When I was starting out, real-time cloth simulation didn’t exist and polygon budgets were quite low, so for example a realistic Roman toga draped around a character was a nightmare to model and animate. Aside from that, in games like Total War where you can get thousands of models on screen at once, there’s always technical limitations to what’s possible if you want to keep a decent framerate. “In Total War – just as in all games – gameplay is always a priority, so every costume shouldn’t just look good on the box art but also be readable on screen and ideally communicate the character’s role. In contrast, Odysseus is a trickster who favours guerrilla tactics – he has lighter, more practical equipment and his ambusher units are dressed to blend in with the environment or stay stealthy at night.”ĭesigning characters and their costumes for video games – especially Total War – has its specific intricacies, something that Nick is keen to signpost: “So, for example, Agamemnon is an arrogant ruler who loves flaunting his power – this is why his armour is ostentatious and perhaps a bit over-compensating, while his Mycenaean guards have an imperial, almost Praetorian feel to them. Once approved, the heroes in turn informed the looks of their respective faction rosters and unique units. With this visual vocabulary in mind, the TROY team then worked on developing the looks of the legendary heroes, following the game designers’ briefs which outlined the heroes’ personalities and playstyles. He acknowledges that this isn’t strictly historical – in reality, everyone in the region probably dressed for war similarly – but the team needed strong, differing visual themes to make the two sides of the conflict appear distinct. “We began by establishing a visual language to differentiate our major cultural groups – for example, we decided the Danaans would use plate armour, blocky shield shapes, and warm colours, while the Trojans would prefer scale armour, biconcave shield shapes, and longer garments dyed in colder hues.” With a healthy library of reference materials to draw from, the team then got on with the designing part of the process. “So, for example, Agamemnon’s armour is adorned with snakes as a nod to Homer’s description, but as a whole the panoply is a Bronze Age design Homer might not have been familiar with as he lived generations later.” “I’d say we relied on archaeological findings to inform style and on literary sources such as the Iliad to inspire content,” Nick muses. We referenced central and western European – as well some Egyptian – equipment, as we figured similar designs might have ended up in the Mediterranean through trade or shared crafting techniques, and we needed all the variety we could get.” “We purchased books on Mycenaean warfare, the Bronze Age collapse, the Sea Peoples – everything.
“We collected all kinds of reference on Bronze Age equipment used in conflicts between Aegean civilizations that might have inspired the Trojan War legend,” Nick explains. Digging up fashionįor TROY, the team had to research both archaeological and literary sources – but they approached each of these differently. Today we’re again chatting with Nikolay Toshev, a principal artist working on A Total War Saga: TROY, but instead of looking at weapons this time he’ll be telling us all about costumes, armour, and everything in between. It simply wouldn’t do to have the heroes of Troy marching out onto the field improperly dressed – but luckily the Creative Assembly Sofia art team has them covered.
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