Star Wars Outlaws: Character design was the least of this games problems.
polycounter
I find many of the gameplay decisions very confusing.
Kay is an overpowered thug, but can't carry rifles up ladders and only uses a pistol in near perpetual steath mode.
After the success of Jedi Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor how did this apple fall so far from the tree?
There is considerable criticism of the character art and mocap quality.
https://youtu.be/H55fHFUx4xA?si=4m-HZcmE2u65CxqG
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2024/08/28/the-good-and-lots-of-bad-of-star-wars-outlaws/
The environment looks good and it certainly feels like star wars from the 80s not sure if that alone is worth buying the game for its asking price.
Also we learn more about Kay's family during the game and it's clear she gets her face ass from her father, possible Ben Affleck cameo in sequel?
Like many were wondering why she looked like that and but atleast the game seems to explain the reason simply as,
"On a scale of 1 to 10, sometimes the roulette wheel of life does throw up the odd zero."
Kay is an overpowered thug, but can't carry rifles up ladders and only uses a pistol in near perpetual steath mode.
After the success of Jedi Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor how did this apple fall so far from the tree?
There is considerable criticism of the character art and mocap quality.
https://youtu.be/H55fHFUx4xA?si=4m-HZcmE2u65CxqGhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2024/08/28/the-good-and-lots-of-bad-of-star-wars-outlaws/
The environment looks good and it certainly feels like star wars from the 80s not sure if that alone is worth buying the game for its asking price.
Also we learn more about Kay's family during the game and it's clear she gets her face ass from her father, possible Ben Affleck cameo in sequel?
Like many were wondering why she looked like that and but atleast the game seems to explain the reason simply as,
"On a scale of 1 to 10, sometimes the roulette wheel of life does throw up the odd zero."
Replies
although the culture war trolls are generally losers i can sometimes at least understand where they are coming from in cases where a previously attractive character has been made to be less attractive. in this case, it's a totally new character, she is conventionally attractive, just not an anime waifu style or whatever the hell the biggest creeps on the internet call their digital crushes, and i think she bears some likeness to luke skywalker which i think was kind of the point. she looks like a real person and seems appropriately casted.
As usual, the tone of the criticism is hyperbolic (if its not perfect, its TERRIBLE). It could be better, but IMO it absolutely nails the vibe.
Concord, on the other hand is getting absolutely farmed, which sucks because clearly a lot of effort went into it, just maybe not the art direction...
And how it compares with jedi Survivor,
all the other hero shooters have sexy characters
concord chose not to
the art design is at odds with what the audiences wants to see. wrong message for the wrong audience
About the characters, I do wonder about the business strategy behind that choice.
The target demographic for that design is very small so maybe their investment going in should have been way lower to break even and make some profit.
For example here is someone that actually liked the games trailer (so did I) but is pretty alternative and definitely not like the target audience for a game like Helldivers 2
Like many were wondering why she looked like that and but atleast the game seems to explain the reason simply as,
"On a scale of 1 to 10, sometimes the roulette wheel of life does throw up the odd zero."
NikhilR, what is the actual point of these comments and threads? If you don't like something, you can just....Not play it, watch it, or read it. Nothing is being taken from you. It's alright to just not like it. Comments like that just expose a very unpleasant attitude towards women, and people in general. Sometimes women have cleft chins. Sometimes women don't have a face that totally conforms to current beauty standards. And those are just fine. That kind of "scale of 1 to 10" rhetoric....Not only is it a dehumanising way to talk about women - literally just reducing their value to a number - but it's insulting as hell to the artists who worked hard on it.
She certainly doesn't get it from her mother, so I would assume that either its a generational jump or her dad has the chin, and yes suggesting Ben Affleck was a joke, I'm certainly not the first to suggest it.
https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/Ben_Affleck
Not meant to dehumanise and it is frustrating that a lot of discourse is assumed to allude to that.
Just last week, a DEI consultant on linkedin posted about how shortening his name was dehumanising and frankly it was outrageous reading his defense on his perspective when it devolved to him highlighting his race, accusing detractors of being white male racists.
And I'm not insulting artists, I am questioning the studios creative decisions when they polarise their audience, though I'm beginning to think that because of how the online social climate is, its likely inevitable that situations like this will inevitably escalate into cuture war dumpster fires.
Kays specific situation comes from the fact that her facial design of the character model, and this includes topological modifications, lighting, mocap and choice of hairstyle are very distinct from the actor source and polarised audience reception.
There is something that is not sitting right with everyone and it doesn't need to, but as the title of the post suggest that is the least of the games problems.
What does matter is numbers and so far it does seem that Star Wars Outlaws is underperforming and it didn't have to be this way for reasons going beyond character art and mocap.
Many gameplay decisions are controversial and I wanted to encourage a discourse discussing this aspect.
And for what I think about Han Solo, he absolutely follows the arc of being a Thug/Outlaw/Smuggler that sees redemption.
I did assume that Kay was following a similar arc, but she only ends up back where she started so maybe they have plans to explore that in a sequel.
Also agree about making the situation with Concord a seperate discussion.
And stories in star wars aren't always meant to be taken seriously like Star Trek or the Expanse.
I still do feel those gameplay decisions are odd and do wonder what led to them.
Its not to do with the character, I only mentioned her given the appropriate context.
