Odd Shapes With Familiar Faces

 Stylistic Artstyles in Modern Games

Recently I've been playing Sea Of Thieves a lot, and the art style for this game is mind-blowing. It is exactly the sort of style I would love to learn and perfect, as the style is a bit misshapen, yet each model is perfectly presented with no confusion as to what it could be.

Here's a screenshot I grabbed from in-game which I feel shows exactly what I mean, the rocks are super stylised as are the trees, and yet it all fits together perfectly and brings so much character to the world it's in.

Another thing I adore about the style of Sea Of Thieves is the fact that everything is made in a way that you can picture how it feels or how it's made in the world. For example, everything solid has edges that are chipped, while everything soft life fruit or skin is smooth and without damage. In order to create these assets, Rare used a mixture of modeling and sculpting to achieve the unique ridges and cuts in the objects.

One of my long time favourite franchises Crash Bandicoot also implements an odd-shaped style choice that has stuck with me. Even the simple cube crates have a jaunty angle which I love.

Each character in the game has a unique silhouette which is easily recognisable for any player, both old and new.

Even though this Crash game (Crash Of The Titans) is not the favourite, it's still commended for its unique tribal style and the design of the Titans. Each character in this game is even more stylised than those in the rest of the series of games, yet is clearly distinguishable from the rest.

A great game that has since been shut down was Loadout. Loadout was a unique online shooter based around insane customisation of weapons and costumes, with a goofy cartoonistic style. 

The style of Loadout is unique as the shapes of the characters are very exaggerated and goofy. And as we see in the background, the world is just as goofy.

(Crash image: https://www.crashmania.net/en/about/contributors/)

(Loadout image: https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/loadout-ps4/)