Tell that to the Concord artists who's bold claim that these designs were made with "passion and love" on their Twitter. I highly doubt the credibility of that claim.
The designs didn't necessarily ruin the game, but the game is just a inferior product at a higher price. It can't compete with other hero shooters in the market. The character designs and political messaging is basically like... whatever the negative version of icing on the cake is. It's a bad thing on an already bad game, and at a bad price.
This is actually so on point. These designs clearly look like they were made for tv, not for games. It's not just realism, it's a toned down, mute kind of realism that we would see in TV to cut costs.
It's what happens when every Triple-A game tries overly hard to look like a Hollywood movie, especially since these games are largely made for investors and shareholders who don't even play video games because they're 70+ year old boomers who still think video games are stuff like Pac-Man and Galaga because they think anything more "realistic" somehow causes real world violence.
That Pharah comparison really hit the nail on the head. A person who flies should look like it. Pharah looks like a bird, with wings and a jetpack. Echo looks like a moth. Mercy has angel wings. Juno is wearing a full astronaut suit with massive boots on to fly with. There is nothing in the concord character that even comes close to being something recognizable to someone whos never seen them before. Its common knowledge that birds and angels fly. Not rocks with a smear of read on them.
I mean, heck, if they wanted to make a character that can fly but forego giving them wings, they could have used Sigma as an example! A character that can fly/float because they can distort and control gravity! It's crazy how easy it is to base a character around a theme, but this game just...legitimately couldn't be bothered.
I will take even a jet pack if they still wanna go for something so BORING. But hey what the heck do I know about comunicating a playstyle via character design.
I mean the soldier and scout from tf2 don’t really have anything additional to convey that they have air mobility other than their body structure and weapon.
That's why I think the problem lies in the art style, not the design themselves. Maybe if the graphics was more cartoony it would've fit. But no, they had to make it realistic
It's one of my biggest pet peeves when alien designs follow the idea of "a human but green!" "a human but with animal ears!" "a human but big!". It's just boring.
@A3319 My thoughts exactly. If they had the faces look more cartoony looking. It would have worked better. The Green alien dude works except for his weird ass face....
The issue that I noticed watching this video is that in Overwatch all the characters look and feel like the main character of their own story, meanwhile in Concord, they ALL look like side characters. They are all like Yamcha from DBZ.
That's an insult to Yamcha. Despite being demoted to a side character shortly after debuting, he actually had his own arc, memorable dialogues, a cool character design with an actual personality and a solid identity in the series. He's a good side character. These concord characters feel like the side characters who support the supporting characters of their own reality, and even then they do a piss poor job at that and just take up space and screen time that would've been spent showing literally anything else 😂
Don't do Yamaha dirty, or ruin Toriyama's legacy by comparing this trash to Yamcha. Yamcha's design is objectively memorable with his many scars and odd hair. He is like the ONLY Z FIGHTER with scars😅. Yamcha gets sidelined not because of his design but because of his lack of agency in the Dragon Ball series, in-fact people, REMEMBER TO WEEP FOR YAMCHA, because he looks cool but is so sadly useless. Funny enough these characters are USEFUL in their series but so repulsive you do not even want to see how useful they can be!
one of the things I absolutely hate about Concord's character design direction is that they look like bad live action adaptations of a potentially better cartoony/stylized design.
Concord’s characters are like the game. Poofy and balloony with no sharp corners and only inoffensive pastel colors. Character designs straight out of Corporate promotional art.
You're so absolutely right, I was about to say that. They feel so clean and sleek and dull like a regular office work. Not a peek or personality or detail that would say something about the characters, and when they try it feels like a costume The art feels like screencaps from a 3D Modelling student making their final project. Just make it look good enough so the teacher can see the creases of the clothes but that's it
if they had gone all the way and made Corporate Memphis: The Game that would have at least been out of pocket and weird enough to talk about for longer than two weeks
Unironically, the character design in Concord looks like someone hit the 'Randomize' button 3 times in a character customization menu and then just saved the result.
It’s like they used the warframe randomizer took then used the most biege and hideous colors ever then never put on a single accessory or notable skin then just left it like that
Idk, I think that's giving it too much credit. At least when you hit random you'll probably get a much more colourful result (for better or for worse).
I cannot emphasize how vital Overwatch's characters were to the game's success. Overwatch's characters are integral to every aspect of it's success and it's why so many people keep going back to it years later.
Yeah like not to mention that despite Overwatch having a more cartoony artstyle, a lot of their characters look a lot more functional than these characters do. People actually wear armor and have aspects of their designs that help justify their abilities. And then people in Concord look like they just grabbed some random clothes and went out to go fight. Plus overwatch also pulled on a lot of superhero tropes, making their characters look aspirational so that people would not only be able to tell what they do based on their outfit, but also in some sense want to *be* that character and do what they do in the same way that people wanna be like Superman or Spiderman and whatnot. And that helps drive sales
Artist here: If they leaned heavier into the "Spaceman" thing with Roka that would've fit with the fact that they fly(like a rocket) and the fact that they can slam into the ground(like a meteor). Instead, though, it felt like they didnt want to commit too hard so we get this weird...pseudo-spaceman that looks like an Olympic swimmer put on a space helmet.
i was just thinking this im so glad someone else thinks so. Roka could have had some cool 60s retro astronaut look, or something like Uraraka's design from MHA (esp with her gravity quirk kind of being spacey) . lowkey want to redesign all the characters now
I've NEVER played overwatch, I've only watched snippets, but when you mention SOLDIER 76, I look at the roster and can safely guess who is the soldier guy.
ngl, this game's art does feel like what would happen if you asked an AI to make characters for a game. You know, on account of the fact that as I've already demonstrated before, GAI is incapable of actually understanding the fundamental meaning of anything it does or says
This is what happens when you hire agenda driven skill less hacks to make characters, they don’t care about what’s good they just care about what they themselves like.
I think another big factor is the seemingly nonsense names. Like I can barely remember a single name mentioned other than Teo because that’s a real name that exists, the rest sounds like baby babble. Additionally they say nothing about the characters, which you see everywhere in gaming. • Heavy? Big guy, big weapons, heavy weapons expert. • Sombra? Spanish for shadow = Spanish speaking stealth character. • Winston? A smart guy. Put on a gorilla? That’s a smart Gorilla! • Phoenix? Fire character that can revive himself. • Jinx? A crazy character who revels in chaos. Compared with: • Roka? Idk a rock person? Some sort of tank? An alien? • Daws? Jaws like a shark? Or maybe someone who’s chill? • Teo…? A… guy? They just fall completely flat.
Compare this to the Japanese culture where they spend millions of years trying to decide the name of any new character, be it novel, manga, video games or in real life 😂 that's just how much effort they put into crafting the soul of each individual and their connection to the world around them, fictional or not. Names with actual meaning and implies great depth that helps portray or convey something about the characters and their stories are always more interesting to learn about. But we don't even have to go that deep. A little bit of MMO roleplaying on throw-away accounts I've made over the years even produced much more memorable names than these. My hecking Sims characters that were made just to be experimented upon or trapped in an underground pool had better names than these. The people who "designed" these characters had worse naming sense than fking ChatGPT. 😂 On that note, let's not even get started on the name "concord." I'm not a native English speaker but wtf does that even mean? I don't care about what it means so don't actually tell me, but the only reason I've managed to remember that word is because I've seen people repeat it enough. It's so bland and uncharacteristically immediately forgettable. It sounds like a word you'd see in normal everyday life but you never actually use because there're a million better alternatives that are more fun to say 😂
9:58 My sibling commented "she could be modelled after an insect, like a housefly" and I can't help but think that, yeah, insect wings would 100% redeem the design. Flying characters ARE annoyingly agile at times, lean into that!
That’s brilliant, the red window of her helmet totally looks like it could be a fly’s eye. Adding the whole “annoying insect” idea to her character gives her personality too, like a sort of mischievous vibe. Man, so many missed opportunities…
@@TheGeckoNinja I feel like nobody gave anyone the money to think about that. They probably hired 3D artists and just told them to model their generic OCs without an art direction.
Looking at Daw at first glance, I would've never known that he was a medic. Nothing about his design screams "Medic"; he's just a guy in a blue jacket.
When the internet don’t want to sexualize them you know you done fuck up.Compare to Juno from Overwatch 2 who have much better design have rule 34 art of her in matter of hours before she even release officially to the game
Not even public transportation, not even garbage cans, have avoided rule 34… and now I need some bleach and therapy. Somehow there’s p-n of trash cans but not these characters? I don’t even know what to say. That’s just… that’s just not possible.
They have zero charisma about them. The tf2 heavy has so much charm about him which makes him so iconic. Reaper goes all in with the edgy appearance and it's endearing. Concord characters look like extras from guardians of the galaxy.
Absolutely agree, they have the androgynous male mushroom alien and old woman named "Duchess" both concepts that could make a very interesting characters YET both designs are so unbelievably boring like how you mess up such an easy ideas for fun character design like this?
In fact, the popular understanding of the term diversity is exactly the opposite of what it actually means. Diversity implies differences, real life-impacting difference, not just the texture of your skin. Pitch Black with Vin Diesel was diverse because it featured Muslim characters that actually worshipped Allah. Today's entertainment just puts a scarf around the head of a white SF college student, paints her dark or black and calls her diverse.
The photorealism of this game really sets it back artistically. The characters look like Gucci or YSL models given guns and left to wander on nondescript space rocks.
Ironically, that goofy design probably makes him the most visually interesting and memorable character in the game. It might not be a good design (because I still don't have any clue what his gameplay style might be), but at least it's not bland.
@AlteredNova04 idk man, he looked like a character from Guardians of the Galaxy to me. No joke I saw him and thought he was from a new Guardians of the Galaxy game before learning what Concord was.
@@TheGallantDrakeHa. Nice to know that it wasn't just me who felt that way. I imagine that's doubtless what the clueless execs that got this game stuck in development for 8 years intended.
A hyperrealistic artstyle severely limits character design when it comes to the availabe shape language. It's like writing without using the letter E. While that works great for grounded works, like military shooters for example, hero shooters need their heroes to stand out and be as distinct from each other as possible.
Even a "realistic" military hero shooter like Siege still incoporates gimmick design so that the characters dont look bland. Jackal is character that uses tracking visor helmet to locate enemies footprints, and almost all of his animation or artwork will emphasize or put highlights on his helmet because thats his quirk. A lot of other characters are designed like this too. Putting a subtle touch on their quirks and abilities but not too obvious to the point it becomes pushy
I think ugly art has it's place, but like all art it's got to be working towards a goal. These characters want to be liked the same way the characters from overwatch want to be liked. But the designs just don't work. I don't actually think they're ugly. Just not very exciting.
Even ugliness in art is welcome if it is used for a purpose, or if the ugliness says something relevant about the piece's message or if it contributes to the feelings and thoughts it aims to evoke. Heroes in a hero shooter should be attractive to the player. They should make the player resonate with them and want to pick them as class. They should be appealing not just in aesthetics but also in their personality, and all such attributes should be reflected on the character's role in the game. The healer should look like and behave like someone who's a healer, and so on. It's almost as if they saw the masterclass in design that is/was TF2 and other games and decided to throw it all in the trash for the sake of pushing their character designs for their designs' sake, not for what they would do to improve or enhance the experience.
@@Jared-gx1dpthat's the issue. The art in Concord wasn't made for any of artistic expression, it was made to meet quarterly income statements. It's not that it's unpleasant, it's that it doesn't say ANYTHING at all.
The lack of artistic stylization makes the characters look like cosplayers at a sci-fi conventation. On a graphical level, the game actually looks great. However, their push towards realism instead of stylization does more harm than good.
Realism could work too but they seem to not lean more into it enough Utility point and some cool engineer feels give more charm But too bad they didn't lean into anything enough
Me too dude, all of these characters have this problem they don't look like what they were supposed to be, they look like a vague and boring version of themselves @@callmecharlie4250
2:30 simple to point out; 1. Boring designs 2. Conflicting designs 3. Ugly designs and 4. a lack of personality to the designs, not even an issue of just boring
Yeah the designs are bad but I think what really kills this game is that it enters its genre at least 5 years too late, does NOTHING new or interesting within that genre and then has the gall to charge 40€ upfront when its competitors are free. It’s like they never asked themselves during the 7 years development how they could stand out in this very competitive market.
It reminds of me of what was said about Anthem. Apparently during development of that game comparisons to their competitors like Warframe and Destiny was not allowed. Something similar could have happened. Some people have "well that is them and we are different" sort of attitude.
Mario is a fat, middle aged, short king, Italian American plumber. Which on paper is like the worst thing ever. But every detail was created to complement game design. The mustache, the red and blue overall. All of that was to make the character readble and to have it pop. If you think about it he's character design would be considered insane because everything about him was influenced by game design requirement with no regard to realism.
For a second I thought you were referring to Winston from Overwatch. And it made me think: there are genuinely way more people playing as Winston right now than playing Concord.
Art direction is critical in a game like that, because the hero game shooter is not a growing space and was extremely saturated years ago, anyone who is interested in playing a hero shooter right now is playing one, so asking to play your game should also mean giving reason to stop playing overwatch or TF2 or whatever hero shooter. This is the same tale of lawbreakers
Yup, i brough that game, lol The gameplay actually solid. Fast paced and more agile, but in character design they are not interisting enough, every Hero looks the same
😂 this games characters look too realistic to have such goofy stylized outfits. There’s literally a Chinese auntie in a purple p1mpsuit & a guy that looks like he lost at lasertag & then went to Jazzercize & has only 1 shoulderpad
Those fat cosplay guys, "morbidly" obese posing like Duke Nukem and wearing a blond wig. Obviously making "war battles" noises like "whaaaaa" and showing two mozzarellas for biceps. That's the level.
