See how Turtle Rock creates the imposing beasts of Evolve

Nov 29, 2014 06:09 GMT  ·  By

Turtle Rock Studios, the developer of the upcoming Evolve first-person shooter, exemplifies how it creates a monster for the new game, detailing the many different stages required to ensure that the creature can offer a great experience.

Evolve is one of the most ambitious all-new intellectual properties set to appear in early 2015 as it delivers not only a cooperative experience, as four players need to work together as a team of hunters, but also a competitive one, as they're facing a monster that's controlled by another player.

So far, Turtle Rock has showcased quite a lot of different hunters from across the four classes – Assault, Trapper, Medic, and Support – not to mention two different monsters, in form of Goliath and Kraken.

After showcasing the poll for players who want to help name the third monster in the game, Turtle Rock now details the process it follows when creating a new creature for the game.

Goliath was envisioned as a brawler

Turtle Rock's Chris Ashton confirms on the official website the process his team used when creating the first monster, Goliath, and what principles were at the base of his abilities and design.

"We start with a theme. Then we go through a brainstorm and think about the gameplay style and some abilities we want to emphasize around that theme. We hope to have more than four abilities and refine them down. So, for example, when we started with Goliath, all we knew is that we wanted a brawler. We didn’t know what it’d look like or what its abilities would be – we just wanted a soldier. An all-around Fighter," he explains.

The creation process is a complex one

After the abilities are pinpointed, Ashton explains that the other teams enter their role, starting with the concept artists, then the gameplay programmers and designers, in order to figure out what everything is going to look and feel like in the game.

"That design goes to a concept artist and they start to bring that to life. After we have a monster locked down visually, then we think about how its abilities will look and how they will behave. Then that gets concepted. Then we start prototyping. A lot of times we’ll prototype stuff on the code side at the same time those concepts will start going into production and start to model the character," he adds.

Of course, the process also includes a lot of feedback and testing along the way, in order to ensure that the original principles stand on their own or if they need tweaking to ensure that the end result is a good one.

Evolve Screenshots (5 Images)

Goliath is included in Evolve
Goliath is imposingGoliath can breathe fire
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