Like I could just as well say,
"Han is an overpowered thug, but can't carry rifles up ladders and only uses a pistol in near perpetual steath mode."
Though seeing Han Solo's first film (Star Wars: A New Hope), he is a thug that see's redemption in a greater cause by the end of the film.
He also takes on a bunch of storm troopers and runs from them in a very comical way thats reminiscent of 80's films like Flash Gordon etc, so certainly not overpowered unless you count Storm Troopers being terrible at targeting because of a force bubble around their targets which has become a well loved meme.
There is some of that here, but I am guessing that Ubisoft does intend to explore Kay's story further and I do hope they get a chance too.
The numbers coming in a suggesting otherwise and disney does have final say with much of their decision making being responsible for the situation the game/studio is now in.
I just felt the contrast on how the games came to be developed stood out.
For Jedi Fallen Order, Stig Asmussen from Respawn really stood his ground on exploring a jedi story when Disney being very protective of the license wanted them to do what they eventually had Ubisoft do or Ubisoft consented to as opposed to a game about Mandalorians or ressurecting Star Wars 1313
The challenge is the audience being polarised on whether Star Wars outlaws was done right, but we can simply go with the adage that if you don't like it don't play it and let others enjoy it and that's fine too.
It is still a good way to learn about game development challenges.
I addressed my comment on Kay's lineage in my response to Rima above.
With regards to artists on Concord, like in most game development pipelines they don't always have full agency in their task having to follow studio direction.
The lead character designer of Concord and other developers do have some seriously polarising views that you can read over at the Park Place,
So it isn't a stretch to suggest that some in the audience genuinely do believe that this persepective didn't influence his character design decisions.
What I feel is unfortunate is that a studio shut down seems imminent and that's more of the developers out of work during a very turbulent time in the industry.
Already you've told us what you think, that the character Key is a 0 out of 10 (super ugly). That her looks are not only ugly, but worthy of scorn by speculating on her fictional parents being were she gets her "ass face" (quoting you) from. That she is an "overpowered thug" (this is all the bailey part of your argument)
All of these complaints thinly veiled over by an extremely flimsy "I just want to talk about the gameplay decisions guys!" (this is the monte in your argument) Especially as you've been called out, all it took was a little bit of pushback for the walking back to begin. It's intellectually dishonest. This is not the first time this has happened in one of your threads, and I doubt without introspection, this won't be the last.
As someone who has had DEI training, one of the most valuable things I've learned is from a session from a lawyer, who goes on to state that in the court of law and in legal matters what you "intend" to say doesn't matter, it is what is the impact of what is actually said that does matter. If what you "intend" to talk about is the gameplay and design choices, there is no need to throw in commentary about how butt ugly you think the character is, but you did it anyway. It's what you really think, it's what you really believe, otherwise you wouldn't have said it. Clearly whatever content that has been consumed since the last Star Wars thread and the state of "culture wars" in general has escalated and you're not as clever about hiding it this time.
It is entirely possible to talk about character design and art decisions while completely separating your own personal opinion on whether or not you think the character is attractive. It is also possible for a character to not be to your liking, but still understand what they are trying to go for and respect it. There needs to be some honesty here: Whatever issues you feel are with the design are gameplay have been amplified by discourse surrounding how the main character is seen as not attractive enough by the reactionary part of the internet. It's absolutely, obviously seeping through your posts, regardless of what you "intend"
And to clarify, the joke part about Ben Affleck possibly being Kay's father is what is is, a joke.
It might as well be Luke Skywalker who she does resemble.
I found the videos I linked to be quite comprehensive, I felt that it did not focus on her characters design and didn't come across as reactionary.
With regards to the characters design, I was concerned about is how the decision making around it exacerbated a culture war and what the studio did to miitigate it instead of just dismissing potential buyers in their target audience.
From a modeling perspective, having the chin cleft doesn't seem to work very well with the lighting, same with her hairstyle that creates wierd shadows over her eyes.
Added to this are issues with mocap and facial animation that really don't help how the character comes across.
Now here's two videos that highlight this and I agree the first can come across as a mockery given its presentation, but it is footage from the game and there's definitely something that isn't working as well as it should with her facial profile, her chin cleft, skin tonality, choice of hair casting shadows, hair color and ambient color.
In this second video you can where they deep faked the original actors face on Kay Vess character model, it becomes apparent that several nuances were modified that just isn't working for everyone.
The reason this mattered to me is because generally when it comes to modifying a face, if it hits that uncanny valley or looks off for any reason it is possible that a criticism may be that the artist responsible doesn't have the requisite experience to make their own interpretation.
I'm simply wondering if that is the case here, or that Ubisofts version of Humberly Gonzalez face fits that "gritty tomboyish look that suits her bandit persona" as one commenter said proceeding to accuse the video creator of being "mad over a video game character not being pretty and are attracted to pixels"
In my experience any facial modification over a scan is notoriously difficult and if you don't use the right system of morphs and have a leading reference, the result will always be lacking something.
i.e take Humberly Gonzales and a bunch of references that could better fit the "scoundrel" persona, and keep modifying until you get that art director approval.
But what is it about Humberly that makes her facial appearance less scoundrel/bandit like?
I'm really fascinated by the discussions that occur when going over this and personally haven't been a part of any during my career since I've never really seen any instance that requires it.
