[@humrH2360]

Well, they do say that doctors are the worst patients.

[@pabloarias9734]

Very refreshing to see at least so far a critique of the games character design that isn't riddled with "they're too woke" I like where you're going by actually analyzing the gameplay purposes of clear and obvious silhouettes in hero shooters like with tf2

[@Oblivius33]

Their character direction tried so hard to brake the mold that they failed to register into people's minds.

[@glitch_wurld]

16:08 I've seen this guy everywhere and this is literally the first time I've heard he's supposed to be a lizard man. I thought he was just some generic alien or tree man

[@dr.facilier5186]

I legit thought he was made of rocks

[@seasnaill2589]

Regarding Rokka, I actually managed to guess 'aerial combat'. The color scheme and general design of her outfit is reminiscent of flight suits that pilots wear, combined with the oversized helmet and the heavy artillery. With that said, if you're not familiar with that you're correct that there's no other visual identifiers other then vibes. Tracer from Overwatch does the idea a bit better. Her outfit is also inspired by flight suits, but there's artistic flair to it. From the hair to the goggles to the boots there's a lot of design decisions that scream 'THIS IS THE SPEEDY ONE' which makes it easy to identify what her abilities are at a glance.

[@TrampyPulsar]

Megamind scene comes to mind "You're a villian alright, just not a super one." "Whats the difference" "Presentation!" I hate all the LA/SF/Montreal nepo babies who never seen anything outside of their collage echo chamber bubbles and think they know what is cool, underground, or punk when they feel oppressed when their catering driver knocks on their doors to deliver their food order instead of leaving it at the door. Also a better design of "Rollerskater with a rocket launcher" would be Megabeth from Super Monday Night Combat, with her bike helmet and giant kneepads

[@jesustyronechrist2330]

I call this kind of aesthetic "Safe-punk". It's pink and cyan drivel, with street-wear or graffiti culture delivered in a safe package. Everyone is a rebel and a career criminal, but in a safe way. They hold niché jobs like wholesome drug dealing for friends only, running vintage technology stores, preaching about -communism- moralism, and being a single mom. The only allowed sexual orientations are straight and lesbian (NOT GAY). They fight a vague authority that is keeping up the law. The Safe-punk rebels don't like laws nor standards because those are traditional and thus fascist. Everyone is required to be a quippy asshole and need to do that "mischievous smile" expression that funnily enough Megamind does lmao.

[@zhalgas0455]

woke chud woke chud woke chud

[@DioTheGreatOne]

You forgot Vancouver

[@bennyblunto973]

Why does a psychic that can shoot fire out of her hands have a BOW AND ARROW as a main weapon?

[@AdisonTeixeira]

She can't shoot out of her hand, instead she charges beads with fire and throws at people

[@bennyblunto973]

@@AdisonTeixeira damn they even figured out how to make psychics gay

[@shoukaiser]

​@@bennyblunto973 I agree wit the sentiment that the characters are so unintuitive and badly designed for very definable reasons But psychics were always gay 😏

[@Claritism]

@@bennyblunto973 What? Psychics are some of the gayest characters in fiction.

[@bennyblunto973]

@@Claritism bro I’m from yhe 90’s the only psychics I know is professor X lol

[@thegamingaristocrat7615]

11:53 you COULD argue that since wizards wear robes, her wearing a robe = fire wizard. It doesn't WORK but I think there was a vague, half-assed attempt somewhere along the way.

[@acarr9377]

It doesn't help that outside of some animated shorts, the devs have made very little effort to show the lore of the world and the backstory of the characters. I've seen no biographies for the cast, and what we've seen in the shorts just leaves more questions than answers about who they are. The only thing I know about the world is that there's an evil space guild, but I have no idea why they're so hated. It's very bare bones compared to the worldbuilding in Overwatch and Deadlock, and doesn't draw in people who might check out the game looking for a sci-fi setting to explore.

[@EmberQuill]

I've actively gone looking for lore and found almost nothing. I don't know who any of these people are or why they do what they do. They're just a bunch of mercenaries doing mercenary things for mercenary reasons. Overwatch's lore ended up being kind of disappointing in the end but only because it looked deeper than it actually was and so it got me interested before disappointing me later. But despite that disappointing shallowness, it's still THERE. Every character has backstory and connections to other characters. The maps have story. The game modes have story. Even the character designs have purpose, beyond just relating to gameplay. They're connected to the lore too. Concord has pretty much nothing in comparison.

