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[In Exile]

This is a thread about the visual style of ME - how the world should look and feel as we explore it. 

 

One thing that I think video games offer - that so far we have not really seen very much focus on by developers, to my dismay - is the opportunity for truly surreal vistas. Instead, games often focus on the mundane - we see this withe exploration heavy games, with the often heavy focus on caves or natural vistas that are not so dissimilar from what one can see IRL. Yet, to me, it's those surreal moments when a game shines. To use an ME moment, I think the Suicide Mission captures something quite powerful with the use of a black hole. Below are two pictures, ME2 and Interstellar:

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

There's a real possibility for haunting beauty, which I just don't think games avail themselves enough of when designing their settings. Particularly when coupled with the right music. Someone recently introduced me to this piece from Star War Rebels, which I think works very well:

 

Spoiler

 

 

People will, I think, be tempted to cite ME1. But I actually think ME1 misses the point. At its best, ME1 tried to capture something like this:

 

Spoiler

 

But I think that something like that still misses the point completely, because while the view is cool, the world itself is dead and barren and ultimately a chore to explore. The sky is beautiful, but you only see that once, and that's it. You don't really interact with it. 

 

You get closer with something like this:

 

Spoiler

 

But I think it's not until you hit the mix of surreal vista, surreal world, and surreal civilization that you really capture the magic of sci-fi:

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

[RoboticWater]

The closest Frostbite has gotten is likely the Fade level in Inquisition, and I don't think it even fully delivers on a great surreal look.

Spoiler

Graphical restrictions do unfortunately hold the game back. The view distance isn't exceptionally far, and the lighting doesn't do enough justice to the interesting contours of every shape. I know that sounds harsh, but I do believe the Fade was very big leap forward for BioWare. We're just not quite there yet.

 

The closest I've seen any game approach the kind of aesthetic complexity and graphical fidelity that your images portray is probably Halo 5.

Spoiler

Halo, of course, has the benefit of enclosed, linear levels and a few interesting memory saving techniques that I'd rather BioWare abstain from. It's beautiful, but it'd be hard to render this stuff outside very controlled conditions. Aesthetically though, I think Halo really captures the alien feel in its environments while also delivering on fidelity.

 

Regrettably, Mass Effect has generally boxed itself into fairly mundane environments when it comes to uncharted worlds. Thus far, I've mostly seen variants on earthen biomes, which look nice, but lack a potency I see in Halo.

 

It may aid their design to more closely adhere to Syd Mead's design style (an artist BioWare already cites as an influence)

Spoiler

 

Tantamount to the aesthetics, or course, is the BioWare's cinematic design. I think it would behoove the game's cutscene director(s) to be more confident with the camera. As it is now, the camera is mainly just functional, ususally presenting just enough information to the player for the scene to make sense. However, there's more to filmography than simply showing what's going on. I'd like to see more dramatic directing like kind seen in Suicide Mission's be the rule rather than the exception, and I'd like to see BioWare further improve their skills in this department. 

[KirkyX]

"Halo, of course, has the benefit of enclosed, linear levels"

 

They're not necessarily that enclosed; Halo has typically featured quite large, open environments, at least as compared to most other console shooters. I'd say that Halo's larger levels - perhaps excluding Halo 4's, which sacrificed a lot of the open-ness in favour of a more CoD-style linear experience - are actually typically larger than, say, most of the environments in Mass Effect 2 and 3. 

 

Of course, BioWare have said that they plan for Andromeda's environments to match or exceed Inquisition's in scale - though, hopefully not in content density - which is a different matter entirely. Still, I think Halo deserves a little more credit.

 

To get a little more on point, I'd certainly be all for Andromeda embracing more surreal environment design for some of the weirder planets, or - dare I hope? - space phenomena, though I think it'd be unwise to overdo it; in video games, it's all too easy to become numb to the surreal, the beautiful and the strange if there's nothing more 'ordinary' to juxtapose it against. Nonetheless, it should certainly be done: there's nothing quite like utterly incomprehensible space spectacle to make you appreciate, all at once, the terror and beauty of the universe.

