Here’s where we went a little nuts (and hopefully, it pays off with the fans).
These animations are seen most notably anytime the player enters a save room, at which point all four characters assume their long idle poses, immediately standing out from one another. So when Fischer starts moving again, it feels like her long, blonde hair is hidden under that standard-issue helmet. Like the Bachalo images, the idea with these animations was that players would carry that detail in their mind and imagine it in the default animations. So Amber “Buster” Fischer takes off her helmet to reveal long, flowing blonde hair underneath, while Samantha “Homwrecker” Johnston takes her helmet off, slams it onto the ground, and steps aggressively onto it. Each of these animations has the character subtly ‘transforming’ from the default marine into a pose more similar to the Bachalo art. We decided it was worth creating one unique long idle animation per character, to better reinforce their personality.
For those unfamiliar with the term, this is an animation that game characters perform when they’re ‘bored’ (resulting from a lack of user input for X seconds). This visual difference makes swapping between each character feel more like a genuine character swap.Īdded to this were unique ‘long idle’ animations. So some Marines might wear washed-out grays, while others have a bluish or even purplish hue. Going hand-in-hand with that was…Įven though all 19 marines share the same animation sets, we gave each character a slightly different color palette. Our hope was that players would see these characters up close (through Bachalo’s images), then picture that character (in their mind) when controlling the tiny sprite. These portraits were then used for all dialogue scenes, as well as the tiny, bluish radio displays. The team began with a list of character archetypes, but Bachalo truly brought them to life with his incredible art, even going so far as to name and give personalities to several of them in the process. We worked with acclaimed Marvel Comics artist Chris Bachalo to design each of our 20 marines. This allows players to learn more about the soldiers they’re encountering in between play sessions. Each time the player comes across a new marine in this game, their bio is added to the Extras menu, under the Marine Roster section. These mini-bios were critical in informing us of each Marine’s personality when it came time to write their dialogue (more on that below). Each of our Marines was given a unique name, rank, blood type, and backstory (written by our lead designer and writer, Cole Phillips). So instead, we decided to differentiate characters in the following four ways:Įasy enough. If we’d attempted that, we’d still be animating the game right now. Steele contacts you via radio throughout the adventure to offer intel, and to give the playable character someone to chat with (in what would otherwise be a pretty quiet game).īecause of the tremendous amount of animations required for our Marines (multiplied by every type of firearm), it wasn’t feasible to actually animate 19 different character sets. The game features 20 Marines: 19 of which are playable, and one which is your Commanding Officer, Patrick “Stainless” Steele. But what exactly went into that? Just how fleshed out are these soldiers, and why should players care when they die if there’s always another one right around the corner, waiting to take their place? So we’ve talked a lot about developing our tiny Marines. Below, the WayForward staff talk about crafting those characters. And this is something WayForward took seriously when crafting Aliens Infestation. So memorable characters that leave an impact are a vital part of any Aliens or Colonial Marines related project.
Would Aliens have been anywhere near as successful without Vasquez or Hudson? And would we have cared so much when they went down fighting? “ Marines! On the ready line!” One of the many aspects that helped make Aliens so special was the memorable characters.
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