[@SuperSledgePsycho]

They look like LARPers. Self inserts for a sci-fi tabletop campaign and they're about as cringe as you'd expect people taking that sort of thing seriously would be. Daw being overweight is a non-issue, the issue is how he's designed. No discernable medic traits, dishwashing gloves, NERF GUN goggles and don't even get my started on the trousers. Also, Pharah's colours are Overwatch agent based if I recall.

[@HB-fq9nn]

Pharah had those colours before she joined Overwatch.

[@amberbaum4079]

Yeah, I felt like I was transported back to those tumblr days when everyone posted absolutely butt-ugly OCs or character art from established IPs. It's like they fetishize asymmetry, maimed/marred aesthetics with no sense of color. Everything had to have this quirky ugly touch to it. And it had to be super queer. These artist were and still are one of the worst queer "allies/community members". They do an absolute terrible job on the publicity department. Thank Jeebus for good artists actually prevailing on that place.

[@mume825]

its like they looked at the meme characters people would make in dark souls and told themselves "see this is what gamers want!"

[@YawaruSan]

I can’t prove it but lack of iteration feels like a reasonable assumption, a lot of popular characters go through numerous redesigns and Concord’s characters feel like an early draft without notes and touch ups

[@BlazeMakesGames]

yeah 100% I feel like the problem was the art director had like 1 idea for each character and sent it off without any feedback or collaboration from the rest of the team. I *have* to believe that there are internal devs that pushed back against these designs or wanted to give them more flair but were ultimately ignored in the end.

[@thesunthrone]

I think it's the opposite. This game and its characters were iterated to death. Some very early concepts look way more stylish and interesting and telling, but it's like they constantly had some corpos come in and say "yeah this looks weird, make it more like Marvel" and the artists just had to sand off anything that gave the characters interest over and over, until we get this photorealistic mess. Early on, it even seemed like the game was supposed to have a very cel-shaded look, but again, some corpo at Sony decided that no, our console's selling point is GRAFFICS so pump that pore count up and get in that mocap suit.

[@jesustyronechrist2330]

Yet this game was in development for 8 years...

[@art_00000]

11:02 i correctly guessed she looks like some sort of a wizard because of the robes, although i couldn't guess it is focused on fire magic.

[@ThePaperpyro]

Yeah, my guess was "stealth wizard" because of the muted colors and robe

[@JewTube001]

She's probably one of the better designs, albeit still fairly mediocre

[@Mossymushroomfrog18]

My first guess was some kind of ninja cleric… whatever that means

[@the_senate8050]

She looks like a destiny warlock... in early game gear.

[@aokyoutsuki7744]

My guess was a priestish crossbower

[@jinxtheunluckypony]

Rocka has a big gun and a small frame so I assume she’s a glass cannon.

[@erichthegraham]