Actually I think it is related to the diversity but not in the fact that the characters are diverse. It’s the mindset that went into them being diverse. The devs wanted to subvert and break rules that other games laid down. That’s why the colour pallets are weird and the characters don’t tell you what they are at a glance. They broke rules that they didn’t understand the reason for. They decided to be subversive but forgot to be practical.
A classic Chesterton's Fence you mean? All the devs saw was, the "stereotypes is Xyz so to subvert expectations were going to go with Qb3!" And then being angry that no one understands their "clever subversion" even after we explain that xyz flows in a known pattern and we can't make sense of their logic.
People keep bringing up Overwatch like it's a counter-point to this diversity nonsense, without realizing that Overwatch is not at all "diverse" in the same way. The DEI mindset exists for the purpose you mentioned, to combat stereotypes. Guess what Overwatch does? Nearly every character on release reinforces some sort of stereotype.
@cordlc right, but notice how people who were represented by said stereotypes generally didn't mind? The characters had reasons for being the way they were.
The designs really are baffling. I'll humour what you asked I tried to have a guess at what role Haymar played in the game. Keep in mind I am going in blind, but have an advantage in studying visual communication. My first thoughts were that she was some kind of ninja inspired assassin. Her colour pallet is fairly muted, with grey making up the majority. The little splashes of colours in the dark scarlets and gold draw the eye away from the face, so there does not seem to be a single focal point in her design. The materials of the cloths seemed to reinforce my assumption she was some kind of stealth character due to the matte materials. This is a character who does not seem to want to be noticed. The clothing is fairly plain looking, and aside from the very basic golden beads, is not very pragmatic, lacking visible pockets. Her hair appears to be done up at the back but parted at the front, and flowing down either side of her cheeks, framing her face like a hood would. Essentially obscuring it from any angle except the front. This is a fairly common style for evoking someone who is aloof, but active. Think female assassins or action heroines who are athletic. All in all, they seem like someone who is well suited to disappear into the shadows, drawing weapons only when close enough from concealment (from where I do not know). Gameplay wise she communicates having an average, if not slightly slender hit box. This would stay in line with the idea that she is focused on speed to close the gap. The lack of armour suggests that she has very low health mixed with the clothing looking slightly like gambeson makes me think she is melee focuses. However, I would not be surprised if she had some ranged weapon based on throwing knives or blades or perhaps a quiet weapon like a crossbow. __________________________________________ Well, I gotta say I was not expecting a fireball throwing sorcerer, but at least I kinda guessed the crossbow...eh that's a stretch. It feels like the designers were too afraid to lean into the motifs most associated with each character. As if being anything like the stereotype was a bad thing. Being a fire mage and having something fire related, whether by colours, or visual effects or even giving her a burning staff would have been a good move. Stereotypes exist for a reason, leaning into them doesn't mean you have to be bound by them. Take the Pyro from TF2. His deal is the flamethrower, which is his character is modelled in mind with, like some sort of barbaric instrument of metal coming out of his hands (because it is). Subtle design ques like the fact that his fire suit is meant to subliminally conger the mental image of a flame in your head. The bright red of his suit shows through near his head and shoulders, but is covered by ash and burnt grim the further down you go, creating a colour gradient similar to a flame. These are just basic things far smarter people than me have thought of when trying to convey an idea visually. Finally, it's worth mentioning but, the last thing they needed was developers pouring fuel onto their own fire and burning what little good will they had left.
I thought it was melee character since she has clothes similiar to medieval Europe meshed with Asian clothes. The sleeves being so high would help in CQC as so that her opponents dont use them against her. The leather sleeves looked a bit like generic fantasy bracers a bit. That or she looked like from high society. That would be the only thing that would even hint to a Sorcerer IMO.
"As if being anything like the stereotype was a bad thing" RIGHT on the money. Feels like almost every design comes off as trying too hard to subvert stereotypes which leads to absolutely no visual clarity, cohesion and a mishmash of bland ideas... seemingly almost AI generated lol.
My question is what does the woman with the glass box on her head do? All I can think of is that she reminds me of Space Cadet from Paradigm so my only guess is that she snorts lots of space dust.
Guesses for 'Rocka' based on design. Helmet looks like an astronaut's Body suit implies high mobility Red visor suggests danger Rocket launcher suggests high damage The character looks like a high mobility dps. Pretty spot on for role but nothing about the design suggests flight or conveys how slow they actually move. Guesses for 'Heymar?' based on design. Cloth instead of armour suggests they're not frontline Pink is a very non threatening colour The character looks like a backline support How the fuck is that a fire wizard, the trim's pink not red. Orange trim with flame paterns would have been mich better
Yea, I'm kinda surprised that Rokka's design seems pretty decent as telling what she is, though at the same time the Rocket Launcher does so much of the heavy lifting for it. Though my first instinct was specifically "Rocket Jumper" thinking like TF2 soldier but then thought about things like Pharah and Dragoz
They could have just made the flames pink! It would have been a way to set the character apart. Look at the less lethal pyromancer from Tactical Breach Wizards, kinda generic compared to the other designs in that game, but green fire makes him still stand out
@@the_senate8050That'd be cool. I'd go a step further and instead of just shooting pink flames it could be something like fiery pink butterflies with unique mechanics like chasing people down or surrounding them like a shield, then have the rest of her outfit reflect that theme. Right now she looks more like a monk than anything else, never would have guessed she's an offensive caster.
My first thought for the second one was she's dark colored, light armored, and her outfit is very oriental styled with the red trim and gold beads, so I assumed she was a ninja type character like genji
People are overthinking this. The reason concord failed is because it's exactly like every other free to play overwatch clone except you have to pay for this one.
We live in a world where there are people who believe that fashion doesn't exist and beauty is completely subjective. This game is what happens when those people are allowed to design characters
Bleach its "idiotic" The rule of cool supersedes any other rule, on bleach, even the rule of "this doesnt make sense" is secondary to "cool colors make my characters feel powerfull"
What is the first thing that makes you want to play a game? News flash its not the gameplay. Its the draw and appeal and thats how it looks and feels. Overwatch was hype as shit due to its characters, not its gameplay but the gameplay was good and kept people invested. Concord looks like shit but i bet it plays fine but i wont risk 60 dollars.
The cover draws you in. The gameplay keeps you there. It's not a book, the visual are a Big part to games. Games are first and foremost a Visual medium.
I feel like the fire wizard character just needed to have more obvious fire symbolism what she’s wearing kinda looks wizard-like if subtle, it just needs to have more ember-like colours and for the character card to actually show the weapon and element gimmick. A lot of these characters would have benefited massively from someone who actually understands colours and how they can communicate things to an audience. My first thought when I saw Concord characters was that the artists were some form of colour blind.
The first thing is hearing about it existing. You can't get a thing if you don't know it exists. The first time I heard of this game was a "Fewer than 100 concurrent users on Steam" article.
I wanted to play Hi-Fi Rush before I even knew it was a rhythm-based character action game simply because the art style and character design were so good.
people found the animation teasers and they look so much better its clear the game wanted to have a 70s scifi or french comic vibe but sony force them to go hyper realism
How funny it is that some dude who is NOT an artist KNOWS some basic character design rules, while the literal artists they hired seems to just ignored everything they know and just made a visual mess.
like I said, I don't gotta be a chef to tell you when the food tastes bad lol Tho do remember, I doubt that many of these choices were made by the artists themselves. If there's anyone to blame, it's the art director and the other higher ups for telling them to draw the characters this way and then not consulting or listening to anyone else. The last thing I wanna do is put down the random devs just trying to work their 9-5. 99 times out of 100 these issues are a problem with project management
@@alexforce9 as an artist who worked in creative field for decade i had multiple situations when i did something really great but my incompetent boss/commissioner just straight forward told me to "fix" thing to their own liking making my whole work so much worse. And i did it (otherwise i won't have money) but it happens in this type of workplace all the time. Sometimes hire-ups have just bad awful vision employees can't do anything nothing about it.
@@alexforce9 mostly depends if boss is willing to cooperate/listen to the team (which is sadly rare) or at least lead artist (which is more common) but sadly some people are just out of touch. 😅 But if you are freelancer there's basically nothing you can do, because all of freelance is either making things commissioner likes or possibly not being hired by them again. It is what it is.
As a token racially ambiguous but blackish guy who doesn't design or play white guys or gals when I can help it... There should, can still be a token white dude lol. He can be off to the side like every other token but... Yeah, just so many awful and tone-deaf design choices here to die on a hill over.
Megamind scene comes to mind "You're a villian alright, just not a super one." "Whats the difference" "Presentation!" I hate all the LA/SF/Montreal nepo babies who never seen anything outside of their collage echo chamber bubbles and think they know what is cool, underground, or punk when they feel oppressed when their catering driver knocks on their doors to deliver their food order instead of leaving it at the door. Also a better design of "Rollerskater with a rocket launcher" would be Megabeth from Super Monday Night Combat, with her bike helmet and giant kneepads
I call this kind of aesthetic "Safe-punk". It's pink and cyan drivel, with street-wear or graffiti culture delivered in a safe package. Everyone is a rebel and a career criminal, but in a safe way. They hold niché jobs like wholesome drug dealing for friends only, running vintage technology stores, preaching about -communism- moralism, and being a single mom. The only allowed sexual orientations are straight and lesbian (NOT GAY). They fight a vague authority that is keeping up the law. The Safe-punk rebels don't like laws nor standards because those are traditional and thus fascist. Everyone is required to be a quippy asshole and need to do that "mischievous smile" expression that funnily enough Megamind does lmao.
Regarding Rokka, I actually managed to guess 'aerial combat'. The color scheme and general design of her outfit is reminiscent of flight suits that pilots wear, combined with the oversized helmet and the heavy artillery. With that said, if you're not familiar with that you're correct that there's no other visual identifiers other then vibes. Tracer from Overwatch does the idea a bit better. Her outfit is also inspired by flight suits, but there's artistic flair to it. From the hair to the goggles to the boots there's a lot of design decisions that scream 'THIS IS THE SPEEDY ONE' which makes it easy to identify what her abilities are at a glance.
As an aside, thanks to Guardians of the Galaxy, vaguely Science Fantasy with quirky characters is a tired, skin and bones cow with a calcified, shriveled udder, and everyone is swarming it for the very last atom of milk. Much like WW2 FPS games way back when.
Culture, cohesion, and credibility. Do they have a familiar culture? Are they somebody you may recognize as having seen or met before? This makes characters likeable, relatable, memorable, and quickly groupable for consumers. It helps them quickly grasp this person's archetype according to their experiences, which is especially important when doing a game in space where you need to make characters that we (earthlings) understand. Are they cohesive? Do they all fit into a similar aesthetic that binds them all together. You can have a motley crew but they must all be bound by the art so that they dont look unpleasing and messy. Tf2's operatives all have a basic colored shirt, utilitarian pants, and then some kind of outerwear element to show what they do (heavy has bullets, demoman has grenades, engineer has a hard hat). Overwatch also rallies around a futuristic superhero approach. Their getup signifies what they do and who they are trying to come across as as a hero. Finally, are they believable? Is there a story or utility to their look? Would you believe they grew from a child into their current look all along an explainable path and thus ended up with their fashion and style? Concord has so many characters that lean almost too far into their look where it comes across as a character made in a lab, not somebody who either chose their own clothes or was given a uniform. The races of each character are all different and you lose the faith that this universe has a functioning society. Universes like Warhammer, Halo, and even Overwatch have clearly defined the select few archetypes that exist, and then create multiple characters within each of those to further expand on individuality. If each character in your game is the only one of their race, you lose a lot of the cohesion I mentioned earlier, and thus the universe becomes hard to believe because of the randomness and inconsistency between those "living" in it. Concord fails on nearly every front, whereas games must only succeed in a SINGLE one of these to create a roster that fans are willing to invest themselves into. Not every game or universe fills all of these criteria, but the one or two they choose, they nail.
All of this could've been resolved if they just made a PvE story based game with a added FPS gamemode later. This game needs it's world building up front and center.
It doesn't help that outside of some animated shorts, the devs have made very little effort to show the lore of the world and the backstory of the characters. I've seen no biographies for the cast, and what we've seen in the shorts just leaves more questions than answers about who they are. The only thing I know about the world is that there's an evil space guild, but I have no idea why they're so hated. It's very bare bones compared to the worldbuilding in Overwatch and Deadlock, and doesn't draw in people who might check out the game looking for a sci-fi setting to explore.
I've actively gone looking for lore and found almost nothing. I don't know who any of these people are or why they do what they do. They're just a bunch of mercenaries doing mercenary things for mercenary reasons. Overwatch's lore ended up being kind of disappointing in the end but only because it looked deeper than it actually was and so it got me interested before disappointing me later. But despite that disappointing shallowness, it's still THERE. Every character has backstory and connections to other characters. The maps have story. The game modes have story. Even the character designs have purpose, beyond just relating to gameplay. They're connected to the lore too. Concord has pretty much nothing in comparison.