It is always been considered safer and sensible to go with a scan or match a reference precisely.
But sure she's a scoundrel so lets make it to be personal preference/developer decision and cosnider any opposition to be part of a culture war with right wing trump supporters going nuts on twitter (450,000 strong SBI detected followers determined to boycott the whole product mind)
And I do agree that it is not fair to contrast Kay with professional photos of her actor but its what it is and people will do this so was it sensible to take that risk?
That said, even with Kay's model being what it is, the game is limiting itself on several aspects.
Sure we can choose not to focus on them, suspend disbelief and feel like weren't in the 80's and if that's what helps someone enjoy it then go for it.
I'd still buy it, at a discount, but this game and concord should help game studios and executives really analyze what it is that players want and how they decide what that is, because numbers don't lie and if a game underperforms it can shutdown a studio and lay off scores of developers which is horrible.
@Rima - I've sent you more info about the linkedin post in a message since it might diverge from the topic.
@Alemja - The roulette wheel of life comment was actually from the series Allo Allo, I should have specified.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CAhretUYv/
Lastly I think that if we're to critique games here that we should be as respectful as we can because it's almost guaranteed that some of the people who worked on Outlaws also use Polycount, and they shouldn't have to face the same kind of critique the public gives, here
Like, imagine that you're one of the artists who worked on Kay. You're hearing the feedback not only from your art lead or director, but everyone around you, the internet, possibly even friends and family. Then you go on Polycount; basically the Continental Hotel from John Wick (but for artists, and possibly where you got started in the industry) to see what other people are up to, and find this thread, that'd just be frustrating
the dorks who make these sorts of videos (can you imagine putting such time into that) have probably spent more time thinking about the character than the designers did
i bet they cast an actress and then did the best they could to match her within the budget they had and within the confines of a video game, not a deep fake overlay of a video
if the designers spent as much time considering the cleftiness of her chin as much as the biggest losers on the internet do, the game would have never released at all.
if you click those videos it sets your youtube algorithm on a track towards andrew tate. i think this tells you everything that you need to know about the situation.
also be aware, if you fuck up a big thing then people look at everything you do. So, if the game launches with shit performance or bad gameplay or too much greedy monetization, then all the losers pick apart the meaningless details. Like chins and stuff like that. In an open world ubisoft game.
IMO i dont see how they could cast a better lead character, she seems perfect to me.
if the model was overworked it would likely be because people were arguing over stupid shit like how hot or not hot she is and changing things too many times. It really doesn't make a difference. If the game is fun people will love her. If it game sucks they'll make lengthy videos discussing why the pockets on her jacket are incorrect and why her hair moves in an unrealistic way.
Can make the internet a smarter place or make a dumber place. all the videos posted here seem to be make it dumber to me.
As artists we risk ending up in bubbles and echo chambers ourselves if we choose not to see the forest for the trees.
For instance, here on polycount we have a high standard placed on character art which is seen as a pre-requisite to gain employment while out there we have a large audience questioning what happened with Kay Vess and mocking ubisoft.
Same with Concord where the art is high fidelity and took 200 million $'s and 8 years to polish for the product to last 11 days before it went kaput.
Ultimately all the modeling is done for an end product that this audience is meant to purchase, so even though we as artists don't really get to influence an artistic decision exclusively, it is important to be aware of what the public wants.
What's the point of being god tier character artist if the end product bombs? Its like being a successful actor in a flop movie that shuts down the whole studio. Its important to see beyond ourselves, though this advice really applies to the executive/art director/character designer since artists below that level likely have to do what they are told.
Actually there is a point, you get a gold star on the resume to jump ship and get first dibs when the time comes for a layoff. Its very much like the film industry model in this sense.
If I had worked on Kay and saw that criticism with a 450,000 strong army of dissident gamers threatening a boycott I would absolutely re-evaluate the character modeling I was assigned.
I do understand that the way game development works in the corporate machine maybe I can't do anything about it and I certainly would not go John Wick on the establishment.
But I do wonder that if Kay wasn't meant to be a 1:1 match of her reference and this fact was polarising the audience, should ubisoft have put out a PR statement addressing the concerns the audience had with her character model during development so as to prevent a "haha told you so moment" upon release?
I know of one instance where the studio went above and beyond to prevent a possible crisis.
The Sonic Movie where after taking into consideration the audiences absolute revulsion of the design, they redesgined the main character and released a very successful film.
https://www.wired.com/story/sonic-movie-redesign/
Its not too different from overlaying photo reference on the model and checking for inconsistencies during modeling and at rendertime.
And of course it can't be 1:1 but I don't even know what they were thinking with what was eventually approved.
Initially I also felt that maybe its just the different hair, or the lighting that's causing it but there is a sharpness in the details that makes the cleft, the eye bags etc really stand out and they have definitely modified the nose and the lips.
Her face is more androgynous and that's fine, personally I have always appreciated that facial type (tilda swinton comes to mind)
But was it wise to do it in this case, and was it done right by their world class top tier character art team?
Does right mean final approval or are there nuances that have to be revisted considering the backlash so that there isn't a repeat of this on future games?
A very large number of potential customers would disagree.