I remember hearing that the silhouette is really important in League of Legends specifically. It makes sense because the characters are small and you need to sell skins but keep them recognizable at a glance, especially since the roster is huge. Sett, for example, has fur that grows out of him like a coat/vest, but in his mecha outfit it's like engines, yet he maintains his silhouette. Art style and character design in games is about more than just looking cool, it also conveys a lot of information to the player. Using Ryu from SF as an example, while he appears bland at a glance, he is iconic because his appearance conveys his playstyle, same can be said for the other shotos, Zangief, etc. Okay mini game time: Raka looks like she would be an ambusher/burst damage...wow nothing about her design reads as aerial. Timar looks like she would be some kind of offensive caster, possibly control/debuff...hey I was close but would never have guessed the fire theme, would have gone for more of a hex/warp/corruption vibe, I expected her abilities to be purple. Sidenote Infernus is also carrying a tank of what one could assume is flammable substance. Okay I got nothing for Bazz, maybe some kind of dancer?...oh wow, okay I guess she is holding knives, but she hardly reads as a fighter or assassin so that's wild. Daw looks like he's holding a trap and would be slow, so I'm thinking engineer/defensive type...yeah medic is wild, could have put green red or white in the color scheme to sell that aspect. Anyway I assumed what he was holding was some kind of mine, that doesn't really look like a drone, and everything else is so bland that without that I would have assumed tank. Either way the size implies ponderous movement offset by high health and damage, incentivizing objective/chokepoint control, not running around as a Healer. You want your medic to be fast or at least standard speed and a small target. Okay Jabali HAS to be a sniper, if he's not he has to eat that hat. At least with him you always see him with the gun...wtf alright I'm taking that hat and pouring old mayonnaise on it so I can shove it down this moron's throat. If Teo isn't a standard soldier type with a grenade ability, well I guess that tracks since they can't seem to get anything right...whew Okay they got one right. Honorable mention to the soldier guy from First Descendant, he reads as a soldier without looking too generic, at least not as much as this guy. Emari is one of the most "iconic" characters in the game in that she is the poster child of why this games designs are ugly and terrible. At least she does what she looks like. And yeah, Vale is just generic. My favorite design I saw in another video was IT, the plucky, cute (for this game) green/teal chick with the tail. Her outfit was generic, but at least she gave the sense that somebody had fun designing her and she laughed and smiled when you pick her. Still nothing special though, just the one character I had the mildest criticisms of, just that she's wearing basically a white t-shirt and shorts. Edit: 16:35 why the heck did budget lizard Yondu go through all that trouble to shoot a bottle of hot sauce just to get it on one person? Was that supposed be cool? Edit2: Diversity isn't the problem, but enforced/poorly implemented diversity is part of it at least. People don't actually care about diversity as a negative, they care when diversity is used as a shield from criticism. Emari for example, is just an ugly character, the armor is ugly, her equipment is ugly and the piercings/hair are ugly. Her skin feels like it's there so that when people rightfully point out the she is an ugly character, they can use it as a gotcha, so I assume that's what people generally mean when they're complaining about "diversity." Edit3: sorry this is so long. Anyway, I don't think the "hero shooters are oversaturated argument" is a good argument, that dog don't hunt. Souls games are doing fine, Wukong is debatably a Souls game, and it is seeing much success, but you can't really argue that there aren't a lot of similar games. Mecha Break also looks promising in major genre. Not to mention Marvel Rivals looks like it will probably succeed, and you didn't even mention Valorant, which seems to be doing fine. If you make a good game, having a lot of competition isn't that bad.

[@Tonbizzle]

The 'hero shooters are oversaturated' claim is valid because there's only so many people that want to play competitive multiplayer games, and narrow that down between to those that want to play a shooter instead of a MOBA or a fighting game or even MMO's. If you want something with realism then you have your Counterstrikes, Call of Duty, Battlefield. If you want something more cartoony, you have Overwatch, Paladins or Team Fortress 2. And even in-betweens, with your Apex, Fortnite, Valorant and a bunch of smaller games that float around in the atmosphere. I've never played it but I know Roblox has shooter game modes that I would have loved if I was younger. This is all one market (competitive FPS) that's split into their niches and this game is bringing nothing new to the table. There's not enough players to go around to keep it viable, players will get tired of fighting the same group of opponents and go on to something with more players, more varied personal playstyles which keeps things fresh.

[@Cptn_Fabulous]

Most multiplayer games demand a long-term commitment. Stuff like soulslikes still fall into the conventional idea of a finite campaign, where you play it, beat it and then go play something else. So that genre can handle more imitators, that can sell themselves on being more of the thing you already like.

[@erichthegraham]

@@Cptn_Fabulous I'm sure that being part of a saturated market is part of the problem, I'm just disputing how much to value that particular aspect in regards to the game failing. If Marvel Rivals does well, we'll know that was not the reason. I'll grant that Souls games are a bad example, but what about fighting games? Pretty saturated right now but it of the big names, only MK1 is really failing to retain players, and I would argue that it's success in the sales numbers is due to the strength of its predecessors. Since Concord is a new game, they don't have that going for them.

[@nittayoshifumi8252]

I deadass thought Timar was some kind of AC esque assassin

[@erichthegraham]

@@nittayoshifumi8252 a fair assessment

[@Jane-qh2yd]

I think the biggest thing that Concord missed with its designs is reaching a target audience. People like to point out that these designs failed because of a specific reason, while COMPLETELY ignoring other games with successful designs using the same aforementioned "flaw". Even this video suffers from this issue to an extent. There are tons of wildly successful hero shooters out there where a character's gameplay role is not immediately recognizable. The main issue with this game, is that by looking at it, I have no idea who it's made for. Games like Valorant and Overwatch lean into a very colorful and cartoonish aesthetics. R6 relies mostly on realism and agents that seem practical and plausible. Team fortress relies on functional yet cartoonish characters, with wildly disproportionate bodies that help emphasize their roles and personalities. Concord has none of that appeal. The colors and style don't properly highlight the alien aspects of each characters. Their designs aren't realistic enough to seem plausible or enticing. Their bodies don't portray their roles and functions properly. None of these issues are bad in isolation, and every game mentioned prior suffers from at least one of these issues. However, they stick to a design philosophy well enough to appeal to a specific audience, something that Concord doesn't do.

