While it often takes a back seat to overall gameplay and mechanics, a game’s art style can be extremely important to establish a sense of identity for a given title. Aunique art stylecan communicate a game’s style and tone and set it apart from its competitors. The art style can even draw the player’s attention to or away from different elements, as well as give a level ofvisual clarityto the work. While it isn’t the end all, be all of the game’s overall quality, visual presentation is important. Game designers will often put a great deal of thought into what art style their game should incorporate.
Something that can occasionally happen during game development is for the game to completely switch art style part way through. This can be done for a variety of reasons ranging from trying to increase marketability, wanting to set the game apart from its contemporaries, or just because the new style suits the overall vision of the game better. Very often a change in art style will result in the game receiving a major shift in tone. In this list, we will be looking at some examples of games that changed art style mid-way through development.
6Team Fortress 2
One of the better-known examples of this phenomenon,Team Fortress 2originally started development back in the late 90s and would utilizeHalf-Life’sGold Source Engine. This initial version ofTeam Fortress 2was intended to have a realistic art style (for the time at least) and possessed numerous gameplay differences from the final release.
After almost a decade with little to no news on the game,ValvereintroducedTF2in 2006 with a final release in 2007. The final game had undergone a number of major changes in development, not the least of which was a completely different, more cartoony art style. The change turned out to be the correct choice. Not only did it setTF2apart from the other military shooters flooding the market at the time, but it also provided the game witha timeless appeal. This style also allowed for more exaggerated proportions, a great boon to the gameplay as it allowed different classes to be identified from a distanceby their silhouettes.
5Okami
It can be hard to imagine, but there was once a time whenOkamilacked its iconic art style. While the game was still in development, it originally featured a more realistic graphical style. Thankfully, this was later replaced with the game’s iconic ink wash painting style that fits the folkloricfeudal Japansetting.
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The final game’s art style is one of the most visually striking, and outright gorgeous ever to grace the medium, and it still holds up incredibly well. While the original look would have still been impressive for the time, it is likely thatOkamiwould not have gained nearly as much of a hardcore following as it did if the developers at Clover Studios hadn’t changed the game’s art style.
4Overstrike/Fuse
Unfortunately, not all art style changes actually improve a game. At E3 2011,Ratchet & ClankdeveloperInsomniac Gamesrevealed their new project, a third-person shooter calledOverstrike. The game was campy in tone and featured a bright and colorful art style to reflect it. This actually garnered a decent amount of interest and stood out amidst the generic gray/brown gritty shooters of the time. It therefore came as a shock when a year later the game had been rechristened asFuse,and now sported an entirely different art style.
This was apparently done as a result of focus testing,which showed that teenagersthought the previous style was too childish. The game now embraced a dark, gritty look and tone. This turned out to be a costly mistake, as the game ended up bombing at retail. While a wide variety of factors can be attributed to this, one of the largest is that the game lacked a unique identity. It ended up getting lost in a sea of other gray/brown military shooters from the time. It’s a sad end to what initially seemed like the start of a promising new series.
3The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princesswas originally conceived as a sequel toWind Waker, and would have featured a similar art style. However, there was some concern that the reason behindWind Waker’ssomewhat lackluster sales in the west was due to the cartoony art style, giving the impression that it was for younger gamers. Due to this, developers decided to go with amore realistic lookfor the game which would becomeTwilight Princess.
The final game still utilized the same engine asWind Waker, albeit heavily modified. It is not clear how much work had been done onWind Waker 2before the choice was made to change the art style. While it might be argued that something in the style ofWind Wakermight have aged better, there can be no doubt that this was the correct decision for the time. When announced,Twilight Princessgenerated a massive amount of hype and excitement from western fans and ended up selling more than 2 million copies more than its predecessor.
2Final Fight Streetwise
Changing this game’s art style ended up being a catastrophic mistake.Final Fight Streetwisewas originally pitched asFinal Fight: Seven Sonsand was conceived to have a colorful cell-shaded art style . Its gameplay and tone would also be more in line with classic entries in the series.
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That was until the higher-ups atCapcomnoticed the popularity of theGrand Theft Autoseries and demanded that developers at Capcom Production Studios 8 drastically alter the art style and gameplay to make it more likeGTA, and hopefully appeal more to western fans. This ended up backfiring spectacularly. Fans from both the east and the west ended up despising the game, seeing it as a betrayal of the series' core identity. The game bombed hard, ultimately killing the franchise.
1Borderlands
It is somewhat difficult to imageBorderlandswithout its now iconic art style, but for about 75% of the game’s development, the game had a very different look. Originally,Borderlandsfollowed the visual conventions common to games of that era with a more muted color palette and extensive use of the colors brown and gray.
This was problematic for a couple of reasons. First, the game’s tone was beginning to shift away from realism and in a more cartoony direction that the art style did not suit. Secondly, the developers were concerned that the game looked too similar to other titles from the same period such asRageandFallout 3and struggled to stand-out. Thus, the decision was eventually made to lean into the cartoony tone with a new art style reminiscent of a comic book. This decision would ultimately prove wildly successful, as it soon became an iconic aspect of both the game and its numerous sequels.
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