Sweating the details of diversity in Marvel's Spider-Man

August 26th, 2019, 23:10 Posted By: wraggster

For all the hype and attention that surrounds them, AAA video games are generally regarded as manufactured and impersonal. Anything that requires hundreds of hands to produce may be a masterful example of craft, but that scale and sweep comes at the expense of a little soul.
Look closely, though, and you might see the personalities of those who labour to make the industry's blockbusters shining through. At Devcom 2019, Insomniac Games' Jason Hickey proved as much with his talk on Marvel's Spider-Man, and how the streets and alleys of its virtual New York City are teeming with nods to the individual passions of its creators.
When preparing the talk, Hickey said, he was guided by one question: "What did I do that, if I wasn't there, wouldn't have gone in the game -- or maybe would have gone in a different way?"
He grouped these personal touches into three broad categories, the most intriguing of which was "history and culture." As lead environment artist, Hickey was able to scatter details throughout the map that made the space feel as diverse as its real-world counterpart, while also paying tribute to both the light and the dark of its long history.

There are 0 comments - Join In and Discuss Here