Nowadays, shooting games have become undeniably charming.
Your character can shoot people with a rainbow-colored gun while wearing it. fluffy shark jumpsuit IN Fortnite. IN Evaluationyou can achieve a close victory not by cutting the enemy with a sharpened blade, but with a magic rod emanating lightweight. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegroundsyou can play as a K-pop idol and wear a hat with adorable pink bunny ears. The last two Call of Duty games even let you dress up as Nicki Minaj in a chrome pink metallic corset.
Gone are the days when shooters tended towards more subdued and military-inspired styles. Games like Golden eye people played against camouflaged soldiers in sanitized government facilities. Halo leaned toward a sci-fi aesthetic, but the Master Chief’s scratched metal and bullets still made him a space marine. Other wildly popular series like Gears of War, Call of Duty, and Counter-Strike established shooters as a genre that attempted to emulate the brutality of war.
Now, however, the cosmetic items in the game are more inspired the art of Lisa Frankmagical girls Sailor Moonand fashion icons like Ariana Grande. To learn more about this trend and the creation of these items, Polygon spoke with Evaluation development team at Riot Games.
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The dawn of the girly pop era in shooters
When Blizzard released Oversee in 2016, its glowing and cheerful tone — supported by a cast of characters that was comparatively diverse for the time — contrasted with other shooters. It became a hit, selling 50 million copies in four years. In addition, games such as Fortnite contributed to the popularization of the free-to-play model in games, which is based on the regular release of optional in-game cosmetic items.
Evaluation continued the precedent set by games like Oversee AND FortniteRiot Games released this elegant first-person shooter in 2020 as a free-to-play game, where players could purchase in-game cosmetics that changed the appearance of weapons.
Before Evaluationthe development team had to make some key decisions regarding early cosmetics. Since they first had to establish unique aspects of the game, the cosmetics couldn’t stray too far from the tone of the main game. Deputy Art Director for Evaluation Sean Marino told Polygon in a video chat, “It’s really important to differentiate ourselves as a game from other shooters that are a little more serious or a little more silly, like we need to find our place.”
Girl skins are for everyone
For Evaluation team, creating cosmetic items that touch on different genres of media is a goal, Pinto told Polygon. Think steampunk, comics, and — in the case of the Evori Dreamwings collection — magical girls and anyone who likes cute animals.
Cosmetics aid our favorite games feel fresh
Image: Riot Games
Game developers constantly update them, adding fresh costumes, weapons, and more.
Skins like Radiation crisis allowed the team to introduce a comic book-like look Evaluation without introducing a fresh art style to the game wholesale. Marino told Polygon that even though the team is playing in a different genre, it maintains the “core, fundamental aesthetic” Evaluation.
Ultimately, the rise of pink and feminine aesthetics in games seems to be an attempt to give players a wider range of options. You can get dragons and sakura blossoms. Master Chief is still a space marine — but with cosmetics he can wear adorable little cat ears. Now players can try anything — military or not.
