Wednesday, October 24, 2012

XCOM soldiers and progression

Here's some concept work I did for the soldier progression in the game. Some of this is very early work, where we were focusing on the possibility of establishing soldier progression from rookie to veteran by displaying it visually though personality accessories and bits of swag or clothing. The needs of the game evolved, of course, and this meant a change into a kit-based system of snapping parts (final system not displayed here).
(Images Created by: Piero Macgowan for XCOM: Enemy Unknown. ©2012 Firaxis Games/Take Two Interactive)
The art director wanted "at ease" versions of the soldiers for the base early in development. I just dressed those concepts with the necessary armor. In this case the first pass on level 1 armor. Like most things in the game, it got "chunkified", or detail-enlarged to read better from game camera.

Level 2 armor

First pass on level 3 armor

These are very early concepts demonstrating the rookie/veteran idea we were thinking about at the time. Tattoos, scars, accessories, broken or scratched parts, and hairstyles meant to reflect a soldier's hardening progression through the game. The dude on the left was named "Tyrese", and we made a life-size standie which we still have in the office. (we also have a sectoid and ethereal standie)
An early version of soldier customization, probably one of the most popular parts of the game. I had fun creating different layers in Photoshop with all the individual possibilities in hairstyle, race, clothing, etc...

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