This would be the right place to critique it since we are trying to learn, why should Kays model be given a pass because of nonsensical culture wars on twitter.
for games at this level i'm not sure that 450,000 angry redditors means anything, if that is even a real number to begin with
and given the nature of the complaints and its close ties to the sort of culture war nonsense that is at least partially fueld by kremlin money, i'd be really suspicious about what is real widespread audience sentiment versus rage bait for insignificant audience
presumably ubisoft has a handle on things like that, they've been on top for a long time.
if i'm making a game and the audience is teenagers, i'm making all the characters hot, just like virtually all other games do. it's pretty much a no brainer.
if i want a nuanced story with layered characters who are more like real people and have something intelligent to say, it won't be a video game for tweens/teens.
Since there is very little critique of anything but.
We're all allowed our hot takes, but at least call it a spade...
It's culture war nonsense. I'd put money that the game is on that "woke game detected" list because she doesn't look enough like a sex doll for some people.
Ubisoft put out that statement to try to manage the capital G gamer outrage. Not because they did something wrong.
Even at the current generation, we can't quite make characters that are perfectly true to life. That's not a fault of her design, it's a limit of what we can do with the tech, time and budget available. Of course polygon models have limitations when it comes to the subtleties they can capture; they're just our best attempt at replicating the results of real skin and sat on top of real, moving muscles sat on top of a skeleton. Digital models generally don't have simulations of those, and I'm bet an open world game running in real time doesn't, so of course you'll lose some subtleties in motion.
If you mean the face itself.....We've established it's different than the original model. Don't you think it's strange, then, to use the original model to say things are missing from Kay Vess when it's just as likely they were just considered unimportant or different than the vision the designers had in mind?
You aren't doing yourself any favours by relating the quality of her face to your personal preferences, I think. It's something like the "I can't be racist, I have black friends" of criticising a character's appearance.
Why should it be unwise? Are you suggesting they should have dictated their character designs by the whims of a load of angry horny guys?
There's a word for this that escapes me.....But basically, it feels like a racket. "Better make your character designs horny enough....It would be a shame if there happened to be a load of backlash against your game." That's basically the intention of the people behind these backlashes and "boycotts". They are, of course, entitled to buy or not buy as they like, but I think this kind of "asking questions" is really just carrying water for them and trying to legitimise their regressive demands. You aren't arguing about whether or not the desires of the audience should be considered - it's just rhetoric stating their desires should be pandered to.
Her character design isn't a problem. I don't think most people even thought anything about it. Because most gamers are not Gamers. Games live and die on their franchise power, their quality, and the reputation they earn through that. The character design is not the lynchpin that holds it all together.
None of the other human characters in the game share these features though including Kay's mother so the devs made it exclusive to Kay.
Also Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Rey and many of the cast of Star Wars Rebels, Mandalorian and Ahsoka lead similar lifestyles and none of them had make up/facial design similar to Kay.
So there is definitely a reason why her face was made to look this way and unless the devs delve into the design process in depth we will never really know.
This isn't about the character not being pretty for a horny audience, it is that her design diverges so far from the actor on purpose, is very distinct from the characters own mother and that it's difficult to be certain if this was a conscious design choice or a skill limitation of the ubisoft character team that was approved regardless of the audience opinion.
Other characters in the game have faces that have been better received though there are mocap issues throughout and ubisoft has done a better job on this aspect in other games including gameplay elements that are missing from this game.
I am looking for numbers to compare it to jedi fallen order, for the moment it seems to be what the ubisoft devs prioritized over what fallen order devs prioritized, though again massive didn't have to emulate fallen orders success and it seems like an odd move by Disney to not greenlight a mandalorian game but I believe they wanted to test the waters with ubisoft first before handing over a more lucrative franchise.
I can see Repsawn pushing for exclusivity if outlaws numbers don't go up, and maybe ubisoft is best just sticking to assassins creed and becoming a consultant to other studios on environment design which is the one thing they do really well.
And 450000 strong opposition is a loss of 450000 potential sales. Might not hurt an established studio like ubisoft but it can spell a death sentence for a studio having its first release like Reflector and their game unknown 9.
When gamers organise they are still customers and the customer is always right even if there is some right wing conspiracy in the mix.
A studio needs to find a balance because what matters is sales targets which needs to be prioritized alongside moral convictions and DEI altruism.
Paramount did this very well with Sonic.
I cited my personal preferences because I am very familiar with the androgynous facial type and how difficult it is to sell to an audience especially if it is derivative like Kay's face.
The issue here is that none of us actually know what happened on the dev side and devs are bound by NDAs to not speak about it so it really is challenging to get to the bottom of what influenced design decisions in this case.
We don't know what the vision if the devs was, we can only speculate from what we got and many many gamers insist there's a problem with her design.
This is very much like what happened with the Sonic movie, except there the devs listened and worked with their audience to change the impact on the end product.
Concord is having similar issues and so far none of the devs are addressing any issues leading to its downfall.
This is one of the aspects of game development that I hope will change as it becomes more and more democraticised.
You claim it's nothing to do with the design not being horny enough, but most of the "critique" I've seen was just Gamers complaining because they thought her face was masculine, or that the hairstyle she was given made her less attractive to them, etc. It's the same with lots of media at the moment.
