Artistic style

Jungle biome concept art.

I want to make sure that we distinguish between what style is and what graphical fidelity is, because they're two different things. Ashes goes more towards a realistic style. We're not a highly stylized game. We don't have a lot of heavy saturated colors and whimsical designs that are just exaggerated. We try to be more on the realistic side. Not ultra realism, but a bit more on the realistic side. – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation is a high-fantasy game with a high graphical fidelity. It will not be too stylized or "cartoony".

When we talk about the art style of Ashes, our focus is more on the realism side than it is on heavily saturated colors or highly exaggerated shapes. So, we're not going to be a World of Warcraft environment when it comes to the visuals of the game. That won't change. But, if we're talking about signature fantasy theming, if we're talking about iconic style that we could point to and say, "That's Ashes of Creation, I recognize that." Those elements will be coming online as we continue down the content creation path towards prop sets that are uniquely identifying of different player factions and NPC factions in the world. We may introduce elements of high fantasy type characters as assistant NPC races within nodes, within playable environments. Obviously we have a wide range of mounts that exist within the world as well that are signature style. As well with- we get into different biomes and we see unique foliage types, or in the desert you have unique pink trees that are in the desert location, or the large crystals that are incorporated into the rock faces. Those types of fantasy elements are going to be more pronounced as we continue to refine the world and grow them. – Steven Sharif

• More signature fantasy elements are intended to be introduced into the game over time.

I'm not a big fan of highly stylized art. – Steven Sharif

• The game will not have steampunk elements.

It's not to say that people can't do steampunk well. I've enjoyed some steampunk stuff. I'm a very high fantasy oriented type of storyteller; and the inspiration for Ashes obviously comes from my pathfinder campaigns that I ran long ago; and those are always set in a high fantasy world. So it just compromises what I believe is the perspective of the storytelling in the environment. – Steven Sharif

• Intrepid Studios does not use AI for art production.

We do not use AI for production, except in unique internal cases when communicating fast reference material. – Steven Sharif

Artistic influences

Asian influenced Ren'Kai architecture.

Character races are super important. These are the choices that we make at the onset of our adventure in an MMORPG: what race- not just mechanically aligns with our decisions, if those races have game mechanics behind them from a stat perspective, but visually and culturally and historically: What are these? What do these races represent? So it's important that visually they're distinct. And everyone's seen fantasy games do Elves, so everyone's seen them do Humans, everyone's seen them do Orcs: There's an established expectation almost behind what these traditional fantasy races represent; and there's a risk, because whenever you're creating a new IP or a new story or a new world- a new Universe; a realm in which things don't have to always be the norm, you can take a little bit of creative liberty to redefine some of the aspects of a particular race; and that can be a good thing, because it's something that is new to players. It's something that is unique to the realm that we're building- the surroundings that you have. So what we wanted to do was push a little bit more on the unique side of what the Py'rai would look like from a visual perspective. – Steven Sharif

• Aelan architecture has a French medieval influence. Lion iconography is a core feature of Aelan history.
• Dünir have a Nordic cultural influence.
• Empyreans have a Greco-Roman imperialistic feeling.
• The Kaelar have a European influence.
• The Niküa have a Polynesian influence.
• The Py'Rai have a Navajo Native American influence. Py'Rai architecture has a woodland inspiration.
• Pyrian architecture has a Greco-Roman influence.
• Ren'Kai architecture has an Asian influence.
• The Vaelune have a Middle Eastern influence.
• The Vek have a Mesoamerican influence.

You will see in the different races that are available from a player character standpoint a lot of different influences that reflect many cultures in the world: Not just European, not just Africa, not Mesoamerican. These cultures are going to be present in many of the races. – Steven Sharif

The idea is just to find a base component in the real world as a starting point and then to begin to fantasize. – Steven Sharif

Cultural references

There will be real-world cultural references, particularly with regards to real-world holidays and historical events.

• These won't be out of place in terms of immersion. They will be homages.

There will be some real world references, particularly with regards to potentially real world holidays as well as some historical events or cultures. For example the PAX East ship that was named Eleanor that we released a cosmetic of, you know, being a reference to the Eleanor ship that the tea was thrown off of; or colonialesque look. – Steven Sharif

See also

• Concept art
• Character appearance
• Architecture
• Gear appearance
• Environments
• Design pillars