Concevoir les personnages de Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Était apparemment « infernal’

Chroniques de Xenoblade 3 is almost out and – according to a whole bunch of media outlets – est un pretty good jeu. We’re often guilty of not sufficiently appreciating the work that goes into creating such a massive title, so it’s always fun to get insight from game developers on how they approach aspects like game design and art direction.

In Nintendo’s latest ‘Ask the Developer’ post, Monolith Soft developers – including Senior Director Tetsuya Takahashi, Producer/Director Koh Kojima, and Director and Planner Genki Yokota – got together to talk through the visual and sound direction for the upcoming JRPG.

Perhaps most surprisingly, when asked about whether deciding on the final visual design for the main characters was a smooth process, Koh Kojima replied with a resounding “no”, elaborating that it was a “hellish process of trial and error”:

Do you feel that you were able to decide on the visual design of the main characters quite smoothly?

Kojima: Non, it was a hellish process of trial and error… (des rires) We especially struggled to decide on the design concept for Noah. During development, Saito-san [Freelance Character Artist on Xenoblade 2 et 3] came to the MONOLITHSOFT office and worked with us. His seat was in front of Takahashi-san’s workspace. We used Takahashi-san’s words to conjure up an image of the characters and convey the intended feeling to Saito-san, who drew various illustrations based on that. Cependant, Takahashi-san a regardé les illustrations à la fin de la journée et a dit, “Non. Ce n'est pas ça.” (des rires) Nous avons dû répéter ce processus encore et encore.

Takahashi: Nous avons particulièrement lutté avec le design de Noah. Saito-san a créé toutes sortes d'illustrations, mais d'une manière ou d'une autre, aucun d'entre eux ne ressemblait vraiment à Noah… Je pense avoir mentionné plus tôt que je voulais Noah, le protagoniste principal, se positionner comme philosophe ou poète, mais je ne voulais pas qu'il soit vu comme un personnage faible de volonté. Cependant, Je ne voulais pas non plus qu'il ait l'air trop pompeux.

Kojima: Les brouillons qu'il a dessinés semblaient être aux deux extrêmes. Certains l'ont fait paraître féroce, tandis que d'autres avaient l'air un peu doux.

Takahashi: Je craignais également que son discours puisse sembler pompeux si la conception des personnages était trop noble. We struggled to come up with a design concept that made us think, “Oui, this is Noah!”

On the flip side, Kojima confirmed that the same process for other characters in the game was comparatively easier, because their core appearance was already defined in their character profiles. You can read the whole interview, including a rather interesting segment on custom-made flutes, right here.

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Allez-vous ramasser Xenoblade Chronicles 3 on Friday? Who’s your favourite character so far? Partagez votre opinion dans les commentaires ci-dessous!