Why are you placing so much emphasis on "audience opinion"? At that, wouldn't it make more sense, if you're going to bring it the losers who didn't buy it, to compare with those that did buy it? Even on "sluggish" sales, they're expected to hit around 5 and a half million sales by next March, so why are we supposed to be so concerned that a few hundred thousand angry misogynists didn't buy it? If you want to say the audience voting with their wallets should dictate, the numbers say they approve. So why is it we're supposed to be worrying about the backlash from angry Gamers that hate progress and not the bigger number of people who apparently didn't have any problem with it?
Changing your character designs because a few angry gamers don't think they look fuckable enough isn't "listening to the audience"; it's tyranny of the minority.
And again, how many people actually decide whether to buy a game or not based on small details of the main character's face? I think it's much more likely the sales are affected by the price of the game, the fact that the economy is in the shit and has been for a long time, the massive cost of living that makes such expensive luxury media unaffordable, a mixed reputation on Ubisoft's part, the quality of the game itself and the word of mouth that drives, and probably many other things a pleb like me hasn't considered and isn't aware of.
I think if you're going to think so much about the character stuff, it's just myopic at best.
In all honesty dude, just stop, these talking in circles and pontificating are doing you no favors. All of these talking points are the exact same ones reactionary use. Which when they quack like a duck, and walk like a duck, I'm going to call them out as ducks. You may not be walking like one now, but you're definitely quacking like one. Either this makes you a useful drone where you'll be on whatever next culture war thing the reactionaries point at, or you genuinely believe this stuff but are trying to hide it. Quacking like a duck, still makes you a duck all the same.
This is the flavor of the week, the current point of outrage. No one who is in dev takes this outrage seriously, because here is the thing: even if you bend and do exactly what the reactionaries say... they will still find something to complain about, because once you're on that emotional spiral, it just keeps on wanting to be fed. It has already happened to a game that chuds loved and made a culture war out of, until they found something they didn't like and created a petition around it.
I may not care about Star Wars all that much, or this game; however I do care about reactionary sentiment leaking into the game dev space, potentially pushing people out, stifling accessibility and creativity for everyone. A unsolicited piece of professional advice, if you keep going down this rabbit-hole, it will make you, at minimum, unpleasant to work with as it seeps into all parts of your life (it's already apparent in some of your other threads). If that does happen, you will have no one but yourself to blame as we all tried to warn you.
If you want to get yourself out of this loop, stop watching reactionary content, go outside, learn new hobbies, play with your pets, take an anatomy course, focus on your art, etc. Maybe also understand how to deprogram yourself and what kind of tactics are used to draw you in... because yes, it can happen to anyone. Recommended playlists:
I think this thread has run it's course
So, Outlaws, after a couple dozen hours:
Its pretty good, guys. It has its flaws, but it feels 100% star wars. Your pet/companion is the most adorable creature I've ever seen (so far my favourite moments are cutscene/minigames where you share meals with him). Your speeder bike feels and sounds like a dirt bike.
The environments are fantastic, both on and off-planets. So much effort went into making it feel authentic, and Kay a part of it.
Gameplay wise its very standard open world stuff. There are some enforced stealth bits that can be frustrating, but less frustrating than the same mechanics from some AC games.
There is some ludonarrative dissonance in the way that Kay is an amazing gunslinger and pilot, despite never doing those things, and there are some forced combat/boss encounters I didn't enjoy that felt shoe-horned in.
End of the day, if you enjoy Star Wars you should play it. If you don't, probably not.
As the topic states and the video I linked elaborates the character design is the least of the games problems.
But if we do want to go into the design being an issue, it's not reactionary to have a discourse on it.
My main issue was how the devs decided to do the character the way they did.
The game I work on we have to match a photo reference precisely and even then there is constant development to keep iterating given the yearly release of new products.
From a business perspective a modification such as this didn't make sense to me so I'm curious why they did it and if it was done with the skill that they keep insisting their team has.
Atleast my take away is the it does help to develop systems to modify faces to diverge from photo reference and when it's done it doesn't appeal to everyone for a variety of reasons.
To make this a personal to my character isn't very inclusive, were not ducks, we are all developers here and we do often emphasize about how top tier quality our work needs to be to get work in the industry.
After seeing the situation around outlaws or even concord did any of the effort really even matter?
There may be merit to even the most assumedly reactionary criticism out there.
Like critical drinkers criticism on last of us part 2 had many sensible points, even though many would take issue with him calling Abby Gigantor.
And just as many, maybe more might see the funny side and have a different sense of humor.
That doesn't make them difficult to work with. I mean sure you can go into anyone's background and dig dirt of them and at that rate no work would ever get done.
Reminds me of that absurd situation with the democratic socialist convention.
I really wonder how they get any work done if there is caution and outrage over ever micro aggression, point of personal privilege, sensory overload.etc
And despite all thus there are inclusive accommodations in studios with the focus being on working together to make a well received marketable product.
So it is alright to criticise the quality of a games art as a dev, it's isnone of the many ways on how we learn to do better.
The intent to do so isn't because of my personal preferences, that wouldn't be professional.
I am simply highlighting the reaction of audiences and trying to understand if there was a design or skill oversight that once recognized helps a studio improve future iterations of a product.
In this case, I'm not too sure, maybe ubisoft will lose their star wars license, maybe EA will gain exclusivity.
Who knows.
Hopefully we get a mandalorian game where removing the helmet is a sin so no one criticises facial design decisions lol.