[@BlazeMakesGames]

thing with all the games you mentioned is that they've picked a lane that works for what they're trying to do. R6 doesn't really need to convey information about character abilities through visuals because it's a much more reactive game with fights that last fractions of a second. By the time you see, process, and act on any information you can get from looking at an enemy, you're already dead. Plus from what I understand usually you're using your character's abilities in R6 more outside of combat when you're not interacting with the enemy to set up choke points and traps and such. Its not the kind of game where you're comboing abilities into each other mid-fight to one-up your opponent. Meanwhile games like TF2 and Overwatch are much more about the character's abilities because you actively use them in longer fights so being able to identify who you're fighting and what they're capable of at a moment's notice becomes much more important and you have the time to process that information. Concord's problem here is that it didn't pick a lane. It fell into the classic trap of trying to do everything and appeal to everyone and failing to appeal to anyone. It has gameplay more closely resembling games like Overwatch with prolonged fights and tons of active abilities getting thrown around; while failing to actually convey any of those abilities visually, turning the game into a cluttered mess of nonsense visuals that make it a lot harder to learn how the game works and what each character does. Compounded by the fact that there were gameplay systems designed to modify character abilities and swap them out which meant that even if you learned all the characters, you still wouldn't be able to be sure of what any one character does. And It tried to have realistic characters with motion capture animations, but then also has wacky mushroom people and pastel color schemes that completely clash with its own art style. Being realistic or cartoony could have worked fine if they stuck with it, but they tried to be both

[@thealdoc]

As someone that didn't not will play the game, the Monsters inc scream canister is my favorite character

[@lobstereleven4610]

Perfect example of art design vs graphics. The game can look awesome with 60pfs and ultra duper super definition, but with poor art design, it's just a poop in 4K. Great vid at explaining this.

[@SilentAdventurerNumber02]

Holy shit.. realistic graphic is not everything. I mean look at minecraft, show it to people who know jackshit about game and high chance they will say it's a game from 90s. And yet it's a more than decently popular games. 5-10 years ago realistic graphic might be an amazing thing, I mean how can a game looks so real? But nowdays it's not amazing anymore, a fuck ton of games looks realistic enough.

[@TheParagonIsDead]

The art design is spectacular, the character design is bull.

[@atTran-du6rs]

I can't believe i have to goes back to this video and call it aged like wine just after 7 days. it's so insane they barely last 2 week lol

[@BlazeMakesGames]

man I know that I literally called it, but at the same time this game keeps on surprising everyone. Tons of people called that it would bomb, but nobody expected it to bomb *that* hard. And then lots of people expected it to go F2P or get unreleased, but nobody expected it to happen *this* quickly. I mean they're being decisive at least I'll give them that

[@KoongYe]

As an attractive human being, I don't feel represented.

[@Kolya-687]

Lmao

[@LunkLanguage]

Literally. Also, there's no buff white guy character. Like at all, the closest I get is a weird discount hulk

[@shoukaiser]

As a token racially ambiguous but blackish guy who doesn't design or play white guys or gals when I can help it... There should, can still be a token white dude lol. He can be off to the side like every other token but... Yeah, just so many awful and tone-deaf design choices here to die on a hill over.

[@CB-L]

@@LunkLanguage I like that terminology. _Weird Discount Hulk._

[@raven75257]

​@@LunkLanguageWe all know why there is none. Their "representation" is just a buzzword. It's all about control

[@nicodemous52]

When people blame diversity, it's not the actual diversity they are blaming. Here is the deal, if you make a diverse game, you don't need to tell me, I'll see it in game. If you did just to put it in the marketing, that's the problem.

