Every corner of the Darksiders world is laced with art. Thereās art on art, more art than you can shake a stick at. That makes sense, given the fact that Vigil, the studio behind Darksiders and this Augustās Darksiders II, is headed up by well-known comic artist Joe Madureira.
I spoke with Madureira last week about the intricate and instinctual process of designing the art for Darksiders, why his new protagonist Death wears purple, the importance of Deathās loincloth, and what instrument the horseman would play if he were in a metal band.
Madureira also shared some cool new artwork and screenshots from the game, which you can check out in our exclusive galleries below.
Kotaku: So, youāre making a new game with an entirely new protagonist. And heās got a mouthless skull-face. How can you make Death into a relatable character? Is that even a priority?
Joe Madureira: A lot of it comes through in the voice performance by Michael Wincottā even if you were looking at the back of Deathās head, youād still get a lot of the emotion. A lot of itās done through body language as well. In the end, we had to cheat a little and affect Deathās mask, even though itās made of bone. It does contort, and his brow furrows slightly. We couldnāt get away with not doing that. But I think we pulled it off.
Neither Death nor War had any irises in their eyes. Do you worry that makes a character seem too inhuman?
The thing with War is that heās just a lot more of a stoic. He just didnāt have a lot to say. If [Death] had a lot more moments of really high emotion and stuff ā it would be really difficult. But heās just an aggressive badass killer anyway, so it was not as hard to pull off as we thought it would be. Not having a face helps more than it hurts this character; it gives him that mysterious, creepy vibe.
Youāve said Darksiders II will have much more of a supporting cast than the first game. Could you talk about that?
Thereāre definitely a lot of characters where you actually can interact with, you can go back to them throughout the game. You learn a lot about the story from interacting with them as opposed to watching cutscenes ā that helps give more depth to Deathās character than watching a little movie, because you actually get to see the interaction.
Even though Death is kinda of just a dark badass guy, he definitely has a more personal story than in the first one. We havenāt revealed too much about it other than the fact that the Horsemen were involved with the destruction of their people, their own kind, the Nephilim, but Death carries that guilt with him in this game, and heās faced with some big choices that affect humanity and his own redemption.
Does the narrative branch at all?
Itās not a branching narrative ā there are occasionally choices, there are dialogue choices, but they donāt affect the game in a major way like moral choices or anything like that. Itās more about where you want the conversation to go so you can get more info about specific topics.
Is Death based on a particular rock star? He looks like a heavy metal god.
[Laughs] Not at all. He just ā I think itās the long hair, and skulls, hey! Itās rock ān roll.
If Death played in a heavy metal band, what instrument would he play?
I wouldnāt be surprised if we see some dudes rockinā out with Deathās mask on. That was not the intention though.
He seems like a bassist to me, with the way he slings his arms down.
I dunno, he seems like more of a drummer to me.
Ha, yeah, I see it. Okay: What is a Darksider?
We thought rather than pick a name that was very specific to one of the characters or the four horsemen or whatever, Darksiders just kind of encompassed all of the characters and the universe, and the tone of our world. There arenāt really any innocent parties in the first Darksiders, even the angels sort of have their dark secrets.
Honestly, part of it was just that it was a name that we all liked, and Darksiders kind of just kept making our top ten list over and over. And we said, āDamn it, letās just call it Darksiders!ā It just kind of stuck, it was catchy.
I kind of like names like that anyway; I did a book called Battle Chasers and at no point does anyone say, āItās the Battle Chasers!ā itās likeā¦ who is a Battle Chaser? I donāt know. You never see the word anywhere in the book. But it just kind of encompassed the right energy and vibe for the book. And again, like Darksiders, itās vague but it also sort of fits the story and the characters.
Do you think about how the character models animate when you draw them?
Yes. I think itās the first thing that I think about actually, with characters and game concepts. In comics, as long as you can draw the pose you need to, then itās fine. In games, a lot of times itās how they move and itās the design role that the creature plays. If weāre doing a creature and weāve just done five flying guys, itās like, āYou know, you really need a big weapon wielding ground-guy,ā and that immediately tells me itās going to have two arms, probably legs, what kind of weapons is he holdingā¦. those sorts of choices sort of narrow everything down.