That's one issue, but it's subjective in nature. Some people think that cannibalism is cool. Most don't, but ultimately it is subjective.
What is not subjective is the numbers. If we assumed that 100% of this 450,000 number were real actual people and they definitely did exactly what they said in that they avoided buying the game that they otherwise would have purchased - if that is true it amounts to 9% of sales, so far.
Of course we know that it's pretty normal for people to put 1,000 hours into a game and buy all the baubles and leave a tome of a negative review. What people say and what they do with their money in the privacy of their own home is entirely separate things.
But it's pretty much a rule that any game generally has a 10% refund rate, so this doesn't seem like the sort of "problem" a professional studio would concern itself over. Bigger fish to fry. And just for the record, Ubisoft has ruined all of my favorite franchises and I have zero respect for them from a game design perspective, and I hold the audience who purchases those awful games in contempt. And Assassins creed color palette is too gray for my liking.
But when it comes to business obviously they know what they are doing. I'd ask them questions so I could learn before I'd think I could tell them what to improve in terms of making money.
The fact that there are many angry youtube videos about it points to culture war radicalization and the way the youtube algorithm incentivizes such things, not design decisions the character art team made.
Though i agree with pretty much all the anti-nikhil arguments here, I dont think it's good to try and shut him up. If your enemy is putting themselves in the open that is the best time to drop on a bomb on them. you never know who you might convince. If just not wanting to see such threads the easiest thing to do is make new threads so old ones get pushed down.
As a person who has not undergone DEI training, I think we need to tackle Nikhil. HR departments haven't seen shit yet; - Alex, you hold his legs I'll get his arms - get a big 'ol turkey baster and splash him good with a combined gay sauce blessed by both Sweet Baby Inc's bath water and Jeremy from TheQuartering's forehead sweat until he learns the error of his ways
But, we should probably ignore it, and keep making art as this thread is completely derailed now, not like it was on rails in the first place. This will also give Eric's finger a rest from all the hovering over the 'lock thread' button it does
but the numbers dont lie, cant really argue anything against them.
@Rima
I posted that video to say that game development is inclusive enough to accomodate even this demographic, so I don't see why I would be difficult to work with considering my reactionary humor from 1980's television shows centered on comical stereotypes.
@Alex_J
Most studios make their returns on the early days of a games release, so Outlaws was a decent bet being a starwars license but I do feel it could have been a whole lot more and I really don't get some design decisions around gameplay and personally I would have gone with the actors scanned likeness for Kay Vess as a safer bet considering the challenges to making a derivative that has a broader appeal.
@Alemja
This video I posted
does address the positives in the game and I also said that the environment design is great and it does feel like you're in the 80's.
I get the idea of a critique sandwich, does make it more palatable and that is something I could certainly work on in future posts.
It would have been better to change the order of what I said, but I wanted to highlight that ultimately regardless of what people felt about the character design of Kay, there were elements that did lead to a lukewarm reception of the game
here's a conversation I had with a connection who worked on the props on the game.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7235592847893139458/?commentUrn=urn:li:comment:(ugcPost:7235592846978781184,7236490013801091072)&dashCommentUrn=urn:li:fsd_comment:(7236490013801091072,urn:li:ugcPost:7235592846978781184)
My play on the characters lineage was a joke and I understand that brand of humor isn't for everyone. Its from a different time though you do see shows like south park, family guy, rick and morty still engage in that kind of humor.
I have a very broad appreciation and tolerance for all kinds of content
from the controversial comics of Robert Crumb
I advise reading this interview with the artist for a better understanding of his motivations.
But I know I can't always expect that range or depth from a game from Ubisoft or even EA for that matter and that's cool since these are marketable products for a wider range of audiences.
With Ubsoft games I tend to veer towards Far Cry Blood Dragon, over regular Far Cry, but I can also enjoyed Assassins Creed Origins for its deep attention to detail in history and lore and environment design is something Ubisoft does well.
That said, if I am drawn to Star Wars outlaws it will likely be because its star wars, not because ubisoft made it, but do I think Respawn would have done a better job where Ubisoft fell short? Absolutely.
In that light I wonder if it might be possible for studios to outsource to each other and share talent, this could also lead to better retention rather than poaching talent which destroys studio morale.
Probably a pipe dream considering the competitive nature of AAA game development and IP/Patent protection and licensing.
Lol, I don't think I'm worth sacrificing for lack of DEI training. We have plenty of that at the studio.
And while I'm not exactly the poster child for DEI, I do benefit from it (even if I would rather not) and I do feel that more needs to be done at the grassroots to solve more systemic issues.
No vendetta really, but I do take issue with Ubisofts controversial hiring process and their senior talent retention is abysmal, but you could say that about any studio at this point in time.
And it is irritating when there is an insistence to be top tier to work at a studio and you don't see that talent always reflected in the end product.
For marketing and shareholder reasons studio's have to insist that they have done great, staying tight lipped on even the most obvious issues and our lot is encouraged to not be overly critical for fear of losing employment opportunities.
If there is one thing I would change about the industry, it is the extreme secrecy around development but I understand its purpose given the ruthlessness of the competition in the entertainment space.
Sacha Baron Cohen used the word as a clueless Khazakistan reporter in Borat but it is the context that mattered and in the situation in that scene he actually meant it well to the shock of the dinner party crowd.