 

I think the closest Mass Effect's come in the past is probably the original reveal of the Citadel in Mass Effect 1, which remains one of my favourite moments in the original game:

 

Spoiler

 

Oh, and that Rebels episode is indeed a fantastic example--strip away the Force mysticism, and it comes across more like something out of Star Trek than Star Wars. Here's the actual clip:

 

Spoiler

 

I'd love to experience something similar in Andromeda. Or Bryan Fuller's new Star Trek series, for that matter.

 

You're right to say that the music is just as vitally important as the visuals in achieving the desired effect. Ideally, you want a composition that is beautiful, and yet strange, difficult to place, and perhaps even a tiny bit grating. The 'Star Cluster' track in Rebels is exactly the right sort of thing, as is pretty much the entire Interstellar soundtrack.

[ZipZap2000]

No to all of this.


Especially the space age sci-fi exploration stuff. Yuck.

[RoboticWater]

"Halo, of course, has the benefit of enclosed, linear levels"

Talking specifically of Halo 4/5. While I think they're the most impressive graphically of the series, I doubt they could have achieved their fidelity without clamping down on size. The most recent games have yet to reach the pure awesomeness of driving a mongoose under the feet of a Scarab, jumping on the Scarab, setting its core to explode, and driving off to do the same thing with another Scarab.

[Big Bad]

Blackreach from Skyrim is cool example of what the OP is talking about, I think.  It's my favorite location in the game.

[Rabinson]

Of course, BioWare have said that they plan for Andromeda's environments to match or exceed Inquisition's in scale - though, hopefully not in content density - which is a different matter entirely. Still, I think Halo deserves a little more credit.

 

I hope that the game is completely different from Dragon Age Inquisition. I thrown money away buying it.

[KirkyX]

Talking specifically of Halo 4/5. While I think they're the most impressive graphically of the series, I doubt they could have achieved their fidelity without clamping down on size. The most recent games have yet to reach the pure awesomeness of driving a mongoose under the feet of a Scarab, jumping on the Scarab, setting its core to explode, and driving off to do the same thing with another Scarab.

I need to play Halo 3 co-op again, stat.

[KirkyX]

I hope that the game is completely different from Dragon Age Inquisition. I thrown money away buying it.

I'd be happy if they took some bits from Inquisition, but I am concerned that we might end up with another load of beautiful environments that have absolutely nothing of any interest or consequence actually in them to find.

Since we know they're going wide open-world, my hope is that they took a look at what CD Projekt did with TW3 and thought, 'huh'.

[KirkyX]

Blackreach from Skyrim is cool example of what the OP is talking about, I think. It's my favorite location in the game.

Yup. The big Lyrium caves/Titan in The Descent had a certain something, too, though they weren't as expansive, at least in terms of what you could actually go to.

[Vortex13]

I would certainly love to see more of this in Mass Effect over more drivel about daddy issues.

[Beerfish]

Finally found the youtube called 'alien planet' from the discovery channel.  Very good show in which experts speculate on finding an alien planet with new aliens.  Really good fun watch imo.

 

[goishen]

This is a thread about the visual style of ME - how the world should look and feel as we explore it. 

 

One thing that I think video games offer - that so far we have not really seen very much focus on by developers, to my dismay - is the opportunity for truly surreal vistas. Instead, games often focus on the mundane - we see this withe exploration heavy games, with the often heavy focus on caves or natural vistas that are not so dissimilar from what one can see IRL. Yet, to me, it's those surreal moments when a game shines. To use an ME moment, I think the Suicide Mission captures something quite powerful with the use of a black hole. Below are two pictures, ME2 and Interstellar:

 

 

The thing that I loved about ME1 wasn't that the planets looked so dissimilar.  It was the fact that they were barren (meaning no sand, you can have gravel but it will soon be gone) and that they looked so eerily similar.  Also, I liked the fact that when I looked up, I could either see the night sky (even when the sun was out) or not depending on how thick the atmosphere was.  Also, I like the different colored stars, ranging from red to white.

