THE HERO FACTORY
The narrative and function of a Legends hero is determined before the artists begin designing them. “We need a good mix of abilities within the characters,” says art director Tuite, “so we’ve got a healthy spread of Will users, Strength and Skill users. Essentially, it will be, ‘We need this type of character,’ and then the design and art [teams] will start brainstorming. From my point of view, I want to get a good balance of male and female characters and [distinctive] silhouettes, so we’ll think about different heights and sizes as well.”
This is important, Tuite says, because none of the playable heroes are generic, all-purpose protagonists. “In effect, in this Fable you’re getting to play the more interesting side characters you met in the previous games. This time, you’re less of a cipher and a dress-up doll – you’ll effectively get to play [heroes such as] Hammer in this game.”
“We have a templating system for size and shape that we work with,” he says. “There are specific methods for the way we do arms, muscles, fingers and noses. There’s a sculptural shape to all the characters, and it’s the same thing for hair, so we look at sculpture for the character shape more than the traditional [methods].”
Fantasy games usually reflect realworld cultures, and Tuite’s keen to ensure Legends’ heroes have a distinctly British feel. “That doesn’t mean we don’t look at other games, but whether it’s Korean, Japanese or American fantasy, they all have a particular look to them and there are things in there we will [consciously] avoid. There will be no chainmail bikinis in our game!”
There’s little difference between the original art for the heroes and creatures and the way that they look in-game. The way these characters will move is equally important to the studio: rather than build a single animation tree and refine it for generic avatars, Lionhead has treated each hero as its own individual project. “We’ve given ourselves an awful lot of work,” says Tuite