In the end, the gameplay aspect is the most important because, you know, āthis guy doesnāt wield a weapon, he shoots stuff at you from far away,ā he doesnāt necessarily need to walk, soā¦ as long as heās far away from you, shooting, he could fly or whatever. And that is the kind of stuff that gets worked out beforehand. But [gameplay] is probably the biggest influence on how the characterās going to look like than, you know, what I felt like drawing that day or whatever.
When you make an environmental structure, how much thought do you put into its function? On a lot of these notes Iām seeing are pretty functional.
Again, it really depends on if itās just eye candy or if itās involved in the direct gameplay path, or if itās part of a puzzle. If itās just buildings or trees that are just dressing up the scene, then itās like āeh,ā a quick drawing will do. But if itās something where āoh, you need to pull this lever,ā and it turns the water on, and it goes down this aquaduct, and then you can cross this thingā¦ obviously it needs to be way more specific so that the modelers can build it right. Itās done in stages, so weāll build it and make sure itās functional in a very loose prototype before we go in and polish it up. The notes happen throughout, sometimes beforehand, sometimes after itās been built and itās not working properly. Or sometimes it does work but it looks crappy. Weāll do what we call Paint-overs where we take a screenshot of the crappy looking version and paint on top of it in photoshop. Sometimes even with layers you can show, āHereās how the bridge should closeā and you do a couple different layers showing the various stages. I would say the majority of our art direction is done through paint-overs. Itās a constant iterative process.
Do you guys do that more or less than other studios?
I believe that itās common ā I actually donāt get together with other studio art directors as much as youād think and talk about our process. But at vigil, right from the beginning, itās just the way we work. I had no experience at all, and this is the easiest way to convey ā you canāt really explain something in words, itās easier to just scribble it on there. Kind of like drawing on a whiteboard except that youāre actually drawing on the image.
I know itās a common practice at other studios, I just donāt know if they do it as much as we do. Because we paint over on almost everything.
How many iterations do the characters go through before theyāre done?
We tend to nail characters more often without problems right off the bat, but if we have a variant like, letās say, hereās a demon soldier, hereās a demon brute. And if the brute is basically just the soldier but with bigger armor and weapons then it doesnāt really make sense to re-draw the entire guy. So weāll just paint stuff right on top. Usually. Not always.
Or letās say we have a concept that we like, but in the game he just doesnāt look super cool, and we want to add horns and whateverāweāll just do that in a paint-over. We wonāt re-do the entire process. But itās not as common [with characters] as it is for the environment, thatās for sure. We just struggle more with environments in general.
Is it always additive? Do you ever feel like youāve got too much art onscreen?
Occasionally, yeah. Weāll sometimes overdo it with effects, or the colors will look really garish, in certain lighting. And weāll have to tone stuff down. In general [laughs] more is better. Especially in games, when stuff is moving around on the screen, and stuff can look kind of small from far away, we just try to give everything unique elements so theyāre recognizable. Sometimes it involves taking way, but usually it involves adding more cool stuff.
Itās definitely a hard balance. You look at a scene and youāre like, āEeh, somethingās missing, itās not dramatic enough.ā And then you start adding stuff and then youāre like, āWoah, thereās so many boulders in this area! I canāt even tell where Iām supposed to go, what a mess!ā And then weāll start taking stuff out. Or weāll do like, one giant boulder instead of eight small ones. It sounds dumb but thatās the kind of stuff we constantly have to deal with.
For Death: Why purple?
War had a lot of red going on, so red was off limits. When we tried blue, blue is a soothing colorā¦ thereās basically two colors that sort of fit death or arcane magic, or underworldly ghostly etherealness: so we had this ghastly green and this purple. Black and purple just look evil, I donāt know why. [Laughs] But youāll notice, thereāre a lot of Disney villains that actually have purple as well. We used the ghastly green so much in a major area of the game called the underworld where Death is facing off against an undead kingdom ā we couldnāt have giant landscapes and characters in purple because it was way too garish so they got the green, Death got the purple, and it just stuck.
Did you worry about the Skeletor comparison?