[@oksobasically3278]

Yeah exactly, NO ONE has an issue with Valorant, even tho the cast is so diverse and they even got a they/them Scottish character. But no one cares cus they all look aesthetically pleasing and arent forced down our throat. The Valorant players care more about the new character’s abilities, and it just happens that they happen to be they/them

[@PoorMuttski]

No, they are blaming actual diversity. When gamer children will scream about developers “shoving politics down their throats” because there is a Black person in the cast, your argument starts to sound pretty silly

[@pencilswordfish]

A lot of YT channels have been using this game as a cudgel to wield against 'representation, diversity' or 'the modern audience' etc. But really it's just bad art design. When you inject diversity in your designs but MAKE IT WORK, and land your designs, the 'diversity and representation' part of that goes unnoticed. When you do it right, it's invisible. But when you do it wrong, like in Concorde, people notice, it sticks out.

[@NDenizen]

​@@PoorMuttskiIt's a bit weird to shove like five black women into a game about shooting guns. This is diversity clearly taking precedent over basic demographical observations. The main audience for this kind of game is still young, male and white.

[@nicodemous52]

@@pencilswordfish But I'd ask what lead to the designs we have? Yes, it's bad design, but look at it and taking a step back. Why? What lead them to these specific bad designs? I'd argue chasing the "modern audience". You can think what you like about us saying it and thinking this. If they just stop saying it, that will shut most of us up about it as an issue. As is pointed out over and over again. Lots of good and popular game have diversity. But that's why people don't cry about the diversity in them, because they are good. It obviously wasn't their primary focus.

[@Milo-u4o]

Good, HEALTHY video. I wanna be good at art, and you practically reciprocated my thoughts that most didn't look like their role classes at all! I'm more forgiving in types of color pallette, but even your ideas to fix Roka were great. Also, thanks for debunking that whole "identity politic" thing. I think now Overwatch will be my go-to argument against those guys.

[@shaoronmd]

the rocket girl I thought was a Doom marine clone of sorts

[@alexforce9]

How funny it is that some dude who is NOT an artist KNOWS some basic character design rules, while the literal artists they hired seems to just ignored everything they know and just made a visual mess.

[@BlazeMakesGames]

like I said, I don't gotta be a chef to tell you when the food tastes bad lol Tho do remember, I doubt that many of these choices were made by the artists themselves. If there's anyone to blame, it's the art director and the other higher ups for telling them to draw the characters this way and then not consulting or listening to anyone else. The last thing I wanna do is put down the random devs just trying to work their 9-5. 99 times out of 100 these issues are a problem with project management

[@alexforce9]

@@BlazeMakesGames I hope you are right mate. But if I was an artist there, I would think twice before I put Concord on my resume for my next job 🤣🤣🤣

[@koshetz]

​@@alexforce9 as an artist who worked in creative field for decade i had multiple situations when i did something really great but my incompetent boss/commissioner just straight forward told me to "fix" thing to their own liking making my whole work so much worse. And i did it (otherwise i won't have money) but it happens in this type of workplace all the time. Sometimes hire-ups have just bad awful vision employees can't do anything nothing about it.

[@alexforce9]

@@koshetz I feel you. I just wonder where is the art director in all this to be the middleman between the artists and the business people.

[@koshetz]

@@alexforce9 mostly depends if boss is willing to cooperate/listen to the team (which is sadly rare) or at least lead artist (which is more common) but sadly some people are just out of touch. 😅 But if you are freelancer there's basically nothing you can do, because all of freelance is either making things commissioner likes or possibly not being hired by them again. It is what it is.

[@DaiHachiHachi]

Concord seemingly wants to evoke retro-scifi but they were too afraid to fully embrace any of that inspiration. The red faced big guy and the robot seem like the only characters they didn't totally drop the ball with.

[@Drakenwild]

I got Heimar when you showed her. My gut reaction was "mage" on account of her not wearing any armor and her clothes being kinda fancy. I didn't expect that to be a good guess, given what the setting looks like, but lo and behold. XD

[@BlazeMakesGames]

heh fair, one thing I didn't get into in the video is also the strangeness of having these kinds of mystical characters in this otherwise seemingly typical retro-sci-fi setting. So if you have seen more footage of the game you'd probably expect every character to be tech based and not have magic powers. I'm not saying that they can't do that of course. I love a little fantasy in my sci-fi personally. But like if you're gonna mix sci fi and fantasy maybe play into it more? If you gave these characters some more overtly magical qualities despite the sci-fi setting that could maybe help them stand out a lot more imo

[@chengong388]

good job but most characters in this game aren't wearing any armor. and the ones that are, look like they're wearing fake cosplay armor.