None of the characters are at all identifiable as a stereotype like "fireman" or "policeman" would be in real life. A sniper needs a long gun and needs to look sharp-eyed. A medic needs to look like paragons of healing. A soldier needs a uniform. A spy needs to look sneaky or suave. All of this seems like it's AI generated, like they slapped in (guy from space Featured on Artstation:1) and called it a day. To this day I do NOT know what the hell any of them do from a glance. In Overwatch I know what Widowmaker does as a sniper with her gun and sniper visor gear, Soldier 76 does by being a boring call of duty guy with his cyber visor and bulky football physique, and what Tracer is because she's in running gear and has small weapons and leg focus in her official art. Worse yet, they're all in freaking pastels. Pastels! The colors you use for BACKGROUNDS to keep attention off them! Hell I know exactly what each TF2 guy does just from looking at them, their attitude and weapon.
I bet they're all in pastels because they don't want to hurt anyone with sensitive eyes. Why would people with sensitive eyes be playing games in the first place?
AI would have made dramatically better, readable, interesting character designs is the sad part ... As an artist, animator, designer, world builder. This was just bad choices made and then directed to workers, who either were so excited to be working or have a job they didn't say anything, or fought against all of their gut instincts and 'made what the client wanted' (not the audience, the people paying)
They look like LARPers. Self inserts for a sci-fi tabletop campaign and they're about as cringe as you'd expect people taking that sort of thing seriously would be. Daw being overweight is a non-issue, the issue is how he's designed. No discernable medic traits, dishwashing gloves, NERF GUN goggles and don't even get my started on the trousers. Also, Pharah's colours are Overwatch agent based if I recall.
Yeah, I felt like I was transported back to those tumblr days when everyone posted absolutely butt-ugly OCs or character art from established IPs. It's like they fetishize asymmetry, maimed/marred aesthetics with no sense of color. Everything had to have this quirky ugly touch to it. And it had to be super queer. These artist were and still are one of the worst queer "allies/community members". They do an absolute terrible job on the publicity department. Thank Jeebus for good artists actually prevailing on that place.
You don't have to be an expert in artistic design to feel something is dazzling or bland, that's built into our brains (and yes, some individual opinion as well). It's up to the expert to be able to determine how to build a character around human nature, so that people will find it appealing and not bland.
yeah one of the worst counters to someone disliking something that I always hate, is the defender going "Well you're not an artist so what do you know?" as if I need to be a chef to know that a food I ate tastes bad. Like I said, maybe some people can't articulate the reasons very specifically, but anyone can have an opinion on something regardless of expertise
@@BlazeMakesGamesThat's interesting because in the video you said that just saying something looks bad isn't enough. Maybe the ohrasing was off but you seem to have a different opinion here
as an artist i wanna add that feedback from non artists is actually VERY important when designing for an audience for this very reason, if you’re not making art just for yourself. it’s very easy to get stuck in your own head when designing, but if you make a ninja looking character and tell everyone it’s supposed to be a mage, they’re right when they say it looks bad lol
To me it looks like they attempted more realism than they could pull off, leading to an uncanny valley effect. Something about the way the characters move and the way their clothes hang off them just feels artificial and lifeless, like mannequins in a store. I think the character designs aren't quite as bad as people say, like, I don't think it's hard to tell a character with no weapon wearing a robe might be a spell caster, but I think a less realistic style that emphasized the unique aspects of each character would have helped a lot.
@@bennyblunto973 I agree wit the sentiment that the characters are so unintuitive and badly designed for very definable reasons But psychics were always gay 😏
When people blame diversity, it's not the actual diversity they are blaming. Here is the deal, if you make a diverse game, you don't need to tell me, I'll see it in game. If you did just to put it in the marketing, that's the problem.
Yeah exactly, NO ONE has an issue with Valorant, even tho the cast is so diverse and they even got a they/them Scottish character. But no one cares cus they all look aesthetically pleasing and arent forced down our throat. The Valorant players care more about the new character’s abilities, and it just happens that they happen to be they/them
No, they are blaming actual diversity. When gamer children will scream about developers “shoving politics down their throats” because there is a Black person in the cast, your argument starts to sound pretty silly
A lot of YT channels have been using this game as a cudgel to wield against 'representation, diversity' or 'the modern audience' etc. But really it's just bad art design. When you inject diversity in your designs but MAKE IT WORK, and land your designs, the 'diversity and representation' part of that goes unnoticed. When you do it right, it's invisible. But when you do it wrong, like in Concorde, people notice, it sticks out.
@@PoorMuttskiIt's a bit weird to shove like five black women into a game about shooting guns. This is diversity clearly taking precedent over basic demographical observations. The main audience for this kind of game is still young, male and white.
@@pencilswordfish But I'd ask what lead to the designs we have? Yes, it's bad design, but look at it and taking a step back. Why? What lead them to these specific bad designs? I'd argue chasing the "modern audience". You can think what you like about us saying it and thinking this. If they just stop saying it, that will shut most of us up about it as an issue. As is pointed out over and over again. Lots of good and popular game have diversity. But that's why people don't cry about the diversity in them, because they are good. It obviously wasn't their primary focus.
As the Act Man pointed out, take any of these characters in Concord and tell me what exactly their designs say about their personalities.........you can't, because their designs don't express ANYTHING about them, beyond just which class type they are. Now take a character like Spyro the Dragon, for example. One look at him, and his design immediately conveys to you that he's a mischievous little dragon. Character designs can be the simplest thing on the planet, but if they instantly signal who they are as a character to your audience, then you know you've done your job right. The Simpsons is another perfect example of this philosophy
yeah for real. I've been saying repeatedly that there are so many simple things they could be doing like putting stickers on the bootleg space marine's shoulder pad to give her a little more flair. Maybe give the lizard guy some key chains or or something. These little trinkets are very minor bits of flair but they would do so much to actually characterize these people and make them more appealing and relatable. I mean hell barely any of them have like scuff marks or scares on them or anything like that. They all look fresh out of the academy like this is their first ever fight they've been in. Even if the relatively pristine characters of overwatch still had like scars and prosthetic limbs and whatnot that helped tell a story
16:08 I've seen this guy everywhere and this is literally the first time I've heard he's supposed to be a lizard man. I thought he was just some generic alien or tree man
I can’t prove it but lack of iteration feels like a reasonable assumption, a lot of popular characters go through numerous redesigns and Concord’s characters feel like an early draft without notes and touch ups
yeah 100% I feel like the problem was the art director had like 1 idea for each character and sent it off without any feedback or collaboration from the rest of the team. I *have* to believe that there are internal devs that pushed back against these designs or wanted to give them more flair but were ultimately ignored in the end.
I think it's the opposite. This game and its characters were iterated to death. Some very early concepts look way more stylish and interesting and telling, but it's like they constantly had some corpos come in and say "yeah this looks weird, make it more like Marvel" and the artists just had to sand off anything that gave the characters interest over and over, until we get this photorealistic mess. Early on, it even seemed like the game was supposed to have a very cel-shaded look, but again, some corpo at Sony decided that no, our console's selling point is GRAFFICS so pump that pore count up and get in that mocap suit.
I remember hearing that the silhouette is really important in League of Legends specifically. It makes sense because the characters are small and you need to sell skins but keep them recognizable at a glance, especially since the roster is huge. Sett, for example, has fur that grows out of him like a coat/vest, but in his mecha outfit it's like engines, yet he maintains his silhouette. Art style and character design in games is about more than just looking cool, it also conveys a lot of information to the player. Using Ryu from SF as an example, while he appears bland at a glance, he is iconic because his appearance conveys his playstyle, same can be said for the other shotos, Zangief, etc. Okay mini game time: Raka looks like she would be an ambusher/burst damage...wow nothing about her design reads as aerial. Timar looks like she would be some kind of offensive caster, possibly control/debuff...hey I was close but would never have guessed the fire theme, would have gone for more of a hex/warp/corruption vibe, I expected her abilities to be purple. Sidenote Infernus is also carrying a tank of what one could assume is flammable substance. Okay I got nothing for Bazz, maybe some kind of dancer?...oh wow, okay I guess she is holding knives, but she hardly reads as a fighter or assassin so that's wild. Daw looks like he's holding a trap and would be slow, so I'm thinking engineer/defensive type...yeah medic is wild, could have put green red or white in the color scheme to sell that aspect. Anyway I assumed what he was holding was some kind of mine, that doesn't really look like a drone, and everything else is so bland that without that I would have assumed tank. Either way the size implies ponderous movement offset by high health and damage, incentivizing objective/chokepoint control, not running around as a Healer. You want your medic to be fast or at least standard speed and a small target. Okay Jabali HAS to be a sniper, if he's not he has to eat that hat. At least with him you always see him with the gun...wtf alright I'm taking that hat and pouring old mayonnaise on it so I can shove it down this moron's throat. If Teo isn't a standard soldier type with a grenade ability, well I guess that tracks since they can't seem to get anything right...whew Okay they got one right. Honorable mention to the soldier guy from First Descendant, he reads as a soldier without looking too generic, at least not as much as this guy. Emari is one of the most "iconic" characters in the game in that she is the poster child of why this games designs are ugly and terrible. At least she does what she looks like. And yeah, Vale is just generic. My favorite design I saw in another video was IT, the plucky, cute (for this game) green/teal chick with the tail. Her outfit was generic, but at least she gave the sense that somebody had fun designing her and she laughed and smiled when you pick her. Still nothing special though, just the one character I had the mildest criticisms of, just that she's wearing basically a white t-shirt and shorts. Edit: 16:35 why the heck did budget lizard Yondu go through all that trouble to shoot a bottle of hot sauce just to get it on one person? Was that supposed be cool? Edit2: Diversity isn't the problem, but enforced/poorly implemented diversity is part of it at least. People don't actually care about diversity as a negative, they care when diversity is used as a shield from criticism. Emari for example, is just an ugly character, the armor is ugly, her equipment is ugly and the piercings/hair are ugly. Her skin feels like it's there so that when people rightfully point out the she is an ugly character, they can use it as a gotcha, so I assume that's what people generally mean when they're complaining about "diversity." Edit3: sorry this is so long. Anyway, I don't think the "hero shooters are oversaturated argument" is a good argument, that dog don't hunt. Souls games are doing fine, Wukong is debatably a Souls game, and it is seeing much success, but you can't really argue that there aren't a lot of similar games. Mecha Break also looks promising in major genre. Not to mention Marvel Rivals looks like it will probably succeed, and you didn't even mention Valorant, which seems to be doing fine. If you make a good game, having a lot of competition isn't that bad.
The 'hero shooters are oversaturated' claim is valid because there's only so many people that want to play competitive multiplayer games, and narrow that down between to those that want to play a shooter instead of a MOBA or a fighting game or even MMO's. If you want something with realism then you have your Counterstrikes, Call of Duty, Battlefield. If you want something more cartoony, you have Overwatch, Paladins or Team Fortress 2. And even in-betweens, with your Apex, Fortnite, Valorant and a bunch of smaller games that float around in the atmosphere. I've never played it but I know Roblox has shooter game modes that I would have loved if I was younger. This is all one market (competitive FPS) that's split into their niches and this game is bringing nothing new to the table. There's not enough players to go around to keep it viable, players will get tired of fighting the same group of opponents and go on to something with more players, more varied personal playstyles which keeps things fresh.
Most multiplayer games demand a long-term commitment. Stuff like soulslikes still fall into the conventional idea of a finite campaign, where you play it, beat it and then go play something else. So that genre can handle more imitators, that can sell themselves on being more of the thing you already like.
@@Cptn_Fabulous I'm sure that being part of a saturated market is part of the problem, I'm just disputing how much to value that particular aspect in regards to the game failing. If Marvel Rivals does well, we'll know that was not the reason. I'll grant that Souls games are a bad example, but what about fighting games? Pretty saturated right now but it of the big names, only MK1 is really failing to retain players, and I would argue that it's success in the sales numbers is due to the strength of its predecessors. Since Concord is a new game, they don't have that going for them.
The fire wizard is a bad example of bad character design. I immediately thought of “evil wizard” when I saw the flowing but practical robes and ornate jewelry.
the issue though is that this is a primarily sci-fi game, so most people looking at them dont even consider that magic is even on the table. But even then I still think the more important aspect of the character is the fire powers which are completely neglected in the design
'Evil wizard' was my guess too, but it's an edge case because the visual cues indicate the wrong kind of wizard powers. I was expecting spooky shadow magic, so probably stealth or debuffs, or maybe summoning undead minions or something, not a pyromancer. And the trim isn't even red, it's pink!
It feels like whoever designed the characters made the biggest mistake of a character designer - they thought about the characters as if they are real people. It feels like they are all wearing something "practical in real life" or something that is usually shown at fashion shows.
Except when that idea is done well, it CAN look good. I've seen quite a lot of games where a characters design is practical to their setting or what they're doing. That is really not the case here at all, most of these look like first drafts that got made the final draft
It’s the weird mesh of (barely) practical combat gear with supersaturated clashing colours that completely kills any sense of appeal. Like if they’re in tactical gear but standing next to ugly bright green and orange it just makes the practical outfit look desaturated and bland while the colourful design looks hideously saturated.
Perfect example of art design vs graphics. The game can look awesome with 60pfs and ultra duper super definition, but with poor art design, it's just a poop in 4K. Great vid at explaining this.
Holy shit.. realistic graphic is not everything. I mean look at minecraft, show it to people who know jackshit about game and high chance they will say it's a game from 90s. And yet it's a more than decently popular games. 5-10 years ago realistic graphic might be an amazing thing, I mean how can a game looks so real? But nowdays it's not amazing anymore, a fuck ton of games looks realistic enough.
Concord seemingly wants to evoke retro-scifi but they were too afraid to fully embrace any of that inspiration. The red faced big guy and the robot seem like the only characters they didn't totally drop the ball with.