It was hilarious and yes all the same it is offensive to people, but it would be wrong to cancel him over it.
The real issue is that with social media, things can get blown out of proportion and it can really complicate matters.
Like certainly mine was a joke, I made light of the fact that Kay lost the genetic lottery but then again beauty is in the eye of the beholder and this is what we have to go by for the characters design.
https://thatparkplace.com/star-wars-outlaws-creative-director-julian-gerighty-explains-why-he-describes-kay-vess-as-a-much-more-modern-protagonist/
"Game Director Mathias Karlson also claimed Vess is relatable because she’s not a Jedi. Karlson said, “I think it’s very relatable as a human being on planet Earth that this character doesn’t have any magical powers or properties beyond her daring, her skills, her tools, and her buddy Nix.”
“The personality type is also perfectly suited for going on a swashbuckling adventure. I think that’s something I really resonated with thinking about this character in terms of building a game and gameplay around it,” he added.
- though she can punch through storm trooper armor and can't carry rifles up ladders. Nix is invincible and the only tool she has is a super lightweight lock pick (which might be really heavy but her hair may be super strong)
The game’s Associate Art Director Marthe Jonkers also confirmed the company and its employees spent a significant amount of time designing the character especially her look.
Jonkers shared, “We put a lot of care into her design and what she’s wearing and how she looks to tell her story. She has a lot of elements in her design that tell a bit of her story. For example, she has a broken nose. She’s been through a lot; you can see that she has scars and stuff.”
“She also has a hairpin; I love that element because she uses that to lockpick doors, and you can use that from the beginning to do some thieving,” she added.- Kay is comfortable in her appearance, atleast that's the premise since the nose stayed broken and she couldn't care less to do up her hair. But it isn't really clear from the game about how she came to develop this persona.
I though she got it from her mother who raised her, but then you see this,
And I concluded that there are elements of her appearance that come from her absent father but she has her mothers personality.
In fact that young version of her doesn't even look like her, so not sure what puberty did but she had a bigger bust when she was younger.
her adult model is very visibly a different band/cup size and the face looks like a different person.
Wierdly enough that child model looks more like Humberly Gonzalez than the adult version.
So before we go into reactionary rubbish about whether she is trans or used puberty blockers doesn't it seem that all the dev's did was replace one stereotype for another stereotype and call it progress?
Or is it possible that her story is more relatable to the devs than a sizable portion of the player base given their backgrounds?
I do wonder if maybe considering her superhuman strength (despite being a scrawny theif) she is a force user.
Maybe ubisoft was so confident on the success of this game to take over the jedi story from Respawn, that they intentionally left the father out to later reveal Vader telling Kay that he is her father and that she is Luke and Leia's half sister during a force vision quest!
Or that Palpatine is her grandfather so she is Rey's older half sister. Holy Shit!
I didn't realise Palpatine had a chincleft as well!
Maybe Disney's approach was
Kay = Han Solo + Rey = ReyKay (like ReyLo) or KeyReyLo if you're feeling adventurous.
And Ubisofts was
Kay = Han Solo + Rey + Splinter Cell/Assassins Creed/Beyond Good and Evil protagonist = Ubisoft game.
I can imagine the dev team round a table going "So lets just go with ReyLoKay ok?"
(If Ubi devs are reading this don't get any ideas)
Each time i see screenshots of the character and somebody is saying that they can't tell if she is man or woman, is saying she is androgenous or whatever, I have the impression they don't see women, like maybe ever? Except for internet porn, and a good chunk of that would have to be digital, not actual people.
Pretty sure if a woman who looked anything like Kay approached any of these incels in public and smiled in their general direction they'd be over the moon. It is a conventionally attractive woman by pretty much any standard. I guess what people who whack off to anime porn daily don't understand is that in certain angles and certain lights, literally all real human women won't look like they do in carefully curated media. Women aren't that different from men, and much of what they consider feminine beauty is carefully controlled filtering. e.g. make up, lighting, specific angles, etc.
So if a game is making a woman who fits a universe that isn't anime, she'll look like an 8 from certain angles and a 10 from others. and if the lighting and angle is really bad, she might even drop to a 4! Yikes.
Also, is kay less of a babe than Princess Leia? Seem on par to me. Is star wars known for babes anway?
anyway, just in case the point isn't perfectly obvious, it's a lot of words to say touch grass. I hate to use cliches but if the shoe fits...
Like many were wondering why she looked like that and but atleast the game seems to explain the reason simply as,
So before I go into that, I do agree with what was said in the video, I posted it so a discussion could be had around that point of reference and I have shared my perspective on what the game does well and what I felt it could do better.
The childs face looks totally different from the adult one and sure we can say that that's growing up for you, but isn't it very apparent how closely the child's face matches the actor over the adult Kay Vess model?
About comparing younger and older aged character models proportions including chest sizes, as a professional I don't see anything wrong with noticing that detail and its something that we do a lot at the studio when it comes to the children that accompany soccer players before a match and proportion and scaling across all players of many different ethnicities.
If you find it creepy given the context of the work you are assigned I don't know what to tell you.
How exactly do they make child character models in games you've worked on?