[@BehuraStudio]

@@BlazeMakesGamesyup, it’s funny that she’s literally THE only wizard in the roster… begs the question of why have a wizard in an otherwise wizard-less world?

[@Drakenwild]

@@BlazeMakesGames oh yeah, absolutely. The thing with her design is that you could take her out of her setting, put her down into a fantasy one and she'd be able to blend reasonably well... and that really isn't a good thing, lol. Also, she's really bland as you pointed out and it's not like her costume screams that she's a wizard, it's just the most reasonable archetype that came to mind. Generally all of those characters look bland, generic and unappealing. And so does the setting, from what little I saw of it. Retro sci-fi has been done a lot in recent years and this doesn't seem to stand out in any way.

[@michaelkolano8686]

Yeah, her being in robes or a poncho when theres robots and people in skintight suits did give me a bit of a 'wizard' impression

[@SuperCool898Gaming]

This was a great analysis of what makes character designs work and how important it is to convey the purpose/functionality of the character through their appearance! Wonderfully done

[@apersonontheinternet9085]

I'm BACK because I had a class on character design and it reminded me of this video. I can't get over the fact that they're all just Some Guy. Like, I may be biased, because I'm a lover of weird and wacky creatures, but like... this game has character concepts like: a magical teleporting catgirl who has psychic powers, a thieving lizard who jumps around all agile-like, and a sentient mushroom. Why do they all look like regular humans in makeup? Why do they fight with normal guns? Realism can be thrown out the window the second you decided a member of your cast is a MAGICAL CATGIRL ALIEN WITH TELEPORTING AND PSYCHIC POWERS. Make the catgirl look more catlike, and use her cool psychic teleportation powers instead of just giving her a gun. Let the zippy lizard guy look like a lizard and also let his movement correlate with his lizardness (idk, let him have a long chameleon tongue that he can use like a grappling hook, let him climb walls with his lizard hands, something) instead of just giving him a gun. Give the sentient mushroom some funky proportions and a canon built into his mushroom arms or a big mushroom claw that can grow and stretch or SOMETHING THAT'S NOT JUST A GUN. This is related to a broader issue, which is that the art style just Does Not Mesh with the character designs. The realism and accurate human proportions and what I think are mocap animations REALLY hinder the designs because the out there character concepts and designs don't work well with the realistic i-can-see-every-pore-in-their-skin rendering, and the other designs look like Just Some Guy when they could have pushed proportions or colors in something more stylized. They actually made these 3d anime style trailers and HOLY SHIT everyone looks better. Like some designs still look bad but they all look SO much better. I swear if the marketing was better and they rendered them like that people would have played this game. Upon rewatch, I am REALLY tempted to make my first video ever as a reimagining of the gameplay, story, and characters of this game while trying to keep as many ideas intact as possible.

[@BlazeMakesGames]

yeah I'm definitely a fan of more wacky non-standard designs too. Also along those lines that's why I didn't buy the whole "the characters are just too ugly" narrative because to be frank, the characters themselves for the most part just look like conventionally attractive human beings, including all the 'wacky' alien characters. But that in turn is also the issue because they ALL look like normal conventionally attractive humans in boring or bland sci-fi outfits. And yeah the style 100% isn't helping. This game definitely shouldn't have gone for the realistic art style, but I have a feeling a lot of these issues happened because of the weekly cut scenes they wanted to do. Cause those were animated via motion capture, probably for the sake of brevity. So as a result all of the characters needed to have human-like proportions and faces in order to match the actors. Thus the cat girl, lizard, and mushroom and so on have to all look like humans in makeup because that's effectively what they are in order to reduce the amount of effort needed to make those weekly animations. They can't give them a more unique and interesting art style because they can't exaggerate their proportions. So I think it all comes back to this one arbitrary decision to try and make as many (very boring) animations as possible that probably cost the team so much time and effort while actively sabotaging the project as a whole

[@apersonontheinternet9085]

@@BlazeMakesGames It all comes back to corporate greed forcing corners to be cut, huh? Honestly I didn't even know that they were going to do weekly cutscenes, but there's probably a way they could have done regular story updates with more interesting character designs, even if they cut corners by making them more like interactive comics or slideshow cutscenes. I don't even think people would have minded if the art was nice enough.

[@Frostycrypton]

I’ve heard about Concord but I had NO CLUE that it was out on Steam lol.