As an artist who draws from 12 years now this hurts my eyes. But at the same time it give me ideas to fix this characters. Like Rocket lady since she flies and has an helmet she can be a bat inspired esthetic. Like the wings could be like Phara that they jetpack. Or her wings are the weapon and she fly with shoes etc. That why I like overwatch and marvel designs they are pretty cool
oh yeah like something a lot of better characters do is tie in their weapons more closely into their abilities. If Roka had wings with rocket launchers built into them that'd be so much cooler than her just carrying a rocket launcher. And the fire wizard character could just shoot fire instead of using a weird mini crossbow thing
Another issue is that they made tanks fat instead of jacked or covered in armor while faster characters are thin and geeky looking. When you do manage to remember characters it’s basically because you hate how they look
I'm a concept designer for like a 2 dollar version of Homeworld. I designed ships, stations etc. One day I showed to my Art Director an improved version of a previous ship design. Literally a better version. I got reprimanded. I was giving them better anesthetics. And I was reprimanded. The day before I was sacked. My art director told me it's all about the money. After 2 yrs, the game is still in Beta mode. I worked on that project for 7 yrs.
8:07 My first impression assumption: Glass canon. Large rocket launcher, skin-tight armor, large glass visor, and a bit of added armor on her left leg to protect her when she's kneeling down. I imagine she is a heavy hitter with low armor/health that gains a defensive bonus when crouched to encourage a sort of mobile turret emplacement style of gameplay. I'll edit when you explain her role with EDIT: Yeah you didn't address how much armor or health she has. The leg armor I guess is meant to protect her in the air, and the space suit looking design I suppose is supposed to evoke a 0-G kind of vibe to imply her flight, but all of this logic is not the intuitive one. Leg armor makes me think you're using your legs more, not less, such as with birds who have no feathers on their skinny legs to they can tuck them away and hide them all while reducing body weight. Intuitively thickened legs means stronger walking.
11:12 for "Hey Marge" My impression is: The loos fitting flowing armor means lots of movement, and the sort of Buddhist monk like prayer beads as a belt tells me a sort of monk-like gameplay which could be magic mysticism or healing but is usually martial arts or even ninja-like gameplay like in D&D. There's some king of gismo on her belt, though, which honestly evokes the Breath of the Wild Sheikah slate for me more than a regular tablet PC, or maybe a personal energy shield emitter from Star Wars? So yeah everything is pointing toward agile mystic if I had to guess. Maybe summoning spiritual weapons or something while also having a fast and effective melee combat skill set? Mystics + agile also evokes an idea of summoning magic platforms that allow for a double jump like any monk/ninja could only dream of, so maybe some of that too. Again, I'll edit below after hearing the true answer. Oh! A fire wizard. Mysticism for sure, and the clothes I suppose are like a wizard firefighter outfit, but most of all it's Azula! They copy/pasted Azula's silhouette for their fire wizard. Makes sense, actually, and I wasn't too far off. I just expected more martial arts and mysticism than straight "Everything is fire" style of gameplay. And actually Azula did do a lot of martial arts being a Bender in Avatar: The Last Airbender and all, so the style actually makse even more sense if you consider that.
As for the color scheme, I'm pretty sure it's pride flag references. Some more vague than others. Except they made it pastel, which is really one of the worst things about their styles since it makes them feel washed out and bland. All that color being faded feels like the ocean having all that water and it all being bad to drink.
I only heard about this game because of the terrible release. You're right on the money for why the designs failed. I find it funny that someone who isn't even an artist can tell exactly what's wrong artistically and how to improve it. That says a lot about their lack of thought, what a shame. Great video!
I feel that the non-conforming character design is intentional. It's either that they believe that the state of technology would become so advanced, traditional symbolism such as Pharah's bird like design either fell out of fashion or does not exist in their universe. They probably want to convey that their rules in their universe is different and non-conforming from what we have here on earth. If we are to give in to the culture war narrative, the game designers probably want to break the "design stereotype" too, much like how women should not be expected to dress up as feminine, or men to be dressedcl up as manly. They probably want designs to be unexpectedly neutral. The tech had become so advanced that they do not need visible rockets for their thrusters. They're so non-conforming that they don't want earth based visual cues to hint their abilities.
I'm sure it was intentional, the problem they've run into is that their intentional choice has not resonated with anyone because consciously rejecting Earth's design language means nobody on Earth enjoys it.
Oooooooh, and that's even compared to the fact that Battleborn was directly competing against Overwatch on release. Also, I think the gaming community is just burnt out on hero shooters now
I think what also adds to the "feel it but couldn't describe it" nature is how every bitof its presentation is thoroughly "corporate" and contributing to that is how theres little indication it does anything that other hero shooters on the (very saturated) market don't already do. I do think its funny how this game failed so much harder and faster than battleborn and lawbreakers
Vale rubs me the wrong way because the character just screams some snobby executive went “I sure love going to my resort in Vale to ski while the peasants are locked out, let’s make a character after my favorite vacation spot”.
Ps5 wasn’t doing any better. A trophy tracking website was used to get the count players that earned the easiest trophy. The count: roughly 1100 people (if memory serves). The trophy in question: get your first kill.
hopefully they are not this stupid, but its possible that the character designs are bad on purpose because they want to sell you better costumes for them which actually make them look good. the problem with this "genius" marketing strategy is that the stock look of your characters needs to be good for people to want to buy costumes for them, or even play the game in the first place.
yeah maybe. Ideally when you're dealing with these kinds of cosmetics, you want to make the character's overall basic design elements as iconic as possible so that even if you change the colors and certain aspects of their design, you still preserve their important mechanical aspects. Even if you give Soldier 76 that grill dad skin or use the Witch Mercy skin, they still resemble their iconic looks and maintains their key iconic elements. But these characters are so generalized without any interesting elements that I can't even imagine their skins doing much to fix things
I really doubt that's the case, but tanking the entire game for trying to incentivize skin sales would be so fucking funny that I really like the theory.
I saw some screenshots of the game and its cosmetics and it ain't much better. Seriously one of the legendary skins is just the same character but with a slightly different outfit and a hat. Nothing fantastical or outstanding about it. Seriously it's just insane to me how even the skins are bland and uninteresting
1:35 It's been hardly marketed in ways that matter, the first time I learned of Concord was through a recommended video of someone predicting how the game will be DoA when it comes out, and turns out they were right. I see many other people who are only just now finding out about it due to its notoriety, the controversy and criticisms gave the game way more publicity than Sony's marketing ever did.
![[FULL EP.73] เปิดบ้าน 70 ล้าน "แป้ง Zbing" ยกมาทั้งญี่ปุ่น l เคหสถานบานปลาย l One Playground](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YBnJhTt07Pg/mqdefault.jpg)
It's really funny how this game became a case study about what NOT to do when making appealing character designs.
Certainly something to be made an example out of in future character design and color theory classes.
This game probably will become easy reason of bad design in class design.
Tell that to the Concord artists who's bold claim that these designs were made with "passion and love" on their Twitter. I highly doubt the credibility of that claim.
@@ericfrancisco6615of course they're made with passion and love. They modeled the characters after themselves!
The designs didn't necessarily ruin the game, but the game is just a inferior product at a higher price. It can't compete with other hero shooters in the market.
The character designs and political messaging is basically like... whatever the negative version of icing on the cake is.
It's a bad thing on an already bad game, and at a bad price.
Concord looks like a live-action Netflix adaptation of itself.
This is actually so on point. These designs clearly look like they were made for tv, not for games. It's not just realism, it's a toned down, mute kind of realism that we would see in TV to cut costs.
💀💀💀💀
It's what happens when every Triple-A game tries overly hard to look like a Hollywood movie, especially since these games are largely made for investors and shareholders who don't even play video games because they're 70+ year old boomers who still think video games are stuff like Pac-Man and Galaga because they think anything more "realistic" somehow causes real world violence.
diabolical roast
💀✋
That Pharah comparison really hit the nail on the head. A person who flies should look like it. Pharah looks like a bird, with wings and a jetpack. Echo looks like a moth. Mercy has angel wings. Juno is wearing a full astronaut suit with massive boots on to fly with. There is nothing in the concord character that even comes close to being something recognizable to someone whos never seen them before. Its common knowledge that birds and angels fly. Not rocks with a smear of read on them.
I mean, heck, if they wanted to make a character that can fly but forego giving them wings, they could have used Sigma as an example! A character that can fly/float because they can distort and control gravity! It's crazy how easy it is to base a character around a theme, but this game just...legitimately couldn't be bothered.
I will take even a jet pack if they still wanna go for something so BORING. But hey what the heck do I know about comunicating a playstyle via character design.
I mean the soldier and scout from tf2 don’t really have anything additional to convey that they have air mobility other than their body structure and weapon.
@@maidframe Aerial combat isn't exactly core to their (stock) kit, more of an extension of the in-game tools that allow for it
The characters radiate this "ultrarealistic mario" energy that is so uncanny to me, its like they are cosplaying characters that dont exist
NINTENDO
HIRE THIS MAN
Perfect description
@@Zeonis HE'S USING UNREAL ENGINE
IN ANY WAY HE CAN!
Exactly. I fell like they never made a decision on which direction the art was going in. Cartoons? Realistic? Why not both?
That's why I think the problem lies in the art style, not the design themselves.
Maybe if the graphics was more cartoony it would've fit. But no, they had to make it realistic
the lizard guy looks exactly like someone said "what if we made Yondu a green lizard?" and stopped thinking.
And the rocket girl was like a first attempt at a female doomslayer.
"Eventually, the developers stopped thinking."
Also being afraid to give aliens(?) non-human faces
It's one of my biggest pet peeves when alien designs follow the idea of "a human but green!" "a human but with animal ears!" "a human but big!". It's just boring.
@A3319
My thoughts exactly. If they had the faces look more cartoony looking. It would have worked better. The Green alien dude works except for his weird ass face....
The issue that I noticed watching this video is that in Overwatch all the characters look and feel like the main character of their own story, meanwhile in Concord, they ALL look like side characters. They are all like Yamcha from DBZ.
That's an insult to Yamcha. Despite being demoted to a side character shortly after debuting, he actually had his own arc, memorable dialogues, a cool character design with an actual personality and a solid identity in the series. He's a good side character.
These concord characters feel like the side characters who support the supporting characters of their own reality, and even then they do a piss poor job at that and just take up space and screen time that would've been spent showing literally anything else 😂
TL;DR you can meme Yamcha for being boring and useless, and that's actually memorable. But concord characters won't even make it into the memes!
Don't do Yamaha dirty, or ruin Toriyama's legacy by comparing this trash to Yamcha. Yamcha's design is objectively memorable with his many scars and odd hair. He is like the ONLY Z FIGHTER with scars😅. Yamcha gets sidelined not because of his design but because of his lack of agency in the Dragon Ball series, in-fact people, REMEMBER TO WEEP FOR YAMCHA, because he looks cool but is so sadly useless. Funny enough these characters are USEFUL in their series but so repulsive you do not even want to see how useful they can be!
Nah. It's literally just Tracer. That game is also dead if she doesn't exist. 😂
Yamcha catching strays for free
When the rule 34 artist don't want to use your character models, you know you've made something ugly.
I have no words. This is by far the best and most hard-hitting insult I’ve ever heard.
Some of them are gonna be that. The alien chick with a tail might make it in.
@@mariawhite7337 honestly I"ve seen way worse on rule34.
@@mariawhite7337 There are probably a couple of Furries on the dev team, so that's why she is one of the few kind of cute characters in the game.
@@sheik_link yeah the Ramona rip-off girl is not that bad looking compare to the rest.
one of the things I absolutely hate about Concord's character design direction is that they look like bad live action adaptations of a potentially better cartoony/stylized design.
The game looks like a cartoon, though. The colors are way too plentiful to be considered realistic for a shooter
Exactly. They have that Polar Express hyper-realistic appearance and its super uncanny
@matthewmosier8439
Hate to tell you this but, all video games are cartoons.
This is a very neat summary 👍
Yeah like a really bad cosplay.
Concord’s characters are like the game. Poofy and balloony with no sharp corners and only inoffensive pastel colors. Character designs straight out of Corporate promotional art.
You're so absolutely right, I was about to say that.
They feel so clean and sleek and dull like a regular office work. Not a peek or personality or detail that would say something about the characters, and when they try it feels like a costume
The art feels like screencaps from a 3D Modelling student making their final project. Just make it look good enough so the teacher can see the creases of the clothes but that's it
if they had gone all the way and made Corporate Memphis: The Game that would have at least been out of pocket and weird enough to talk about for longer than two weeks
Unironically, the character design in Concord looks like someone hit the 'Randomize' button 3 times in a character customization menu and then just saved the result.
It’s like they used the warframe randomizer took then used the most biege and hideous colors ever then never put on a single accessory or notable skin then just left it like that
That's the best description yet 😂
I mean... they clearly used metahuman character creator to create them so... that may be entirely possible :')
More like Randomized AI Character, I think...
Idk, I think that's giving it too much credit. At least when you hit random you'll probably get a much more colourful result (for better or for worse).
I cannot emphasize how vital Overwatch's characters were to the game's success. Overwatch's characters are integral to every aspect of it's success and it's why so many people keep going back to it years later.
Yeah like not to mention that despite Overwatch having a more cartoony artstyle, a lot of their characters look a lot more functional than these characters do. People actually wear armor and have aspects of their designs that help justify their abilities. And then people in Concord look like they just grabbed some random clothes and went out to go fight.
Plus overwatch also pulled on a lot of superhero tropes, making their characters look aspirational so that people would not only be able to tell what they do based on their outfit, but also in some sense want to *be* that character and do what they do in the same way that people wanna be like Superman or Spiderman and whatnot. And that helps drive sales
Yeah... The characters...