Like I wonder what is creepier, my noticing what I feel is an obvious design oversight or that a bunch of adults at ubisoft are looking at pictures of children deciding if they should make a childs breast bigger or an adults breasts smaller so that th child looks like she grew into a modern woman that just got out of prison?
The fact is that this is likely not what happened at all.
What I think happened and this is going from what we do at the studio, its very possible that for the child Kay Vess they simply downsized an adult body and stuck a custom head modeled after Humberly Gonzales and either didn't care to reduce the modified adult body's chest, or felt that people wouldn't care.
Maybe they felt she looked healthier so the contrast would stand out more against the adult kay?
Maybe Adult Kay Vess is just malnourished or into substance abuse that comes with the hard lifestyle of a scoundrel, though her actual backstory seems pretty tame and Nix is largely unchanged. (I would have thought Nix would have gone feral and grown additional limbs like its cousin Stitch from Lilo and Stitch)
Applying the perspective that
"I know she is a fictional character but, bringing about the chest size of a child just kinda feels... kinda yikes and puts up red flags in my brain. Why would this be a thing to even think about?"
basically means I have to refuse to do my tasks because ew?
Even in health care when I had to do dissections and examinations thankfully most were adults, but occasionally some of the bodies weren't and you really had to see past your feelings to the task at hand.
Of course in game dev its just a 3D mesh we're dealing with and it that context when I came across the child Kay scene, I was like "who's that?"
Sure it doesn't matter in the greater context but having the player speculate the reason why child kay looks like an apple from a totally different tree to adult kay can be understood as resulting from poor design choices or a skill deficit.
That they don't matter because we're suspending disbelief is also good, but to me as a character artist, it did stand out.
Besides the mysteries of puberty, one reason I can speculate is they were going for a Sarah Conner Terminator 2 look and maybe there's a whole lot of lean muscle in that scrawny frame that allows her to punch through battalions of storm troopers.
But for sarah conner its still the same actor, in outlaws I don't think that's the case and I really doubt they spent a lot of time on child Kay, maybe on the face and I still don't get why she looks more like a younger version of the actor than adult Kay model, but the body does seem like an adult body made to fit since that approach is just simpler when it comes to rigs and mocap.
Also Kay Vess's age is speculated as being 20 - 25 as an adult and maybe 9 - 12 for her younger version but not confirmed.
Its why I called that bit about Kay being trans or having used puberty blockers rubbish and I hope it doesnt go there when this bit gets out.
Not sure what regular is in Star Wars, I guess anything is possible, and they are definitely trying to sell the strong feminist woman stereotype which isn't a problem as long as the characters backstory and plot affords to her growth, development and redemption.
It would be just as much a problem with Han Solo, Kay is obviously overpowered (likely because she's an oblivious force user related to Palpatine, the chin cleft does not lie lol)
And it isn't a problem that Kay and her mother don't look alike, it just made me wonder about where she gets her facial features from, but they don't match her childhood so I'm thinking Medichlorians or the devs saw the situation with 2 different anakin skywalker actors and said f* it.
Mind you when I saw Anakin in Attack of the Clones I was like what the hell happened to that kid?
The child actor wasn't cast right, no idea why Lucas added this age difference to the plot but here's a reddit thread that obssesses over it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/wf0pkg/mathematics_of_the_padmé_x_anakin_age_gap_the/
About comedy, its cool if it doesn't appeal to everyone, but its better to just let it slide and see the intent and context rather then wipe out its legacy.
Its also important to see where comedy ages well and where it does, since it really depends on the audience involved.
Atleast so far unless the context and intent really is proven to be malicious in professional circles I haven't seen it to be a problem.
Any comments and jokes made with regards to Kay's appearance shouldn't come across as misogyny, but I agree with how social media is going about this subject, its easy to apply that context to anyone involved.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=856596311214291&id=288536204686974&set=a.289483874592207
The comment was made by the German General Von Klinkerhoffen in Allo Allo, he had his "we are all men, we all have our needs moment" that evening and wanted the company of Evette the Waitress instead of Edith Renee Artois's wife.
Edith was having a tryst with Colonel Von Stromm with the flying helmet and the wet celery. (and the egg whisk I think) at the time.
Very popular show that is still very loved but likely won't see a reboot because of the intolerant outrage culture we see today.
Not sure how hurt people were back then by its excellent comedic portrayal of bumbling Germans, idiot Englishman who speak terrible french, selfish french resistance and dandy gay people (Gruber and General Flockenstaffen)
I do recommend watching the whole show, its a riot!
About chin cleft/face ass - they are interchangable, just that south park did change the context, so face ass is now seen as more an ass for a face, so I though chin cleft would be more definitive.
I first heard of the word in the TV show friends
Pheobe also calls it a chin dimple. Maybe I can use it going forward.
The comment was made by the German General Von Klinkerhoffen in Allo Allo, he had his "we are all men, we all have our needs moment" that evening and wanted the company of Evette the Waitress instead of Edith Renee Artois's wife.
Edith was having a tryst with Colonel Von Stromm with the flying helmet and the wet celery. (and the egg whisk I think) at the time.
Very popular show that is still very loved but likely won't see a reboot because of the intolerant outrage culture we see today.
Not sure how hurt people were back then by its excellent comedic portrayal of bumbling Germans, idiot Englishman who speak terrible french, selfish french resistance and dandy gay people (Gruber and General Flockenstaffen)