Dev Blog Ep. 04: New Guardians Concept Reveal
By Tore Blystad, Creative Director
Hi all, we have a big update today — in preparation for our upcoming IDO announcement, we wanted to announce not just one, but four new Guardian classes for Nyan Heroes!
Disclaimer — We want to add that developing a game is really complex and everything we discuss in these leaks are works in progress and may never end up in the game, even if we at the time of writing may be convinced it is the best idea ever. 😊
In a character based game, one of the key tasks is to define the characters.
The first four Guardian classes–Warrior, Medic, Assassin and Defender–have been widely featured across our website, in trailers, and throughout other media. We’re so excited to share with you all the next four classes that we have been secretly working on for several months.
This is one of the most fun tasks for me since it involves multiple disciplines and trying to solve a lot of complex challenges at once. Our Guardian classes are not just Mechs, they are also characters with personalities, traits, and gameplay specialties. There’s a lot of expectations for each one of them and they must be treated as an ensemble cast–a group of main characters that all have their own unique, charming elements. We’ve designed each Guardian with a specific audience in mind. In other words, each Guardian should be someone’s favorite. But they should also work as a group, with each having a distinct slant. They need their own silhouette that is easy to make out from a distance and their own color that sets them apart from the others. That said, they will all have various skins and cosmetics. Many of the color variants shown below will most likely become skins at a later stage. I’m talking about the “cover art version” of the characters for now.
Let’s dive into the creative process of how we ended up with the designs!
Sniper
If you have been reading our previous blogs, you may remember that we went over the Sniper visual development earlier. He had various design directions, from being a mechanical tree to a flea-sized, tiny character. We ended up with this design, which is the most “mysterious” of our cast, which is clearly inspired by modern military designs. We’re also planning for some cool camouflage abilities on his hexagonal panels to help him hide in plaint sight from his enemies.
He’s a fragile class without much armor and is best suited for long distance combat. The Sniper is also the tallest of the all the Guardians.
We tried different color variants and ended up with a mostly muted palette. The Sniper is easily the most camouflaged character in the line-up.
Scout
We knew from the start that the Scout should be slender and fast, the most nimble of our Guardians. She has the most athletic and aerodynamic look and was designed with a focus on speed.
I love the little fins, and I expect that she will use them to help take sharp turns at high speeds. And her cyber-sneakers should probably transform into laser-powered inlines when sprinting :)
There was something nice and retro about the first round of Scout sketches–evocative of 70’s French comic book artists, or a certain anime we’re inspired by. We went forward with the “fin” designs and did some iterations until we had the current version.
We knew that the Scout needed to be fresh and colorful — we love many of the color explorations. The yellow stood out as a good color with the gradients on the legs adding more finesse, and it became the final look.
Soldier
I love how this guy turned out! A seasoned Guardian who survived decades of combat and countless battles. His long duster gives him the vibe of a bounty hunter or a mercenary, which may be what we end up doing with him instead of Soldier.
The soldier had many different sketches in its early stages, all of which had merit. The “Space Marine” archetype in the middle may become its own class later on, and the “Owl Mech” on the right is also an interesting character. We took the owl helmet and developed it further as it got added to the next round of sketches.
The Soldier color explorations are primarily in broken tones and secondary colors. We ended up drifting towards purple as that would be his ownable color in the Guardian line-up.
And last but not least..
Mechanic
Powered by an old-fashioned furnace, welded together from scrap parts. This guy looks like something straight out of the Mad Max universe :) Our goal was to create the smallest Guardian class, a character with comic relief who’s still badass and cool.
From the first iterations, he was given his round belly shape. As you can see, there are several more silly versions left on the drawing board. We drifted towards the current selection because of his awesome exhaust ports on the back and his practical pose.
We tried lots of different color variants. One direction was the “junkyard” theme, others were heavy machinery like Caterpillars. I think many of these would be great for skin variants, especially the ones with color pops like the yellow and blue. Skins in general is something that we will explore a lot when we are through the first pass of all the Guardians. I can’t wait to see what the team comes up with.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s update! The art here was primarily provided by our awesome character concept artist Moritz Kremer. Next step is to start building these guys and gals in 3D!
Until next time,
Tore
PS — For those of you who have followed Nyan Heroes from the beginning, you’ll notice that in the old whitepaper, there was a 9th class — the Berserker / Brawler. He will be part of the next batch, so stay tuned!
About Nyan Heroes
Nyan Heroes is a free-to-play hero shooter that combines fast-paced, competitive gameplay with a real-world impact. Developed by a remote team of seasoned game developers and powered by Unreal Engine 5 and blockchain technology, Nyan Heroes pays homage to cats and offers a AAA multiplayer experience with epic mech character classes, thrilling cat-like movements, and unique gameplay abilities.
Learn More: nyanheroes.com