The super power Blizzard has or had to make charismatic characters is over 9000, same level to f up their game sadly.
lefties are porn addicts. that's why overwatch was successfull
yea..also why source filmmaker got so many downloads after its release
Artist here: If they leaned heavier into the "Spaceman" thing with Roka that would've fit with the fact that they fly(like a rocket) and the fact that they can slam into the ground(like a meteor). Instead, though, it felt like they didnt want to commit too hard so we get this weird...pseudo-spaceman that looks like an Olympic swimmer put on a space helmet.
i was just thinking this im so glad someone else thinks so. Roka could have had some cool 60s retro astronaut look, or something like Uraraka's design from MHA (esp with her gravity quirk kind of being spacey) . lowkey want to redesign all the characters now
Soldier 76 looks like a future warrior, Teo looks like he's wearing second hand football pads.
Teo looks like he's ready for a paintball or airsoft match.
He looks like he wanted to do a TRON cosplay but gave up 1/3 of the way through
He looks like he auditioned to be in starfield on a budget. And starfield’s visual design isn’t even that great to begin with
I've NEVER played overwatch, I've only watched snippets, but when you mention SOLDIER 76, I look at the roster and can safely guess who is the soldier guy.
Teo looks like a Colonial Marine cosplay (Aliens) made on a budget of $20...
Concord : if I asked an AI to generate a hero shooter with color scheme of literal animal defecation
ngl, this game's art does feel like what would happen if you asked an AI to make characters for a game. You know, on account of the fact that as I've already demonstrated before, GAI is incapable of actually understanding the fundamental meaning of anything it does or says
To be fair, I think AI would have done a better job...
@@MahouShoujoTomato maybe not a better job but the designs could have been more interesting.
@@jacobnoelle8428 Yeah, it could have at least given them some better ideas to go off of.
This is what happens when you hire agenda driven skill less hacks to make characters, they don’t care about what’s good they just care about what they themselves like.
I think another big factor is the seemingly nonsense names. Like I can barely remember a single name mentioned other than Teo because that’s a real name that exists, the rest sounds like baby babble.
Additionally they say nothing about the characters, which you see everywhere in gaming.
• Heavy? Big guy, big weapons, heavy weapons expert.
• Sombra? Spanish for shadow = Spanish speaking stealth character.
• Winston? A smart guy. Put on a gorilla? That’s a smart Gorilla!
• Phoenix? Fire character that can revive himself.
• Jinx? A crazy character who revels in chaos.
Compared with:
• Roka? Idk a rock person? Some sort of tank? An alien?
• Daws? Jaws like a shark? Or maybe someone who’s chill?
• Teo…? A… guy?
They just fall completely flat.
Roka because of her rokat boots I guess
Compare this to the Japanese culture where they spend millions of years trying to decide the name of any new character, be it novel, manga, video games or in real life 😂 that's just how much effort they put into crafting the soul of each individual and their connection to the world around them, fictional or not. Names with actual meaning and implies great depth that helps portray or convey something about the characters and their stories are always more interesting to learn about.
But we don't even have to go that deep. A little bit of MMO roleplaying on throw-away accounts I've made over the years even produced much more memorable names than these. My hecking Sims characters that were made just to be experimented upon or trapped in an underground pool had better names than these. The people who "designed" these characters had worse naming sense than fking ChatGPT. 😂
On that note, let's not even get started on the name "concord." I'm not a native English speaker but wtf does that even mean? I don't care about what it means so don't actually tell me, but the only reason I've managed to remember that word is because I've seen people repeat it enough. It's so bland and uncharacteristically immediately forgettable. It sounds like a word you'd see in normal everyday life but you never actually use because there're a million better alternatives that are more fun to say 😂
Roka because of her rocket...I think? Like, what do you call an female rocket? Roka? Rocketa?
You're not wrong he is just a guy
@@vb1280 MISSile lmao
9:58 My sibling commented "she could be modelled after an insect, like a housefly" and I can't help but think that, yeah, insect wings would 100% redeem the design. Flying characters ARE annoyingly agile at times, lean into that!
That’s brilliant, the red window of her helmet totally looks like it could be a fly’s eye. Adding the whole “annoying insect” idea to her character gives her personality too, like a sort of mischievous vibe. Man, so many missed opportunities…
lol see how easy that was to improve the design? and they spent years on this game, and no one thought to try that idea out?
I hope your sibling is an artist or picks up illustration cause that is genius
@@TheGeckoNinja
They're too busy to please their tester (lgbtq, sjw, feminazi, etc), now they see the end of the road after insult their customers.
@@TheGeckoNinja I feel like nobody gave anyone the money to think about that. They probably hired 3D artists and just told them to model their generic OCs without an art direction.
Looking at Daw at first glance, I would've never known that he was a medic. Nothing about his design screams "Medic"; he's just a guy in a blue jacket.
A very heavy guy in a blue jacket, you could say.
Which if it were a real life medic, would actually be a massive functional problem.
A white jacket with a red cross would easily fix that
@@someguyontheinternet2399a Red Cross ANYWHERE could’ve helped him.
Daw's a medic? I thought he was a Discord mod
Concord looks like a fake game that you might see see the annoyed teenager character playing in a movie.
This game broke rule 34...
Let that sink in
When the internet don’t want to sexualize them you know you done fuck up.Compare to Juno from Overwatch 2 who have much better design have rule 34 art of her in matter of hours before she even release officially to the game
Rule 34 is a meme anyway.
@@MagcargoMan memes reflect on reality
To the devs it means they succeeded. They want to avoid the male gaze after all.
Not even public transportation, not even garbage cans, have avoided rule 34… and now I need some bleach and therapy. Somehow there’s p-n of trash cans but not these characters? I don’t even know what to say. That’s just… that’s just not possible.
It's not that the characters are diverse. It's that they are boring, ugly, and completely forgettable.
They have zero charisma about them.
The tf2 heavy has so much charm about him which makes him so iconic.
Reaper goes all in with the edgy appearance and it's endearing.
Concord characters look like extras from guardians of the galaxy.
Aaaaaand also some gamer gate 2 moments here, they not just ugly, they purposely ugly
Yeah Overwatch has a really diverse cast but the characters are actually appealing
Absolutely agree, they have the androgynous male mushroom alien and old woman named "Duchess" both concepts that could make a very interesting characters YET both designs are so unbelievably boring like how you mess up such an easy ideas for fun character design like this?
In fact, the popular understanding of the term diversity is exactly the opposite of what it actually means. Diversity implies differences, real life-impacting difference, not just the texture of your skin. Pitch Black with Vin Diesel was diverse because it featured Muslim characters that actually worshipped Allah. Today's entertainment just puts a scarf around the head of a white SF college student, paints her dark or black and calls her diverse.
"She's holding a giant rocket launcher. So what kind of stealth character does that?"
Venom Snake: Well Shit
It's technically still stealthy if you merc everyone at once 🤓☝️
They’re called Sappers.
Get me my GEP gun.
The photorealism of this game really sets it back artistically. The characters look like Gucci or YSL models given guns and left to wander on nondescript space rocks.
Honestly stfu the photorealism has nothing to do with it god you guys are pathetic
Stylized is almost always superior and holds up through time!
I'm not sure how great of models they'd even be!
Yeah so many of them just look like actors in costumes rather than actual characters.
Actually you nailed it. It feels like the characters were designed by a costume/fashion designer rather than an actual character designer.
My dude over here straight up looking like an iguana in a life jacket definitely aint helping
Ironically, that goofy design probably makes him the most visually interesting and memorable character in the game. It might not be a good design (because I still don't have any clue what his gameplay style might be), but at least it's not bland.
@AlteredNova04 idk man, he looked like a character from Guardians of the Galaxy to me. No joke I saw him and thought he was from a new Guardians of the Galaxy game before learning what Concord was.
If he looked more like an actual iguana it would be a significant improvement
@@TheGallantDrakeHa. Nice to know that it wasn't just me who felt that way. I imagine that's doubtless what the clueless execs that got this game stuck in development for 8 years intended.
A hyperrealistic artstyle severely limits character design when it comes to the availabe shape language. It's like writing without using the letter E.
While that works great for grounded works, like military shooters for example, hero shooters need their heroes to stand out and be as distinct from each other as possible.
Not to mention it tends to age better
Even a "realistic" military hero shooter like Siege still incoporates gimmick design so that the characters dont look bland. Jackal is character that uses tracking visor helmet to locate enemies footprints, and almost all of his animation or artwork will emphasize or put highlights on his helmet because thats his quirk. A lot of other characters are designed like this too. Putting a subtle touch on their quirks and abilities but not too obvious to the point it becomes pushy
"Why shouldn't art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world" - Pierre-Auguste Renoir
I think ugly art has it's place, but like all art it's got to be working towards a goal. These characters want to be liked the same way the characters from overwatch want to be liked. But the designs just don't work. I don't actually think they're ugly. Just not very exciting.
Even ugliness in art is welcome if it is used for a purpose, or if the ugliness says something relevant about the piece's message or if it contributes to the feelings and thoughts it aims to evoke. Heroes in a hero shooter should be attractive to the player. They should make the player resonate with them and want to pick them as class. They should be appealing not just in aesthetics but also in their personality, and all such attributes should be reflected on the character's role in the game. The healer should look like and behave like someone who's a healer, and so on.
It's almost as if they saw the masterclass in design that is/was TF2 and other games and decided to throw it all in the trash for the sake of pushing their character designs for their designs' sake, not for what they would do to improve or enhance the experience.
@@Jared-gx1dpthat's the issue. The art in Concord wasn't made for any of artistic expression, it was made to meet quarterly income statements. It's not that it's unpleasant, it's that it doesn't say ANYTHING at all.
@@Jared-gx1dp its place.
Common catholic W
The lack of artistic stylization makes the characters look like cosplayers at a sci-fi conventation. On a graphical level, the game actually looks great. However, their push towards realism instead of stylization does more harm than good.
Ah just got to the part where he talks about the realism lol
Except Cosplayers can do a much better Job than this
Realism could work too but they seem to not lean more into it enough
Utility point and some cool engineer feels give more charm
But too bad they didn't lean into anything enough
Good graphics is kind of a downside in this case, lets you see how awful the characters are in greater detail
The game, besides the characters looks insane hood especially with style and design.
"Take this _lizard guy_ for example..."
HE'S SUPPOSED TO BE A LIZARD???? I THOUGHT HE WAS A *TREE,* those looked like bark and branches to me
I didn't even notice the scales, I just thought he was green
Me too dude, all of these characters have this problem they don't look like what they were supposed to be, they look like a vague and boring version of themselves @@callmecharlie4250
I thought he was just a spikey guy lol
Ithought he was a dragón because how much he liked the Hot sauce in that scene
Cactus
2:30 simple to point out;
1. Boring designs
2. Conflicting designs
3. Ugly designs
and 4. a lack of personality to the designs, not even an issue of just boring
don't forget, insulting gamer for not buying this shit (yes that is also won't be good too)
Anti aesthetics and dysfunctional design. Cornerstone of ZentraDei design. Purposeless and ugly.
Still cannot believe they made a main character's entire personality about liking hot sauce.
@@maximedorion9244 wait WHAT!
@@maximedorion9244 as Mexican, I felt insulted
Yeah the designs are bad but I think what really kills this game is that it enters its genre at least 5 years too late, does NOTHING new or interesting within that genre and then has the gall to charge 40€ upfront when its competitors are free. It’s like they never asked themselves during the 7 years development how they could stand out in this very competitive market.
It reminds of me of what was said about Anthem. Apparently during development of that game comparisons to their competitors like Warframe and Destiny was not allowed. Something similar could have happened. Some people have "well that is them and we are different" sort of attitude.
Meh. Multiplayer shooters are eternal. This one just sucks in a handful of key ways.
Mario is a fat, middle aged, short king, Italian American plumber. Which on paper is like the worst thing ever. But every detail was created to complement game design. The mustache, the red and blue overall. All of that was to make the character readble and to have it pop.
If you think about it he's character design would be considered insane because everything about him was influenced by game design requirement with no regard to realism.
I think a factor that also helps make mario appealing is how "cute" he's drawn and depicted in games when the graphics improved overtime.
"Short king"?
It's even funnier when you think how badly it's gotta hurt seeing people rather play as a monkey than any one of their characters.
To be fair though. That monkey is looks cool and does cool things.
That's because the nature of Monkey is irrepressible!
For a second I thought you were referring to Winston from Overwatch. And it made me think: there are genuinely way more people playing as Winston right now than playing Concord.
@@EmperorSigismundMust get my DVD box set out and watch again 😎
@@MicrobiusBlue I haven't seen that show in 20 years but I'll NEVER get that theme song out of my head.
Art direction is critical in a game like that, because the hero game shooter is not a growing space and was extremely saturated years ago, anyone who is interested in playing a hero shooter right now is playing one, so asking to play your game should also mean giving reason to stop playing overwatch or TF2 or whatever hero shooter.
This is the same tale of lawbreakers
ah yes, "The Dark Souls of Shooters" lol. Yeah I recall that game having a fairly uninteresting art style as well despite some cool looking mechanics
I have been trying to remember the name Lawbreakers for DAYS to describe Concord lol... Which says A Lot
Yup, i brough that game, lol
The gameplay actually solid. Fast paced and more agile, but in character design they are not interisting enough, every Hero looks the same
😂 this games characters look too realistic to have such goofy stylized outfits. There’s literally a Chinese auntie in a purple p1mpsuit & a guy that looks like he lost at lasertag & then went to Jazzercize & has only 1 shoulderpad
Every character in this game looks like a cosplay version of the real thing
Yes, the irony is that the strive towards realism actually made it even more like bad cosplay
Except Cosplayers do a better job
Those fat cosplay guys, "morbidly" obese posing like Duke Nukem and wearing a blond wig. Obviously making "war battles" noises like "whaaaaa" and showing two mozzarellas for biceps. That's the level.