 

F'in' brilliant.  That's what I wanna see.   Not the SW portion of the US.

[Vortex13]

Don't forget the audio side of things either.

 

Contrary to popular believe, there is a form of sound in space, and combing something like this:

 

Spoiler

 

 

with interesting visuals will help complete the utterly unique and alien nature of our universe.

[heinoMK2]

I'll post some pictures now and will comment later(today) with some explanations on why i chose them and what they represent for me. Pics are on the PC at home and i need to leave soon for a day or two, so no time for a proper post right now

Update: added the explanations.

To start things off, i think it is a bit unfair to blame ME1 for it scarce environments. ME1 was enormously restrained by the hardware and simly could not deliver wide open areas rich in details on consoles. ME2 shrunk the maps and suddenly you got some pretty interesting planets to look at, although without the freedom to explore.

Now to the topic of this thread.
I support the request for some surrealism in the environmental design of ME:A, yet with one condition - things need to be scientifically at least to some degree plausible. There is for example some really surreal and pretty impressive fantasy environmental art that fits a variety of fantasy settings but would be terribly displaced in a sci-fi-oriented world building.

To the pictures i posted. First three are to demonstrate that natural cosmic phenomena can be very surreal.

Spoiler

First one is obviously a planet orbiting two stars, with one of them draining matter from the other. There is something like a giant fire river in the sky, if you think of it. And when you suddenly realize how much matter is actually flowing through space as you look,at it, you might start to sh*t bricks, as young people used to say back in my time
Jupiter is pretty surreal, too. Just imagine a descent into the eye of one of the storms raging through its athmosphere... 

Spoiler

 

Definitely pretty intense. Same for shattered moons floating above planets. Quite unreal.

The next one is obviously a space station.

Spoiler

Yet when you think of it, space stations in ME series were somewhat boring, because they are just isolated buildings in space, even Citadel with its "cloud".
What i would like to see are stations built into natural space objects, with a some sort of natural space environment, just like in the picture. It makes things a bit more exotic, gives a feel of danger and would fit a somewhat concealed base of operations pretty fine, i think.

The next two are planetary industrial and urban areas. I think some gigantism wouldn't be too bad if used in moderation, to showcase some huge planetary structures in general. Like maybe gigantic factories in the first and that huge twin obelisk in the second.

Spoiler

This one is pretty important.

Spoiler

In ME games the places we visit are mostly disconnected, blinking blibs on our star map. What i think ME:A would immensely profit from are visually connected places, where we could see where we came from or where we can go to, even if the distances are as long as between a planet and a moon. It would add a lot to the general immersion and reinforce the exploration aspect of the game.

This one is pretty important, too.

Spoiler

There is hardly anything more sci-fi-like than a visual reminder that there is space travel on industrial level, anytime and everywhere, a constant connection between planetary surface and space. I felt that ME games lacked in this aspect just a little bit.
Besides, again, a certain gigantism would add a lot to the surreal aspect of the graphical design, if needed: gigantic ships slowly descending upon the space ports, opening their enormous doors and and almost endless flow of vehicles, people and goods flowing out as if this was some sort of space ark arriving - that would look pretty impressive, i think.

The next one i chose as a suggestion for an infiltration mission environment.

Spoiler

Everything strange and dangerous, with alien ships doing their strange buisiness and your squad right there, trying to piece the new bits of intel together.


The next both i chose to remind that not only space is vast, planets are pretty huge too and this should be reflected in the environmental design of ME:A.