[@BlazeMakesGames]

The 3 Questions that are asked every time Concord gets brought up lol: What's Concord? Wait Concord is out?? Wait Concord costs 40 dollars???

[@mrwhitey2027]

As an artist who draws from 12 years now this hurts my eyes. But at the same time it give me ideas to fix this characters. Like Rocket lady since she flies and has an helmet she can be a bat inspired esthetic. Like the wings could be like Phara that they jetpack. Or her wings are the weapon and she fly with shoes etc. That why I like overwatch and marvel designs they are pretty cool

[@BlazeMakesGames]

oh yeah like something a lot of better characters do is tie in their weapons more closely into their abilities. If Roka had wings with rocket launchers built into them that'd be so much cooler than her just carrying a rocket launcher. And the fire wizard character could just shoot fire instead of using a weird mini crossbow thing

[@mrwhitey2027]

@@BlazeMakesGames You gave me an idea for my first video on KZbin re making concord character. It doesn't sound that bad right?

[@smooshpopper2]

The TF2 mercs are gold standard in character design imo, it doesn't get any better than them, they're simple and cohesive, I love them

[@verlonnatenbrink7631]

I only heard about this game because of the terrible release. You're right on the money for why the designs failed. I find it funny that someone who isn't even an artist can tell exactly what's wrong artistically and how to improve it. That says a lot about their lack of thought, what a shame. Great video!

[@KeanuChrist]

Concord's characters look like they geared up at a Sporting Goods store.

[@Christian-gr3gu]

Big fables mentioned :D.

[@Quitt_Chan]

Another issue is that they made tanks fat instead of jacked or covered in armor while faster characters are thin and geeky looking. When you do manage to remember characters it’s basically because you hate how they look

[@lotondlegovachy1791]

I think what really killed this game was the fact that you needed a PSN account to even play it on steam. Something that was being pushed on a smash hit game called Helldivers 2. And yet i see nobody talking about this when literally on steam it says it requires a PSN account.

[@genericname2747]

It avoided getting review bombed by upset players just because it isn't popular.

[@thetman0068]

I just wanna know why the color palette is so washed out. What thematic direction were they going for? Old, faded and worn-out ideas?

[@BlazeMakesGames]

the best guess I have is that they're trying to replicate the feel of a cheap cheesy 70's sci-fi production but like they only replicated the cheap look and not any of the charm

[@thetman0068]

@@BlazeMakesGames if that is the case, I believe they should have leaned into it way harder than they did. Subtlety in design can be good, but usually not for a first person shooter video game. I think your comments in the video on the level of realism they went for are quite apt. It’s not serving the aesthetics of the game very well. Especially if they’re trying to emulate the feel of 70s sci-fi space fantasy.

[@mrsato7508]

It feels like whoever designed the characters made the biggest mistake of a character designer - they thought about the characters as if they are real people. It feels like they are all wearing something "practical in real life" or something that is usually shown at fashion shows.

[@ARStudios2000]

Except when that idea is done well, it CAN look good. I've seen quite a lot of games where a characters design is practical to their setting or what they're doing. That is really not the case here at all, most of these look like first drafts that got made the final draft

[@pamonja4301]

I think they made the game more dark, this designs would work way better

[@Mossymushroomfrog18]

It’s the weird mesh of (barely) practical combat gear with supersaturated clashing colours that completely kills any sense of appeal. Like if they’re in tactical gear but standing next to ugly bright green and orange it just makes the practical outfit look desaturated and bland while the colourful design looks hideously saturated.

[@Diwasho]

1:35 It's been hardly marketed in ways that matter, the first time I learned of Concord was through a recommended video of someone predicting how the game will be DoA when it comes out, and turns out they were right. I see many other people who are only just now finding out about it due to its notoriety, the controversy and criticisms gave the game way more publicity than Sony's marketing ever did.

[@ghostoflazlo]

I heard about it just the other day because my husband told me that we needed to watch a cringe af trailer 😅

[@sonnenshiro6045]

Found out about the game yesterday because it got cancelled

[@JDydgi]

The armor doesn't even look like armor, just squishy. I feel like if i gave it a good squeeze it'd slowly reform back like nerf or memory foam.

[@Badhero4]

If there were physical copies of this game they would be burying it in the desert alongside E.T.

[@messyking508]

I saw a comment that said if people aren’t interested in doing cosplay based on the character’s design that it’s bad and I wholeheartedly agree