Actually I think it is related to the diversity but not in the fact that the characters are diverse. It’s the mindset that went into them being diverse. The devs wanted to subvert and break rules that other games laid down. That’s why the colour pallets are weird and the characters don’t tell you what they are at a glance. They broke rules that they didn’t understand the reason for. They decided to be subversive but forgot to be practical.
A classic Chesterton's Fence you mean? All the devs saw was, the "stereotypes is Xyz so to subvert expectations were going to go with Qb3!" And then being angry that no one understands their "clever subversion" even after we explain that xyz flows in a known pattern and we can't make sense of their logic.
Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it. You can't properly subvert what you don't understand.
People keep bringing up Overwatch like it's a counter-point to this diversity nonsense, without realizing that Overwatch is not at all "diverse" in the same way. The DEI mindset exists for the purpose you mentioned, to combat stereotypes. Guess what Overwatch does? Nearly every character on release reinforces some sort of stereotype.
Subversion for the sake of subversion, how subversive!
@cordlc right, but notice how people who were represented by said stereotypes generally didn't mind? The characters had reasons for being the way they were.
I'm just in awe of how catastrophic this game failed. Every aspect of this case boggles the mind.
It really is an unprecedented level of failure
Apparently it was stylized but they ended up giving it the Sony realism treatment which made the characters look like bad cosplayers
I think this game was like this before Sony bought them
Tbh I doubt that at least not in the mid development process. That would demand too much redo.
To be fair, no level of 'art direction' could save the deeply rooted issues here...
Oh no, it got the Fuse treatment
Where’d you hear that
The designs really are baffling. I'll humour what you asked I tried to have a guess at what role Haymar played in the game. Keep in mind I am going in blind, but have an advantage in studying visual communication.
My first thoughts were that she was some kind of ninja inspired assassin. Her colour pallet is fairly muted, with grey making up the majority. The little splashes of colours in the dark scarlets and gold draw the eye away from the face, so there does not seem to be a single focal point in her design.
The materials of the cloths seemed to reinforce my assumption she was some kind of stealth character due to the matte materials.
This is a character who does not seem to want to be noticed. The clothing is fairly plain looking, and aside from the very basic golden beads, is not very pragmatic, lacking visible pockets.
Her hair appears to be done up at the back but parted at the front, and flowing down either side of her cheeks, framing her face like a hood would. Essentially obscuring it from any angle except the front. This is a fairly common style for evoking someone who is aloof, but active. Think female assassins or action heroines who are athletic.
All in all, they seem like someone who is well suited to disappear into the shadows, drawing weapons only when close enough from concealment (from where I do not know).
Gameplay wise she communicates having an average, if not slightly slender hit box. This would stay in line with the idea that she is focused on speed to close the gap. The lack of armour suggests that she has very low health mixed with the clothing looking slightly like gambeson makes me think she is melee focuses. However, I would not be surprised if she had some ranged weapon based on throwing knives or blades or perhaps a quiet weapon like a crossbow.
__________________________________________
Well, I gotta say I was not expecting a fireball throwing sorcerer, but at least I kinda guessed the crossbow...eh that's a stretch.
It feels like the designers were too afraid to lean into the motifs most associated with each character. As if being anything like the stereotype was a bad thing. Being a fire mage and having something fire related, whether by colours, or visual effects or even giving her a burning staff would have been a good move. Stereotypes exist for a reason, leaning into them doesn't mean you have to be bound by them.
Take the Pyro from TF2. His deal is the flamethrower, which is his character is modelled in mind with, like some sort of barbaric instrument of metal coming out of his hands (because it is). Subtle design ques like the fact that his fire suit is meant to subliminally conger the mental image of a flame in your head. The bright red of his suit shows through near his head and shoulders, but is covered by ash and burnt grim the further down you go, creating a colour gradient similar to a flame.
These are just basic things far smarter people than me have thought of when trying to convey an idea visually.
Finally, it's worth mentioning but, the last thing they needed was developers pouring fuel onto their own fire and burning what little good will they had left.
I thought it was melee character since she has clothes similiar to medieval Europe meshed with Asian clothes. The sleeves being so high would help in CQC as so that her opponents dont use them against her. The leather sleeves looked a bit like generic fantasy bracers a bit. That or she looked like from high society. That would be the only thing that would even hint to a Sorcerer IMO.
"As if being anything like the stereotype was a bad thing"
RIGHT on the money. Feels like almost every design comes off as trying too hard to subvert stereotypes which leads to absolutely no visual clarity, cohesion and a mishmash of bland ideas... seemingly almost AI generated lol.
I thought she'd be a melee swordswoman. Expected her to pull up with a Katana.
My question is what does the woman with the glass box on her head do? All I can think of is that she reminds me of Space Cadet from Paradigm so my only guess is that she snorts lots of space dust.
You got me.with the ending fire puns hahaha
Based on Haymar's character design, and the lack of visible weapon, I would guess she can....
Pull out a red lightsaber and do force pushes
It's like they purposely made it as ugly as humanly possible.
They made them like the humans are all ugly and fat.
That award goes to 'Cruelty Squad'. This just sucks because the peeps in charge had no clue what they were doing😅
The green man is genuinely horrible
They did it on purpose, so nobody will be offended
its a woke game so of course thats what they did. got to make everything ugly and unrelatable. thats what the woke crowd wants.
Guesses for 'Rocka' based on design.
Helmet looks like an astronaut's
Body suit implies high mobility
Red visor suggests danger
Rocket launcher suggests high damage
The character looks like a high mobility dps.
Pretty spot on for role but nothing about the design suggests flight or conveys how slow they actually move.
Guesses for 'Heymar?' based on design.
Cloth instead of armour suggests they're not frontline
Pink is a very non threatening colour
The character looks like a backline support
How the fuck is that a fire wizard, the trim's pink not red. Orange trim with flame paterns would have been mich better
Yea, I'm kinda surprised that Rokka's design seems pretty decent as telling what she is, though at the same time the Rocket Launcher does so much of the heavy lifting for it. Though my first instinct was specifically "Rocket Jumper" thinking like TF2 soldier but then thought about things like Pharah and Dragoz
They could have just made the flames pink! It would have been a way to set the character apart. Look at the less lethal pyromancer from Tactical Breach Wizards, kinda generic compared to the other designs in that game, but green fire makes him still stand out
@@aquamarinerose5405 I was guessing something like TF2 soldier as well. They should have given roka wings if she was gonna play like pharah
@@the_senate8050That'd be cool. I'd go a step further and instead of just shooting pink flames it could be something like fiery pink butterflies with unique mechanics like chasing people down or surrounding them like a shield, then have the rest of her outfit reflect that theme. Right now she looks more like a monk than anything else, never would have guessed she's an offensive caster.
My first thought for the second one was she's dark colored, light armored, and her outfit is very oriental styled with the red trim and gold beads, so I assumed she was a ninja type character like genji
People are overthinking this. The reason concord failed is because it's exactly like every other free to play overwatch clone except you have to pay for this one.
It combines all of the shittiest parts of every hero shooter before it
What people like and wear says a lot about them. I don't get the sense that the characters dressed themselves... if that makes sense.
they all look like mainstream actors wearing makeup and costumes.
That explains it nicely.
A lot of JRPGs have this issue
We live in a world where there are people who believe that fashion doesn't exist and beauty is completely subjective. This game is what happens when those people are allowed to design characters
art director really dropped the fucking ball here. amazing how only a couple guys can bomb a whole game
I refuse to believe this game had any art direction.
The fate of any direction following design by committee.
Those allergic to any leadership face this inevitable outcome.
Big companies and directors surrounded by yes-men is so toxic. I can already see the whole art department surrounded by toxic positivity
All it takes is one person.
Succeed if their goal was most boring real life presentation lmao
This looks like a movie tie-in without a movie
"What kind of a stealth character has a rocket launcher?"
//flashbacks to Soi-Fon.
Yeah, that was my immediate thought too hahaha.
Bleach its "idiotic"
The rule of cool supersedes any other rule, on bleach, even the rule of "this doesnt make sense" is secondary to "cool colors make my characters feel powerfull"
A stealth bomber, that's what. Now there is a starting design point for a stealth character with a rocket launcher.
@@christiangonzalez6945 Hey. Don't you diss Bleach.
Sure, it's trash, but it's MY trash.
@@EmperorSigismund That's... Actually a good point.
Concord character design is like background character trying to be main character and fail
They're like the tryhard squad the mc's party met in EP1 that get killed off by the first arc villain's minions to set up the tone of the series.
@@sayospecter6731It's a bot
@@sayospecter6731 Vox Machina
The characters look like background characters in a bar scene (or any public area) from the Guardians of the Galaxy .
Their character direction tried so hard to brake the mold that they failed to register into people's minds.
What is the first thing that makes you want to play a game? News flash its not the gameplay. Its the draw and appeal and thats how it looks and feels. Overwatch was hype as shit due to its characters, not its gameplay but the gameplay was good and kept people invested. Concord looks like shit but i bet it plays fine but i wont risk 60 dollars.
The cover draws you in. The gameplay keeps you there. It's not a book, the visual are a Big part to games.
Games are first and foremost a Visual medium.
I feel like the fire wizard character just needed to have more obvious fire symbolism what she’s wearing kinda looks wizard-like if subtle, it just needs to have more ember-like colours and for the character card to actually show the weapon and element gimmick. A lot of these characters would have benefited massively from someone who actually understands colours and how they can communicate things to an audience. My first thought when I saw Concord characters was that the artists were some form of colour blind.
The first thing is hearing about it existing. You can't get a thing if you don't know it exists.
The first time I heard of this game was a "Fewer than 100 concurrent users on Steam" article.
I wanted to play Hi-Fi Rush before I even knew it was a rhythm-based character action game simply because the art style and character design were so good.
@@noonenowhere877 The Colorists for this game is horrible.
It's almost all Cyan, Purple, and Beige. , on pretty much everyone. like wtf.
18:08 Blue and gold is also a combination used a lot in classical Egyptian art so it also helps convey her Egyptian heritage.
people found the animation teasers and they look so much better
its clear the game wanted to have a 70s scifi or french comic vibe but sony force them to go hyper realism
Nailed it on the head the designs look like they were going for a Moebius style but were held back to appeal towards the warzone demographic
@@fithianmt7468Pity. I think that it would have had a better chance if they were able to have a more stylized design instead of what they used.
How funny it is that some dude who is NOT an artist KNOWS some basic character design rules, while the literal artists they hired seems to just ignored everything they know and just made a visual mess.
like I said, I don't gotta be a chef to tell you when the food tastes bad lol
Tho do remember, I doubt that many of these choices were made by the artists themselves. If there's anyone to blame, it's the art director and the other higher ups for telling them to draw the characters this way and then not consulting or listening to anyone else.
The last thing I wanna do is put down the random devs just trying to work their 9-5. 99 times out of 100 these issues are a problem with project management
@@BlazeMakesGames I hope you are right mate. But if I was an artist there, I would think twice before I put Concord on my resume for my next job 🤣🤣🤣
@@alexforce9 as an artist who worked in creative field for decade i had multiple situations when i did something really great but my incompetent boss/commissioner just straight forward told me to "fix" thing to their own liking making my whole work so much worse. And i did it (otherwise i won't have money) but it happens in this type of workplace all the time. Sometimes hire-ups have just bad awful vision employees can't do anything nothing about it.
@@koshetz I feel you. I just wonder where is the art director in all this to be the middleman between the artists and the business people.
@@alexforce9 mostly depends if boss is willing to cooperate/listen to the team (which is sadly rare) or at least lead artist (which is more common) but sadly some people are just out of touch. 😅
But if you are freelancer there's basically nothing you can do, because all of freelance is either making things commissioner likes or possibly not being hired by them again. It is what it is.
11:38 i was like alr he's exaggerating a little bit, she's obviously a ninja/stealth character... and the he goes "fire wizard".
As an attractive human being, I don't feel represented.
Lmao
Literally. Also, there's no buff white guy character. Like at all, the closest I get is a weird discount hulk
As a token racially ambiguous but blackish guy who doesn't design or play white guys or gals when I can help it... There should, can still be a token white dude lol. He can be off to the side like every other token but... Yeah, just so many awful and tone-deaf design choices here to die on a hill over.
@@LunkLanguage I like that terminology. _Weird Discount Hulk._
@@LunkLanguageWe all know why there is none. Their "representation" is just a buzzword. It's all about control
Megamind scene comes to mind
"You're a villian alright, just not a super one."
"Whats the difference"
"Presentation!"
I hate all the LA/SF/Montreal nepo babies who never seen anything outside of their collage echo chamber bubbles and think they know what is cool, underground, or punk when they feel oppressed when their catering driver knocks on their doors to deliver their food order instead of leaving it at the door.
Also a better design of "Rollerskater with a rocket launcher" would be Megabeth from Super Monday Night Combat, with her bike helmet and giant kneepads
I call this kind of aesthetic "Safe-punk".