We heard that early on, and we laughed about it. Honestly, I think it was one of the reasons that I took the teeth off the mask, because I didnāt want it to be an actual skull face. Then it literally would be Skeletor. But we werenāt worried about it, itās kind of funny, itās kind of a funny connection. You always get stuff like that ā like āOh, he looks like this, the game looks like this.ā
And itās like: Eh, we just wanted to make him cool. And I like He-Man, whatever. I like Skeletor. Iāll take it. Itās the 80ās comeback, man. And look, youāre never going to play a Skeletor game. Itās not going to happen, so you might as well just buy Darksiders II. [Laughs]
Did you put a lot of thought into deathās back? Since weāre going to spend so much time looking at it?
Itās one of those things ā itās iteration, one thing they absolutely need is a loincloth. I put one on the back so that I donāt have to see a guyās butt while Iām running in the game. Youāll notice Death and War both have them. You need that coverage. Beyond that, you have to pick a pose thatās cool from the back not the front ā itās the exact opposite of what would come naturally. Once you have those rules in mindā¦ I mean, weāve been doing it for a while, so itās second nature now. But in the beginning there was a learning curve to it.
What do you miss about doing comics all day?
Well, Iām still doing it to some extent. Not full time, but every once and a while I do get that bug, and Iām lucky enough to get to keep my foot in both worlds. Itās one of those things where the grass is always greener. When Iām home drawing, itās relaxing, I donāt have to deal with a ton of people. Iāve got my music on and I get to draw just like when I was a kid. Thereās something really meditative about it ā but eventually, after a while, itās just boring and lonely, and itās nice to go into the studio and feed off everyoneās energy and excitement. Whether itās a good day or a bad day, sometimes we have arguments and bad meetings, and whatever. There is an energy to being in a studio thatās pretty awesome. So I would definitely miss that as well. So, you know, they each have their own appeal.
How has it been developing the game for Wii U?
Yeah, weāre not allowed to talk about the Wii U version at all.
PR: Thatās where Iāll jump in. Weāll talk more about the Wii U later.
Okay, okay. Since the plotlines of the first and second Darksiders are concurrent, are we going to find out what happens at the end of Darksiders, or are we really going to have to wait for a third game?
Aw man, I canāt talk about the ending of Darksiders II!
No, of course. Iām just wondering if people who are hoping for some resolution for the first gameās ending will find any kind of satisfaction here, or if theyāll have to wait for a third game.
Youāll definitely get a lot more insight into the story ā thereās two ways to progress a story: one is to tack on to the end of it, to add to the linear story. And the other is to go depth-wise into it. I wonāt say which one you get more of in the sequel, but youāll definitely get something out of it.
We were conscious of it, we knew that weāre not starting off where the last one ended. It was cool to end on a cliffhanger in the first one, some people were frustrated; some people were super frustrated, some people were super excited. And everyone remembered it, and that was the main thing. Because some games just end and you never talk about it again.
In the sequel, we chose to just give you a whole new character, which also blew peopleās minds. Itās the way we do thingsāif itās not jarring and itās not exciting you, (hopefully not frustrating you), just being impactful, then itās probably not worth doing. Hopefully people will be happy with the ending of Darksiders II. But I canāt really comment more than that.
To wrap up, hereās something Iāve been curious about lately in general: What does the word fantasy mean to you? What makes a world a fantasy world? What do fantasy games need more or less of?
To meā¦ I play a lot of RPGs and I read a lot of fantasy novels so when you first say āFantasyā to me, I think of elves and warriors and magic. But I think that as far as game genres, and when weāre talking about art direction, to me, itās just anything that weāre not photo-referencing.
When I say āHey, letās go more fantasy with itā when Iām talking about art, a lot of times, you can just have like, waterfalls spilling out of building windows in this desolate apocalyptic scene, and itās more fantasy. Itās not just, you know, a hollowed-out building. You could see that in Detroit. Adding fantasy elements, itās just something that you couldnāt possibly see.
Iāve been enjoying games that are definitely fantasy but arenāt Tolkien-style fantasy. Gravity Rush, Bastion, The Secret World, etc.
Yeah, and Iāve always been fascinated byā¦ I love elves and dwarves as much as everyone else, but I love worlds that blur the lines and introduce new elements. Thatās why even when I was doing Battle Chasers there were giant robots and guns and swords and wizardsā¦ it was kind of a mishmash. But yeah, youāre right, it doesnāt just have to be Lord of the Rings fantasy.
Thanks for your time.
Definitely, it was fun.
