Big thanks to Jessica for dragging me gently into this week’s OHI. The 343 Art Team (and 343 in general) is thundering on all cylinders, and the seismic rumble has the neighbors all up in arms. When your landlord is the UNSC, you tend to giggle when the homeowner association mail starts to pile up!
With Chief making an appearance at the NY Toy Fair, the internet has bubbled with lots of questions around Chief’s design changes. Having cut my first game developer experience on Daikatana, I’ve developed a healthy respect and fear of the internet. I will step onto a message board with all the cautious ginger one would employ pulling lost forks out of a sink garbage disposal. I did want to risk mangled finger burger to talk a little about some of what brought us to our current design.
Above all, we wanted the player to really feel what it’s like to be the Master Chief. This manifests itself in a lot of ways, and for those who read the Fall of Reach, there’s a lot of character depth behind that helmet that has yet to make its way into the game experience. Every person who was allowed to touch him had to, HAD TO, understand his history as a person. The Chief’s origin is pretty sad and grim: A strong, vibrant child stolen from his parents, he underwent dangerous bioengineering that destroyed the weaker of his friends, and trained to stomp out human Insurrectionists. Pretty morally nebulous beginnings for someone who ultimately saved humanity. Of all FPS heroes, he is distinct in that his arc is aspirational and not a cynical view of the universe.
A big focus on the Chief’s armor was his physicality and putting the player in those mighty shoes. Getting that weight across in the design had us looking at a lot of contemporary military vehicles, and we pushed detail and form into the armor that implied that history. This is the bleeding edge of military technology.
A Spartan tossing his chest plate should feel like an anvil dropping….
A Spartan sprinting across concrete should be a stealthy whisper….
Putting on your helmet should feel like powering up an F-15E….
These are the sorts of experiences we want to give the players.
Kenneth