It's pink and cyan drivel, with street-wear or graffiti culture delivered in a safe package. Everyone is a rebel and a career criminal, but in a safe way. They hold niché jobs like wholesome drug dealing for friends only, running vintage technology stores, preaching about -communism- moralism, and being a single mom. The only allowed sexual orientations are straight and lesbian (NOT GAY). They fight a vague authority that is keeping up the law. The Safe-punk rebels don't like laws nor standards because those are traditional and thus fascist. Everyone is required to be a quippy asshole and need to do that "mischievous smile" expression that funnily enough Megamind does lmao.
woke chud woke chud woke chud
You forgot Vancouver
Regarding Rokka, I actually managed to guess 'aerial combat'. The color scheme and general design of her outfit is reminiscent of flight suits that pilots wear, combined with the oversized helmet and the heavy artillery. With that said, if you're not familiar with that you're correct that there's no other visual identifiers other then vibes.
Tracer from Overwatch does the idea a bit better. Her outfit is also inspired by flight suits, but there's artistic flair to it. From the hair to the goggles to the boots there's a lot of design decisions that scream 'THIS IS THE SPEEDY ONE' which makes it easy to identify what her abilities are at a glance.
As an aside, thanks to Guardians of the Galaxy, vaguely Science Fantasy with quirky characters is a tired, skin and bones cow with a calcified, shriveled udder, and everyone is swarming it for the very last atom of milk. Much like WW2 FPS games way back when.
Culture, cohesion, and credibility.
Do they have a familiar culture? Are they somebody you may recognize as having seen or met before? This makes characters likeable, relatable, memorable, and quickly groupable for consumers. It helps them quickly grasp this person's archetype according to their experiences, which is especially important when doing a game in space where you need to make characters that we (earthlings) understand.
Are they cohesive? Do they all fit into a similar aesthetic that binds them all together. You can have a motley crew but they must all be bound by the art so that they dont look unpleasing and messy. Tf2's operatives all have a basic colored shirt, utilitarian pants, and then some kind of outerwear element to show what they do (heavy has bullets, demoman has grenades, engineer has a hard hat). Overwatch also rallies around a futuristic superhero approach. Their getup signifies what they do and who they are trying to come across as as a hero.
Finally, are they believable? Is there a story or utility to their look? Would you believe they grew from a child into their current look all along an explainable path and thus ended up with their fashion and style? Concord has so many characters that lean almost too far into their look where it comes across as a character made in a lab, not somebody who either chose their own clothes or was given a uniform. The races of each character are all different and you lose the faith that this universe has a functioning society. Universes like Warhammer, Halo, and even Overwatch have clearly defined the select few archetypes that exist, and then create multiple characters within each of those to further expand on individuality. If each character in your game is the only one of their race, you lose a lot of the cohesion I mentioned earlier, and thus the universe becomes hard to believe because of the randomness and inconsistency between those "living" in it.
Concord fails on nearly every front, whereas games must only succeed in a SINGLE one of these to create a roster that fans are willing to invest themselves into. Not every game or universe fills all of these criteria, but the one or two they choose, they nail.
All of this could've been resolved if they just made a PvE story based game with a added FPS gamemode later.
This game needs it's world building up front and center.
Imma be real, the only think I could think about Roka's design was 'burlesque doom guy'
It doesn't help that outside of some animated shorts, the devs have made very little effort to show the lore of the world and the backstory of the characters. I've seen no biographies for the cast, and what we've seen in the shorts just leaves more questions than answers about who they are. The only thing I know about the world is that there's an evil space guild, but I have no idea why they're so hated. It's very bare bones compared to the worldbuilding in Overwatch and Deadlock, and doesn't draw in people who might check out the game looking for a sci-fi setting to explore.
I've actively gone looking for lore and found almost nothing. I don't know who any of these people are or why they do what they do. They're just a bunch of mercenaries doing mercenary things for mercenary reasons. Overwatch's lore ended up being kind of disappointing in the end but only because it looked deeper than it actually was and so it got me interested before disappointing me later. But despite that disappointing shallowness, it's still THERE. Every character has backstory and connections to other characters. The maps have story. The game modes have story. Even the character designs have purpose, beyond just relating to gameplay. They're connected to the lore too.
Concord has pretty much nothing in comparison.
None of the characters are at all identifiable as a stereotype like "fireman" or "policeman" would be in real life.
A sniper needs a long gun and needs to look sharp-eyed. A medic needs to look like paragons of healing. A soldier needs a uniform. A spy needs to look sneaky or suave. All of this seems like it's AI generated, like they slapped in (guy from space Featured on Artstation:1) and called it a day. To this day I do NOT know what the hell any of them do from a glance. In Overwatch I know what Widowmaker does as a sniper with her gun and sniper visor gear, Soldier 76 does by being a boring call of duty guy with his cyber visor and bulky football physique, and what Tracer is because she's in running gear and has small weapons and leg focus in her official art.
Worse yet, they're all in freaking pastels. Pastels! The colors you use for BACKGROUNDS to keep attention off them!
Hell I know exactly what each TF2 guy does just from looking at them, their attitude and weapon.
Another thing about TF2 as well is that the characters are designed to be easily identifiable if you just saw their silhouette.
I bet they're all in pastels because they don't want to hurt anyone with sensitive eyes. Why would people with sensitive eyes be playing games in the first place?
AI would have made dramatically better, readable, interesting character designs is the sad part ... As an artist, animator, designer, world builder.
This was just bad choices made and then directed to workers, who either were so excited to be working or have a job they didn't say anything, or fought against all of their gut instincts and 'made what the client wanted' (not the audience, the people paying)
Aged well. The game got shutdown lmao.
They look like LARPers. Self inserts for a sci-fi tabletop campaign and they're about as cringe as you'd expect people taking that sort of thing seriously would be.
Daw being overweight is a non-issue, the issue is how he's designed. No discernable medic traits, dishwashing gloves, NERF GUN goggles and don't even get my started on the trousers.
Also, Pharah's colours are Overwatch agent based if I recall.
Pharah had those colours before she joined Overwatch.
Yeah, I felt like I was transported back to those tumblr days when everyone posted absolutely butt-ugly OCs or character art from established IPs. It's like they fetishize asymmetry, maimed/marred aesthetics with no sense of color. Everything had to have this quirky ugly touch to it. And it had to be super queer. These artist were and still are one of the worst queer "allies/community members". They do an absolute terrible job on the publicity department. Thank Jeebus for good artists actually prevailing on that place.
You don't have to be an expert in artistic design to feel something is dazzling or bland, that's built into our brains (and yes, some individual opinion as well). It's up to the expert to be able to determine how to build a character around human nature, so that people will find it appealing and not bland.
yeah one of the worst counters to someone disliking something that I always hate, is the defender going "Well you're not an artist so what do you know?" as if I need to be a chef to know that a food I ate tastes bad. Like I said, maybe some people can't articulate the reasons very specifically, but anyone can have an opinion on something regardless of expertise
@@BlazeMakesGamesThat's interesting because in the video you said that just saying something looks bad isn't enough. Maybe the ohrasing was off but you seem to have a different opinion here
@@tomekk.1889 No, there's no contradiction. You don't have to be an artist to identify bad art, and "bad" isn't useful criticism.
as an artist i wanna add that feedback from non artists is actually VERY important when designing for an audience for this very reason, if you’re not making art just for yourself. it’s very easy to get stuck in your own head when designing, but if you make a ninja looking character and tell everyone it’s supposed to be a mage, they’re right when they say it looks bad lol
To me it looks like they attempted more realism than they could pull off, leading to an uncanny valley effect. Something about the way the characters move and the way their clothes hang off them just feels artificial and lifeless, like mannequins in a store. I think the character designs aren't quite as bad as people say, like, I don't think it's hard to tell a character with no weapon wearing a robe might be a spell caster, but I think a less realistic style that emphasized the unique aspects of each character would have helped a lot.
Why does a psychic that can shoot fire out of her hands have a BOW AND ARROW as a main weapon?
She can't shoot out of her hand, instead she charges beads with fire and throws at people
@@AdisonTeixeira damn they even figured out how to make psychics gay
@@bennyblunto973 I agree wit the sentiment that the characters are so unintuitive and badly designed for very definable reasons
But psychics were always gay 😏
@@bennyblunto973 What?
Psychics are some of the gayest characters in fiction.
@@Claritism bro I’m from yhe 90’s the only psychics I know is professor X lol
its like they looked at the meme characters people would make in dark souls and told themselves "see this is what gamers want!"
Dude, you may not be an artist, but I hope that you're not ashamed of that, since the points that you've made in this are spot on.
When people blame diversity, it's not the actual diversity they are blaming. Here is the deal, if you make a diverse game, you don't need to tell me, I'll see it in game. If you did just to put it in the marketing, that's the problem.
Yeah exactly, NO ONE has an issue with Valorant, even tho the cast is so diverse and they even got a they/them Scottish character. But no one cares cus they all look aesthetically pleasing and arent forced down our throat. The Valorant players care more about the new character’s abilities, and it just happens that they happen to be they/them
No, they are blaming actual diversity. When gamer children will scream about developers “shoving politics down their throats” because there is a Black person in the cast, your argument starts to sound pretty silly
A lot of YT channels have been using this game as a cudgel to wield against 'representation, diversity' or 'the modern audience' etc. But really it's just bad art design. When you inject diversity in your designs but MAKE IT WORK, and land your designs, the 'diversity and representation' part of that goes unnoticed. When you do it right, it's invisible.
But when you do it wrong, like in Concorde, people notice, it sticks out.
@@PoorMuttskiIt's a bit weird to shove like five black women into a game about shooting guns. This is diversity clearly taking precedent over basic demographical observations.
The main audience for this kind of game is still young, male and white.
@@pencilswordfish But I'd ask what lead to the designs we have? Yes, it's bad design, but look at it and taking a step back. Why? What lead them to these specific bad designs?
I'd argue chasing the "modern audience". You can think what you like about us saying it and thinking this. If they just stop saying it, that will shut most of us up about it as an issue. As is pointed out over and over again. Lots of good and popular game have diversity. But that's why people don't cry about the diversity in them, because they are good. It obviously wasn't their primary focus.
As the Act Man pointed out, take any of these characters in Concord and tell me what exactly their designs say about their personalities.........you can't, because their designs don't express ANYTHING about them, beyond just which class type they are.
Now take a character like Spyro the Dragon, for example. One look at him, and his design immediately conveys to you that he's a mischievous little dragon.
Character designs can be the simplest thing on the planet, but if they instantly signal who they are as a character to your audience, then you know you've done your job right. The Simpsons is another perfect example of this philosophy
yeah for real. I've been saying repeatedly that there are so many simple things they could be doing like putting stickers on the bootleg space marine's shoulder pad to give her a little more flair. Maybe give the lizard guy some key chains or or something. These little trinkets are very minor bits of flair but they would do so much to actually characterize these people and make them more appealing and relatable. I mean hell barely any of them have like scuff marks or scares on them or anything like that. They all look fresh out of the academy like this is their first ever fight they've been in. Even if the relatively pristine characters of overwatch still had like scars and prosthetic limbs and whatnot that helped tell a story
16:08 I've seen this guy everywhere and this is literally the first time I've heard he's supposed to be a lizard man. I thought he was just some generic alien or tree man
I legit thought he was made of rocks
They design healer character lookslike he is about getting heart attack from cardio
Well, they do say that doctors are the worst patients.
Rocka has a big gun and a small frame so I assume she’s a glass cannon.
I can’t prove it but lack of iteration feels like a reasonable assumption, a lot of popular characters go through numerous redesigns and Concord’s characters feel like an early draft without notes and touch ups
yeah 100% I feel like the problem was the art director had like 1 idea for each character and sent it off without any feedback or collaboration from the rest of the team. I *have* to believe that there are internal devs that pushed back against these designs or wanted to give them more flair but were ultimately ignored in the end.
I think it's the opposite. This game and its characters were iterated to death. Some very early concepts look way more stylish and interesting and telling, but it's like they constantly had some corpos come in and say "yeah this looks weird, make it more like Marvel" and the artists just had to sand off anything that gave the characters interest over and over, until we get this photorealistic mess. Early on, it even seemed like the game was supposed to have a very cel-shaded look, but again, some corpo at Sony decided that no, our console's selling point is GRAFFICS so pump that pore count up and get in that mocap suit.
Yet this game was in development for 8 years...
I remember hearing that the silhouette is really important in League of Legends specifically. It makes sense because the characters are small and you need to sell skins but keep them recognizable at a glance, especially since the roster is huge. Sett, for example, has fur that grows out of him like a coat/vest, but in his mecha outfit it's like engines, yet he maintains his silhouette. Art style and character design in games is about more than just looking cool, it also conveys a lot of information to the player. Using Ryu from SF as an example, while he appears bland at a glance, he is iconic because his appearance conveys his playstyle, same can be said for the other shotos, Zangief, etc.
Okay mini game time: Raka looks like she would be an ambusher/burst damage...wow nothing about her design reads as aerial.
Timar looks like she would be some kind of offensive caster, possibly control/debuff...hey I was close but would never have guessed the fire theme, would have gone for more of a hex/warp/corruption vibe, I expected her abilities to be purple. Sidenote Infernus is also carrying a tank of what one could assume is flammable substance.
Okay I got nothing for Bazz, maybe some kind of dancer?...oh wow, okay I guess she is holding knives, but she hardly reads as a fighter or assassin so that's wild.
Daw looks like he's holding a trap and would be slow, so I'm thinking engineer/defensive type...yeah medic is wild, could have put green red or white in the color scheme to sell that aspect. Anyway I assumed what he was holding was some kind of mine, that doesn't really look like a drone, and everything else is so bland that without that I would have assumed tank. Either way the size implies ponderous movement offset by high health and damage, incentivizing objective/chokepoint control, not running around as a Healer. You want your medic to be fast or at least standard speed and a small target.
