I recently had a chance to sit down and chat with Khang Le, art director and one of the CEO's over at Adhesive Games. Hawken has turned a lot of heads since its debut, ours included and even ended up winning our 'Best Of E3 Overall' title. We got to go into some specifics about art direction, visual styles and other interesting insights about the upcoming title.
In terms of the visual style you chose to go for with the mechs, what were your choices in differentiating yourself from the pre-established Mech titles out there like Armored Core or Mech Warrior?
Khang Le: In terms of mech styles, Maschinen Krieger is still relatively unknown aesthetically so I really want to bring some of that to Hawken. Eastern titles tend to use humanoid, streamlined mechs like Evangelion and the West tends to like 'chick walker' mechs like those in MechWarrior. Maschinen Krieger's aesthetics tend to sort of look like a mix of insectoid and chicken walker movement types.
We also have 2 factions, the Prosk have more organic shaped mechs while the other faction, the Sentium side tend to look more like very modern tank with legs. The different between them is pretty subtle, but the visuals will stand out compared to any other mech title out there.
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| Kow Yokoyama's Maschinen Krieger |
Khang Le: I grew up watching lots of 80s scifi like Alien, BladeRunner, StarWars so that's definitely an influence. I also drew inspiration from my childhood in Vietnam, and it's organic city of dense alley ways. The colors and complexity there are just awesome. Then there's all the Japanese stuff like Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor, Cowboy Bebop and a slew of others.
In terms of video games it would be the Mech Warrior series, Virtual On and Steel Battalion. Mix all these influences with a little of Kow Yokoyama's kitbash art style (Maschinen Krieger), and you get something known as Post Apocalyptic Hello Kitty. It's a term I like to throw around.
When you concept your mechs, do you try to concept in a way that emphasizes form over function or function over form? Different artists in the industry seem to take varied approaches, we're just curious to see what your take is.
Khang Le: I tend to pick form over fuction typically, but the form has to tell the 'story' of the function. Like it might not necessarily function engineering blue print wise, but it looks functional. It 'reminds' people of the functional things that they relate to.
For example, that's why space ships have intakes and flaps even though they don't have air in space, but it remind people of the things they're used to. If it's too overly engineered and foreign, people can't grasp it. So the 'story' of the form is more important than whether it really would work or not if say, an engineer was to build builtd it. This is especially relevant in movies and games, where the audience might only have a few seconds to see something.
We heard that you guys chose a kitbash style to get the most visual variety out of your limited resources. Yet during our time playing the game we could barely tell that there was much repeating going on. What type of practices did you guys use to get that much mileage out of a limited amount of assets?
Khang Le: There are lots, and lots of repeating elements. I mean, if you really think about the city we live in lots of elements are reused all over the place, but they're just arranged in different ways.
We ended up going with the modular approach since our team was so small. And actually, the main reason why we even did Hawken was because from a game development standpoint, scifi is faster to make than fantasy or real world genre. I mean, I can get one random techy shape and repeat it like 10 times down a hallway or even use it on my gun, or a mech and you'd be hard pressed to tell. So yes, Hawken was created out of logistical reason and also our passion for a somewhat forgotten genre.
What inspired you guys to start your own studio and start working for yourselves? Following the demise of Project Offset, were there any important lessons that you guys learned going forward to your current title?
Khang Le: Yeah, a ton! Offset was an amazing experience. I learned so much about game development and met many talented people prior to Intel. I mean, the founders of Hawken are the same core guys I worked on during the Offset project.
In terms of imporant lessons, I learned that making a game engine from scratch was not worth it, ;) making a game is hard enough. Using an existing game engine lets us focus on the game and not having to worry about tech really helped us out this time around.
You've been a huge source of inspiration for many concept artists of this generation, contributing to a book which many have come to consider as a bible for how to go through an iterative concepting process: The Skillful Huntsman. How do you feel about leaving that kind of footprint?
Khang Le: I think it's awesome that I've been able to inspire people just as the others has inspired me: Craig Mullins, Moebius, Miyazaki were the types of legends that got me to where I'm at now. I still feel like I got so much to learn, and there are so many young talented younger kids these days. I think its amazing that they've had a wacom tablet since middle school! I was painting with a mouse with 16 colors in highschool!
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| Still from the set of the live action Hawken trailer, which debuted at E3. |
Khang Le: Yeah! We've been working on creating a whole Hawken multimedia bible to make sure everything is consistent. The DJ2 guys (Behind the live action Hawken promo) are great, and they have lots of connections in Hollywood which has worked out for us. Hawken seems to appeal to film people, I guess because it has a cinematic feel to it.
Do you know Duncan Jones by any chance? The guy who directed Moon and Source Code? He's a big Hawken fan and stopped by and played it waaaay back. He was really awesome! Very down to earth and a total scifi nerd.
However, not to sidetrack too much, I personally just want to focus on the game, and all the other stuff I only look over every once in the while to make sure it's on the right track. We currently have an awesome writer and artists lined up for the Archaia graphic novel, so I can't wait to see what they add to the Hawken universe.
Considering your humble origins as a studio, do you have any advice for people wanting to start their own gaming projects with a small team?
Khang Le: Well, what we created for the first two Hawken trailers was completed with a team of 7 people. At this point there is no excuse not to create of your dream. You just have to plan things out in advance intelligently, and work within your limitations. Designing in blue sky can be very dangerous. Just keep that in mind and you'll be able to achieve your goals.
Community Question #1:
There's been a large amount of concern regarding the game's F2P nature, as the word has developed a negative stigma due to issues like 'pay to win.' How is Hawken going to avoid that potential pitfall?
Khang Le: Well that's definitely a potential problem we've know about, even prior to our annoucement that Hawken was going to be F2P. I'm definitely aware of the bad stigma F2P titles have here in the West. I think we're just going to follow the model of F2P games that have does it right. League Of Legends and Team Fortress come to mind.
It basically breaks down to two things: Mostly cosmetic items and having it so everything that can be bought can be earned. We're also thinking of having items that can only be earned so even if you've got a ton of money to spare, you won't be able to buy them. All of our weapons and items are also balanced to each other so what people will pay for is variety, not necessarily advantage.
Community Question #2:
Is the PS3 version of Hawken still in the works?
Khang Le: Nope. However, it might be a possibility once the PS3 is F2P ready in the future.
Community Question #3:
People have also stated that the MEK-FU controller, despite how awesome it might look seems a little too bulky for a game that plays at such a frantic pace. Do they have a reason to be concerned?
Khang Le: We're curious ourselve of how that controller works. It hasn't been implemented yet. It's a gorgeous controller though and I can't wait til they send us a prototype to test with.
Community Question #4:
How did you guys come up with the name of 'Hawken?'
Khang Le: Well shortly after Offset was winding down, my friend James Hawkins was standing next to me while I was finishing the first concept pitch painting. We didn't know what to call the game so as a joke I added 'Hawkins' to the painting. However, it got stuck and eventually became Hawken.
We had plenty of other names too: Bolt Head, Steel Vultures, but at the end of the day Hawken won over all.
Anyways, thank you guys for checking out the interview! Be sure to head over to PlayHawken.com to sign up for the beta and reserve your callsign!
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