Spoiler

While i do not expect every planet to be size of Skyrim and full of similar detail(just to have some comparison), i certainly would like see maps designed in a such way that there is always an impression that we aren't confined to just tiny places like in previous ME games by offering views far up into the distance with some visually impressive and detailed terrain backgrounds.

[straykat]

No to all of this.


Especially the space age sci-fi exploration stuff. Yuck.

 

Agreed.

 

 

I don't mind a few worlds like this though.

 

But mostly, I just want to run through cities and be a dirty space cop. They could have made a whole game of Omega and I would have been happy.

[heinoMK2]

Agreed.

 

 

I don't mind a few worlds like this though.

 

But mostly, I just want to run through cities and be a dirty space cop. They could have made a whole game of Omega and I would have been happy.

Basically "ME:Conrad Verner" - fighting crime to varied success while searching for some credits in abandoned crates in your free time

[straykat]

Basically "ME:Conrad Verner" - fighting crime to varied success while searching for some credits in abandoned crates in your free time

 

I honestly would play that.

[In Exile]

The thing that I loved about ME1 wasn't that the planets looked so dissimilar.  It was the fact that they were barren (meaning no sand, you can have gravel but it will soon be gone) and that they looked so eerily similar.  Also, I liked the fact that when I looked up, I could either see the night sky (even when the sun was out) or not depending on how thick the atmosphere was.  Also, I like the different colored stars, ranging from red to white.

 

F'in' brilliant.  That's what I wanna see.   Not the SW portion of the US.

 

I think this is where we see a deep divide. To me, that is probably the least interesting thing possible, because there's nothing to explore. It's a dead husk. Yes, conceptually interesting in that these places exist, but there's absolutely no value to being there. It's not eerie - it's pointless. Being on one spot of this dead, barren rock is no different than being on some other spot. To the extent there are resources there to be strip mined, it's not a particularly great task finding them. 

[goishen]

I think this is where we see a deep divide. To me, that is probably the least interesting thing possible, because there's nothing to explore. It's a dead husk. Yes, conceptually interesting in that these places exist, but there's absolutely no value to being there. It's not eerie - it's pointless. Being on one spot of this dead, barren rock is no different than being on some other spot. To the extent there are resources there to be strip mined, it's not a particularly great task finding them. 

 

 

Right, but if you're a slaver or a pirate, where are you gonna go?   To a world where the authorities are breathing down your neck and you can get busted every other second?  Or to a world where nothing is there?

[RoboticWater]

Right, but if you're a slaver or a pirate, where are you gonna go?   To a world where the authorities are breathing down your neck and you can get busted every other second?  Or to a world where nothing is there?

Doesn't mean there couldn't be more fauna or environmental hazards.

 

It also might help if the pirates had more than one tiny base on the entire landscape.

[In Exile]

Right, but if you're a slaver or a pirate, where are you gonna go?   To a world where the authorities are breathing down your neck and you can get busted every other second?  Or to a world where nothing is there?

 

Like IRL, where pirates don't try and make their lairs in, e.g., the centre of a volcano, you'd go to an abandoned but totally and completely hospitable world. The idea of going to a barren world is stupid beyond belief, because the sums of money involved in even surviving on one are insane. Where are pirates going to get the skilled workmanship required to start setting up and maintaining their bases? 

 

I get e.g. an organization that's actually insanely rich like, say, Cerberus. That makes sense. Although I still maintain the world should be visually interesting. 

 

Not to mention that the idea that a sci-fi game should be about fighting interspace piracy is kind of besides the point. 

[straykat]

I think ME2 had the right type of variety.. given the technology. It could have looked prettier, but the variety was there. Not to mention it had plenty of urban environments, which is what I really care about.

 

I always liked that one side mission with the fog and giant bug things. It's probably the most exotic.

[iM3GTR]

I always liked that one side mission with the fog and giant bug things. It's probably the most exotic.

The problem with that is that I kept getting lost.

[heinoMK2]

Added explanations to my picture post(#15) above. Read them if you like.