Okay Jabali HAS to be a sniper, if he's not he has to eat that hat. At least with him you always see him with the gun...wtf alright I'm taking that hat and pouring old mayonnaise on it so I can shove it down this moron's throat.
If Teo isn't a standard soldier type with a grenade ability, well I guess that tracks since they can't seem to get anything right...whew Okay they got one right. Honorable mention to the soldier guy from First Descendant, he reads as a soldier without looking too generic, at least not as much as this guy.
Emari is one of the most "iconic" characters in the game in that she is the poster child of why this games designs are ugly and terrible. At least she does what she looks like. And yeah, Vale is just generic.
My favorite design I saw in another video was IT, the plucky, cute (for this game) green/teal chick with the tail. Her outfit was generic, but at least she gave the sense that somebody had fun designing her and she laughed and smiled when you pick her. Still nothing special though, just the one character I had the mildest criticisms of, just that she's wearing basically a white t-shirt and shorts.
Edit: 16:35 why the heck did budget lizard Yondu go through all that trouble to shoot a bottle of hot sauce just to get it on one person? Was that supposed be cool?
Edit2: Diversity isn't the problem, but enforced/poorly implemented diversity is part of it at least. People don't actually care about diversity as a negative, they care when diversity is used as a shield from criticism. Emari for example, is just an ugly character, the armor is ugly, her equipment is ugly and the piercings/hair are ugly. Her skin feels like it's there so that when people rightfully point out the she is an ugly character, they can use it as a gotcha, so I assume that's what people generally mean when they're complaining about "diversity."
Edit3: sorry this is so long. Anyway, I don't think the "hero shooters are oversaturated argument" is a good argument, that dog don't hunt. Souls games are doing fine, Wukong is debatably a Souls game, and it is seeing much success, but you can't really argue that there aren't a lot of similar games. Mecha Break also looks promising in major genre. Not to mention Marvel Rivals looks like it will probably succeed, and you didn't even mention Valorant, which seems to be doing fine. If you make a good game, having a lot of competition isn't that bad.
The 'hero shooters are oversaturated' claim is valid because there's only so many people that want to play competitive multiplayer games, and narrow that down between to those that want to play a shooter instead of a MOBA or a fighting game or even MMO's.
If you want something with realism then you have your Counterstrikes, Call of Duty, Battlefield. If you want something more cartoony, you have Overwatch, Paladins or Team Fortress 2. And even in-betweens, with your Apex, Fortnite, Valorant and a bunch of smaller games that float around in the atmosphere. I've never played it but I know Roblox has shooter game modes that I would have loved if I was younger.
This is all one market (competitive FPS) that's split into their niches and this game is bringing nothing new to the table. There's not enough players to go around to keep it viable, players will get tired of fighting the same group of opponents and go on to something with more players, more varied personal playstyles which keeps things fresh.
Most multiplayer games demand a long-term commitment. Stuff like soulslikes still fall into the conventional idea of a finite campaign, where you play it, beat it and then go play something else. So that genre can handle more imitators, that can sell themselves on being more of the thing you already like.
@@Cptn_Fabulous I'm sure that being part of a saturated market is part of the problem, I'm just disputing how much to value that particular aspect in regards to the game failing. If Marvel Rivals does well, we'll know that was not the reason. I'll grant that Souls games are a bad example, but what about fighting games? Pretty saturated right now but it of the big names, only MK1 is really failing to retain players, and I would argue that it's success in the sales numbers is due to the strength of its predecessors. Since Concord is a new game, they don't have that going for them.
I deadass thought Timar was some kind of AC esque assassin
@@nittayoshifumi8252 a fair assessment
The fire wizard is a bad example of bad character design. I immediately thought of “evil wizard” when I saw the flowing but practical robes and ornate jewelry.
the issue though is that this is a primarily sci-fi game, so most people looking at them dont even consider that magic is even on the table. But even then I still think the more important aspect of the character is the fire powers which are completely neglected in the design
'Evil wizard' was my guess too, but it's an edge case because the visual cues indicate the wrong kind of wizard powers. I was expecting spooky shadow magic, so probably stealth or debuffs, or maybe summoning undead minions or something, not a pyromancer. And the trim isn't even red, it's pink!
It feels like whoever designed the characters made the biggest mistake of a character designer - they thought about the characters as if they are real people. It feels like they are all wearing something "practical in real life" or something that is usually shown at fashion shows.
Except when that idea is done well, it CAN look good. I've seen quite a lot of games where a characters design is practical to their setting or what they're doing.
That is really not the case here at all, most of these look like first drafts that got made the final draft
I think they made the game more dark, this designs would work way better
It’s the weird mesh of (barely) practical combat gear with supersaturated clashing colours that completely kills any sense of appeal.
Like if they’re in tactical gear but standing next to ugly bright green and orange it just makes the practical outfit look desaturated and bland while the colourful design looks hideously saturated.
Perfect example of art design vs graphics. The game can look awesome with 60pfs and ultra duper super definition, but with poor art design, it's just a poop in 4K. Great vid at explaining this.
Holy shit.. realistic graphic is not everything. I mean look at minecraft, show it to people who know jackshit about game and high chance they will say it's a game from 90s. And yet it's a more than decently popular games.
5-10 years ago realistic graphic might be an amazing thing, I mean how can a game looks so real? But nowdays it's not amazing anymore, a fuck ton of games looks realistic enough.
The art design is spectacular, the character design is bull.
Concord seemingly wants to evoke retro-scifi but they were too afraid to fully embrace any of that inspiration. The red faced big guy and the robot seem like the only characters they didn't totally drop the ball with.
11:02 i correctly guessed she looks like some sort of a wizard because of the robes, although i couldn't guess it is focused on fire magic.
Yeah, my guess was "stealth wizard" because of the muted colors and robe
She's probably one of the better designs, albeit still fairly mediocre
My first guess was some kind of ninja cleric… whatever that means
She looks like a destiny warlock... in early game gear.
My guess was a priestish crossbower
As someone that didn't not will play the game, the Monsters inc scream canister is my favorite character
As an artist who draws from 12 years now this hurts my eyes. But at the same time it give me ideas to fix this characters. Like Rocket lady since she flies and has an helmet she can be a bat inspired esthetic. Like the wings could be like Phara that they jetpack. Or her wings are the weapon and she fly with shoes etc. That why I like overwatch and marvel designs they are pretty cool
oh yeah like something a lot of better characters do is tie in their weapons more closely into their abilities. If Roka had wings with rocket launchers built into them that'd be so much cooler than her just carrying a rocket launcher. And the fire wizard character could just shoot fire instead of using a weird mini crossbow thing
@@BlazeMakesGames You gave me an idea for my first video on TH-cam re making concord character. It doesn't sound that bad right?
Another issue is that they made tanks fat instead of jacked or covered in armor while faster characters are thin and geeky looking. When you do manage to remember characters it’s basically because you hate how they look
I'm a concept designer for like a 2 dollar version of Homeworld. I designed ships, stations etc. One day I showed to my Art Director an improved version of a previous ship design. Literally a better version.
I got reprimanded. I was giving them better anesthetics. And I was reprimanded. The day before I was sacked. My art director told me it's all about the money. After 2 yrs, the game is still in Beta mode. I worked on that project for 7 yrs.
8:07 My first impression assumption: Glass canon. Large rocket launcher, skin-tight armor, large glass visor, and a bit of added armor on her left leg to protect her when she's kneeling down. I imagine she is a heavy hitter with low armor/health that gains a defensive bonus when crouched to encourage a sort of mobile turret emplacement style of gameplay. I'll edit when you explain her role with
EDIT: Yeah you didn't address how much armor or health she has. The leg armor I guess is meant to protect her in the air, and the space suit looking design I suppose is supposed to evoke a 0-G kind of vibe to imply her flight, but all of this logic is not the intuitive one. Leg armor makes me think you're using your legs more, not less, such as with birds who have no feathers on their skinny legs to they can tuck them away and hide them all while reducing body weight. Intuitively thickened legs means stronger walking.
11:12 for "Hey Marge" My impression is: The loos fitting flowing armor means lots of movement, and the sort of Buddhist monk like prayer beads as a belt tells me a sort of monk-like gameplay which could be magic mysticism or healing but is usually martial arts or even ninja-like gameplay like in D&D. There's some king of gismo on her belt, though, which honestly evokes the Breath of the Wild Sheikah slate for me more than a regular tablet PC, or maybe a personal energy shield emitter from Star Wars? So yeah everything is pointing toward agile mystic if I had to guess. Maybe summoning spiritual weapons or something while also having a fast and effective melee combat skill set? Mystics + agile also evokes an idea of summoning magic platforms that allow for a double jump like any monk/ninja could only dream of, so maybe some of that too. Again, I'll edit below after hearing the true answer.
Oh! A fire wizard. Mysticism for sure, and the clothes I suppose are like a wizard firefighter outfit, but most of all it's Azula! They copy/pasted Azula's silhouette for their fire wizard. Makes sense, actually, and I wasn't too far off. I just expected more martial arts and mysticism than straight "Everything is fire" style of gameplay. And actually Azula did do a lot of martial arts being a Bender in Avatar: The Last Airbender and all, so the style actually makse even more sense if you consider that.
As for the color scheme, I'm pretty sure it's pride flag references. Some more vague than others. Except they made it pastel, which is really one of the worst things about their styles since it makes them feel washed out and bland. All that color being faded feels like the ocean having all that water and it all being bad to drink.
Concord has less players than Gigantic, a game that literally doesn't work because of bugs. Incredible
I only heard about this game because of the terrible release. You're right on the money for why the designs failed. I find it funny that someone who isn't even an artist can tell exactly what's wrong artistically and how to improve it. That says a lot about their lack of thought, what a shame. Great video!
The Concord characters looks as if they got dressed in the dark while strolling through a costume shop.
There's a reason why Team fortress 2 has the best character designs in gaming.
If there were physical copies of this game they would be burying it in the desert alongside E.T.
I feel that the non-conforming character design is intentional. It's either that they believe that the state of technology would become so advanced, traditional symbolism such as Pharah's bird like design either fell out of fashion or does not exist in their universe. They probably want to convey that their rules in their universe is different and non-conforming from what we have here on earth.
If we are to give in to the culture war narrative, the game designers probably want to break the "design stereotype" too, much like how women should not be expected to dress up as feminine, or men to be dressedcl up as manly. They probably want designs to be unexpectedly neutral. The tech had become so advanced that they do not need visible rockets for their thrusters. They're so non-conforming that they don't want earth based visual cues to hint their abilities.
I'm sure it was intentional, the problem they've run into is that their intentional choice has not resonated with anyone because consciously rejecting Earth's design language means nobody on Earth enjoys it.
Battleborn had a higher peak player count
c'mon no need to do them dirty like that lol
Oooooooh, and that's even compared to the fact that Battleborn was directly competing against Overwatch on release. Also, I think the gaming community is just burnt out on hero shooters now
Hey Battleborn was great
@@sleepfgc It was. the problem was it tried to compete with Overwatch.
I’ve heard about Concord but I had NO CLUE that it was out on Steam lol.
The 3 Questions that are asked every time Concord gets brought up lol:
What's Concord?
Wait Concord is out??
Wait Concord costs 40 dollars???
The armor doesn't even look like armor, just squishy. I feel like if i gave it a good squeeze it'd slowly reform back like nerf or memory foam.
I think what also adds to the "feel it but couldn't describe it" nature is how every bitof its presentation is thoroughly "corporate" and contributing to that is how theres little indication it does anything that other hero shooters on the (very saturated) market don't already do.
I do think its funny how this game failed so much harder and faster than battleborn and lawbreakers
Vale rubs me the wrong way because the character just screams some snobby executive went “I sure love going to my resort in Vale to ski while the peasants are locked out, let’s make a character after my favorite vacation spot”.
Ps5 wasn’t doing any better. A trophy tracking website was used to get the count players that earned the easiest trophy. The count: roughly 1100 people (if memory serves). The trophy in question: get your first kill.
hopefully they are not this stupid, but its possible that the character designs are bad on purpose because they want to sell you better costumes for them which actually make them look good. the problem with this "genius" marketing strategy is that the stock look of your characters needs to be good for people to want to buy costumes for them, or even play the game in the first place.
yeah maybe. Ideally when you're dealing with these kinds of cosmetics, you want to make the character's overall basic design elements as iconic as possible so that even if you change the colors and certain aspects of their design, you still preserve their important mechanical aspects. Even if you give Soldier 76 that grill dad skin or use the Witch Mercy skin, they still resemble their iconic looks and maintains their key iconic elements. But these characters are so generalized without any interesting elements that I can't even imagine their skins doing much to fix things
I get why you say this. All the characters look like bad skins lol.
I really doubt that's the case, but tanking the entire game for trying to incentivize skin sales would be so fucking funny that I really like the theory.
I saw some screenshots of the game and its cosmetics and it ain't much better. Seriously one of the legendary skins is just the same character but with a slightly different outfit and a hat. Nothing fantastical or outstanding about it. Seriously it's just insane to me how even the skins are bland and uninteresting
1:35 It's been hardly marketed in ways that matter, the first time I learned of Concord was through a recommended video of someone predicting how the game will be DoA when it comes out, and turns out they were right. I see many other people who are only just now finding out about it due to its notoriety, the controversy and criticisms gave the game way more publicity than Sony's marketing ever did.
I heard about it just the other day because my husband told me that we needed to watch a cringe af trailer 😅
Found out about the game yesterday because it got cancelled