about 2 years ago - VALORANT - Direct link

Transcript (by Youtube)


4s [Music]
9s after icebox after Breeze after fracture
12s we wanted to build something a little
14s more straightforward a little more
16s approachable for players all of those
18s maps are fairly strategically complex we
21s knew we wanted to revisit Old World
23s Europe and Portugal was a country that
26s has a ton of Rich culture somebody threw
28s out the idea of what if it was ocean
30s floor is risen they wanted to protect a
32s part of the city and therefore they
34s built this big dome this is our very
37s first foray into
39s Omega Earth this was really our first
41s opportunity to get to show that off to
43s players what are some of those defining
45s differences Pearl is one of its kind in
48s that way
49s foreign
56s internally we've come to sort of
58s associate maps with like well what's the
60s new hook what's the thing that this map
62s is going to do and we wanted to make
64s sure that we weren't sort of
65s pigeonholing ourselves into that making
68s that a requirement for a map every new
69s map needs to have a new mechanic so we
71s wanted to have something that was just
73s purely geo-driven this map was also in
75s response to you know player needs player
78s desires they were asking for something a
80s little more straightforward a little
81s simpler the initial pitch was
83s traditional three-lane map mid is
86s smaller attackers are descending into
88s Defender territory I'm going to do some
90s tuning with you know how much height is
92s okay and make sure that it didn't feel
94s too overwhelming for Defenders but it
96s also introduced some interesting
98s situations for certain utility so Reyes
101s allows to Satchel boost off high Deltas
103s sage has a little bit of a harder time
105s Walling off a then she's one of the few
107s people that can kind of cover the whole
109s choke on be long the other piece of that
111s is mid is a little bit more short range
113s so maybe you can actually go there on a
114s save round but then you still have kind
116s of a long fight into the sights
118s themselves
123s our story really began all the way back
125s with the map Ascent we haven't really
128s spelled it out up until this point so
131s this is really us finally saying yes we
134s have two realities Alpha Earth and Omega
137s Earth in conflict with each other and
139s pearl is that opportunity for players to
141s experience
142s Omega for the very first time
145s Omega has a unique visual language and
148s developing that visual language and
150s baking it into the DNA of this map was
152s something that the whole team
153s collaborated on and took part in here we
156s are on Earth 2 for the first time and
158s with our two comes Kingdom too here on
161s K2 we wanted to keep that thematic of
163s Kingdom with the metals in the concrete
165s however we visually wanted the shape
167s language to look and feel different
169s so when myself and some of the concept
171s artists were looking at Kingdom 2 we
174s wanted to create a type of architecture
176s that was somewhat based in reality right
178s you look at the architecture of like
180s zaha Hadid and Norman Foster or a number
183s of other Architects that are doing both
185s parametric Styles or organic types of
186s architecture and we saw that and wanted
189s to weave that into the K2 narrative
191s because if you look at K1 so much of it
193s is just your typical modern architecture
195s that we see you know out in the
197s day-to-day it was a lot of work but I
200s think we came up with something good
204s so underwater the deeper you go the
206s darker it gets also fun fact the deeper
208s you go underwater color actually starts
210s to really play a whole new role it
212s starts changing saturation levels the
214s values everything starts getting tweaked
215s out so for this was a challenge we had
217s to really start cranking up all the
220s artificial lighting essentially all the
221s wall sconces that we were able to place
223s throughout the map but at the end of the
224s day you know if we needed to crank up
226s the Sun or something like that we can
227s say hey the water level is very close to
230s the top of this Dome therefore there is
232s some actual sunlight peeking through and
234s we can play with that space to really
235s help lift the light if we needed to we
237s worked with some actual mural artists
239s from Lisbon Portugal and had them give
243s their Spin and their flavor of their
245s specific art that they do and
247s interjected in our map there's some
249s challenges there because obviously
250s they're painting on walls they're
251s popping that saturation doing their
252s thing we have to really clamp our values
254s specifically for gameplay so that a
256s character is always going to read no
258s matter what wall surface is behind them
259s the mural artists were fantastic people
261s and they were so cool to work with
267s foreign
272s the conversations have to start really
274s early in order to pull off cinematics
276s like shattered that are so integrated
279s into the setting of pearl we want you to
281s be able to immediately jump into game
283s and see those exact same pieces of
285s architecture the exact same symbols
287s understand what you just saw in this
290s cinematic expression of the world is
292s what players get to live and breathe and
293s experience in that competitive game
295s environment so there's a couple
297s different areas around Pearl's map that
299s I think really stand out as those lore
302s integrated spaces the comic book shop is
305s one of them high tide Comics looking in
307s the window and giving a glimpse into
309s Omega Earth it's very different than the
310s Valor protocol and how they operate
312s there is the Multiverse museum with
314s various displays that show a peek into
317s the history of Omega Earth's
319s relationship with radianite and other
321s dimensions high up above on certain
323s walls you'll see depictions of our
325s agents those are absolute depictions
327s that we hope helped fill in the gaps of
331s how omega's Society interacts with
334s valorent in this world
339s player jumping into Pearl for the first
341s time or 10th time hopefully it feels
344s comfortable like putting on an old
346s well-worn pair of shoes this map should
348s just be like it clicks you get it
351s hopefully the math is delivering on that
353s as you enter into this battle and
356s suddenly find yourself underneath this
358s giant underwater dome in a city that is
360s completely unlike so many of the other
362s environments I just hope the beauty
365s captured in Pearl is something that
367s players enjoy
371s foreign
374s [Music]