The latest episode of New World’s Forged in Aeternum is one for the artists in the audience, as Amazon game designer Rachel Barnum sits with concept artist Kiana Hamm and associate art director Sojin Hwang to discuss their efforts on the MMO.
The devs walk through the design arc of a new character, starting with the design brief that gives them backstory and context on the type of character they are – what they’ll wear, what they look like. Naturally, they look at the Siren Queen’s creation as an example of how the team relies on real-world mythology (in this case, the Sirens of Greek legend) to shape a new boss. The trio also looks at the pirate queen Grace O’Malley, the core character of the game’s next update; Grace’s personality developed out of the sketches as the artists tried to suss out whether she’d be more of a navy captain, guerilla fighter, or gunslinger.
That video is below, and while you wait for the real patch, don’t forget about the PTR; Amazon has continued pushing small updates into testing, the most recent being last night, which enabled boost tokens and tweaked the Empyrean Forge expedition.
