Bungie’s Wonderful World of
Colour
Despite my misgivings with the first
game, I was expecting Destiny 2 to be
a fun romp at the very least. Going into the game I was expecting to mow down
some aliens while making my way through a passable attempt at a story like most
similar titles. What I wasn’t expecting was to find that the game was an
aesthetic marvel, boasting a brilliantly written story, a spectacular
soundtrack, and, perhaps most importantly, a gorgeous visual design.
The gameplay’s good too but I’ll talk
about that when I review the darn thing.
Yes, Destiny 2 of all games has emerged as a clear frontrunner for
graphical and visual design awards to be given out at the end of the year. How
did it do this? It decided to embrace its sci-fi roots and pour every colour in
the rainbow all over the game, making it a delight to look at. Different
planets are a delight to visit thanks to how unique and beautiful they all
look, plus with each new world having its own colour palette. Earth is
predominantly green, Io is smothered in yellow rocks, and so on and so forth.
This has been a growing trend in
gaming recently, and one I’m happy has caught on: colour is back, baby!
I think we can safely say that the
days of ugly games trying to justify themselves by being “grim ‘n gritty” just
for the sake of it are almost completely behind us. While there are still some
outliers (mostly in games where it makes thematic sense for the ugliness, like Gears of War), they’ve become the
exception instead of the norm.
If anything, this year’s games have
been just plain splendid at demonstrating the graphical prowess of their
systems. 4K might be the cause of it, but whatever the reason I’m thankful.
Games like Horizon: Zero Dawn, Breath of the Wild and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy are
powerhouses not just in how realistic they make the games look, but also in how
memorable their art design is.
Art design is something that goes
woefully underappreciated when talking about game graphics. Yes, it’s all well
and good how you can see every single pore on your main character’s face, but
what happens when your game’s looks are completely unmemorable afterwards?
A good example is a lot of the late 2000’s
to early 2010’s Call of Duty releases.
Pick any of those games (there’s a lot of them) and try to visualize any
specific and memorable visuals from that game.
And now try and visualize any
character from Overwatch.
The second one was way easier than the
first, wasn’t it? That’s thanks to superb art design. Overwatch’s extensive cast of characters and world are immediately
recognizable and iconic, whereas all the Call
of Duty games are so indistinct from each other and use such uninteresting
colour palettes that it’s become a challenge just trying to remember a specific
part from one of them.
And now we come back to Destiny 2. Despite being at its core not
dissimilar to Call of Duty mechanics-wise,
the planets and scenery are some of the most memorable I’ve seen all year
thanks to the hard work and effort put into the art design. What could’ve so
easily looked indistinguishable from every other sci-fi first person shooter
now has its own look and flavour that fans can use to recognize it by.
Song of the Week
The Farm – Destiny 2
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