LogInIn a recent interview, Century: Age of Ashes art director, Pascal Barret, talked about the game's amazing mechanics, shared what inspired the studio while creating the game, and told what makes a map good for fighting flying creatures.
In December 2021, an independent studio Playwing released its latest title, Century: Age of Ashes. It is a free-to-play multiplayer PVP game centered around aerial dogfights where players ride gorgeous fire-breathing dragons to fight enemies. Century: Age of Ashes is notable for its excellent flying mechanics and level design.
Speaking to the Unreal Engine team, Playwing's Art Director Pascal Barret talked about the game's amazing mechanics, shared what inspired the studio while creating the game, and told what makes a map good for fighting flying creatures.
According to the art director, both literary works and video games inspired the fantasy world where Century: Age of Ashes takes place. Barret cited Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones books and games like The Witcher and God of War. He also shared that Rob Bowman’s film Reign of Fire and the Hellboy comics had a significant cultural influence on the game, while the dragons were inspired by creatures like Hungarian Horntail from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as well as Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon.
"For dragons, we wanted to create an experience like none other, where flight sensations would be central to the experience while making sure we’re still in the realms of everyone’s representation of these untamable creatures – their animalistic nature, their power, their speed, their agility," Barret said.
Talking of the flying mechanics, the art director shared that the studio aimed to make the flight dynamic feel natural. "It’s quite tricky to nail [this] since there’s no clear definition of what natural actually is with creatures that do not exist in the real world," Barret commented. "It’s all about making sure things feel alive, organic, an uncanny valley-like struggle against the common folk representation of dark fantasy."
To achieve this, the developers had to adjust to the "interdependent relationship" between the actions of a player, the reactions of a dragon on screen, and "how it’s captured in the field of view to ensure we steer away (pun intended) from the rigid sensations of piloting". Barret also noted that it is the constantly evolving approach that the studio will keep improving in the course of time.
The art director also mentioned that Century: Age of Ashes' maps were designed in the early stages of the development and were created in the line with "several precise aspects" that had already been in the game's concept art.
"We approached them like open combat arenas with epic sceneries and extreme verticality to deliver intense sensations of flight and liberty, said Barret. "We worked precisely on scales and lengths in each set element to take into account your dragons’ movements, so the exhilarating feeling you get when rushing and ‘finesse-riding’ comes from a balance of risk and reward."
According to the art director, the maps were built in a specific way so that a player could explore various sub-areas including both wide-open ones where there are just a few cover elements and obstacles, and narrow ones, "dense and intricate", where a player can hide from enemies. All the maps were designed to be connected so that the flight could be seamless and felt natural.
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