Designing the creative, cultural mix of New World: Aeternum's environments has meant its "developers have to be magicians"

Rosie Strzalkowski: For the most part, the cultural themes and biomes in Aeternum were primarily influenced by real world cultures and regions. This gives us a foundation to tell the story we aim to tell, but our goal is not historical accuracy, so we don’t hold on too literally. The most important aspect for us is to create a sensory experience for players that goes beyond what their eyes see on the monitor to engage their emotions.

We also strive to remain consistent to our art style, reinterpreting and transforming the inspiration to fit the Aeternum aesthetic. This method gives us a rich tapestry drawn from the real world for both the art style and the lore while remaining distinctly its own. 

The Legion theme, for example, draws inspiration from the Roman Empire, especially its constructions in the Middle East, such as the temples found in Baalbek and Jerash.

Rosie Strzalkowski: The workflow for creating environments begins with a series of meetings to establish game play goals that prioritise player enjoyment, while still considering the team’s capabilities and time constraints. Once we reach a consensus, designers start identifying high-level ideas to shape gameplay, such as what gimmicks will be used, the intended flow through the region and how players will interact with the space.

During this phase, the narrative and lore team comes up with a story and the specific beats that they want to hit. Meanwhile the art team establishes high-level ideas for visual inspiration and begin gathering reference and assembling reference boards that capture the essential aesthetics for the look and feel. These boards visualise the vibe of the area for the whole team. We then create concepts that establish mood, shapes, light and colour, etc. as well as the key architecture pieces.

Charles Bradbury: This one is tough to answer briefly, every game is different with unique gameplay and goals that vary wildly. Speaking in very broad terms, a good game environment is any space that offers a unique or meaningful experience for players through the gameplay or story that the space offers to the player. 

Even within New World: Aeternum that could be very different, depending on which area of the world the environment is in and the goals or intent for that particular space. We do have guiding art pillars as high level touch stones for the art overall, to ensure we’re putting focus on the right things to enhance the player’s experience and make sure the game world all fits consistently across all areas. 

Rosie Strzalkowski: We focus on several key aspects. First we have to establish the theme, the biomes and where on the map the new space will be placed and how all of this aligns with the story we are aiming to tell and how it will inspire a sense of adventure and fun for players. For example the New Cutlass area is a full PvP and PVE region where players engage in combat with each other and the AI. We think about how the players will use the environment to their advantage, both taking cover and challenging them with wide open spaces.

We identify the key words that capture the theme and distill it into simple concepts that we can wrap our heads around. New Cutlass Keys Citadel for example - the key words are “Ramshackle”, “Lawless” and “Patchworked Shanties Teetering on Rocky Cliffs”. With these guiding sentences in mind we gather visual references that inspire the design. These could be anything from literal patchwork quilts, to deteriorating fishing nets, and the stacked architecture of the Caribbean and Greece.

We put together the images that embody those words with their forms, lights, colours, mood, atmosphere etc and we call these “ref boards”. Each section of the ref board embodies one of the foundational visual goals, from atmosphere to colour palettes, biomes and shapes that resonate with the theme. 

Rosie Strzalkowski: One of the environments in Aeternum that was very challenging to get right was the Ebonscale Reach style, inspired by Chinese architecture. After exploring our initial European Tudor style, we really wanted to create something distinct and unique, reflecting the diverse cultures in Aeternum's lore. Our goal was to celebrate and include these source cultures without falling into stereotypes, all while ensuring consistency with the overall aesthetic of Aeternum.

This proved to be quite a challenge, particularly for those of us who aren’t deeply familiar with the architectural norms and cultural styles of those countries. We did a lot of research and sought feedback from various team members, including our geopolitical team. Navigating this complex cultural landscape required collaboration and respect to achieve a well-rounded representation, making this aspect one of the most debated and time-consuming in the development process.

Rosie Strzalkowski: For players to feel an immersion in the game, it's important that the story and the environment are aligned in simple, intuitive ways. That means that the Lore and Art teams need to be closely aligned. 

On Aeternum we start washed up on the shores with the idea that this is Paradise Lost, the realm of all mythology. It's Eden, it's Atlantis, it's Shangri-La, and you can see this in the mystery and majesty across the world. The player has their own time period, but for each region and culture the art team needed to drill into foundational areas of lore to ask questions and make suggestions based on what we think will look good visually and be most achievable. For example, we knew we wanted to create ruins for players to explore, but we also had to define who built them, what building materials and tools they used. Who are these Skeletal Warriors that still guard the ruins?

They obviously didn't build them because the ruins are too massive. Answering these questions and fostering an ongoing dialogue about each section of the world is something we're always working on. This allows the artists to add flourishes and lore secrets that hint at what purpose the ruins once served, and it allows narrative designers the opportunity to develop a story that flows naturally in the world as the player travels.

Rosie Strzalkowski: We use a proprietary in house engine called the Azoth Engine. This engine provides advanced features like real time dynamic global illumination, eye adaptation, HDR lighting, screen space ambient occlusion, as well as many other features that all contribute to Aeternum’s immersive quality and visual appeal as an AAA game. 

Our Worldbuilders leverage the Azoth Editor to quickly build and test Points of Interest (POIs) as they work. This process is crucial for ensuring the POIs are both fun and cinematic, while maintaining good performance.

The Worldbuilders are a unique type of environment game artist/level designer hybrid that excel in level layout, composition, player flow and visual storytelling elements. 

One of the greatest things about the Azoth Editor is that the Tech team is part of the Aeternum team, allowing Worldbuilders to work directly with programmers to get the features and tools they need. When we needed to focus on optimization, they gave us tools to visualize which areas to focus on. When we needed changes or additions to the tools, they are right with us to adapt tools to our workflows and collaborate on solutions.

Rosie Strzalkowski: VFX is probably best described as the candles on the cake of environment development. The effect is rarely the center of attention, but adds an atmosphere and a polish to the environments, without which players would say, “I can’t put my finger on it, but something just doesn’t feel right.”

Without VFX environments can fall flat, and feel stale and lifeless. VFX add movement such as dust and leaves, flickering lights, smoke, insects, weather, gurgling brooks, raging waterfalls, and much of the moving or shiny polish that can breathe life into a beautifully crafted but immobile environment. A beautiful environment can exist without VFX, but when complemented by VFX, a beautiful world becomes stunning.

Charles Bradbury: Collaboration is critical to just about everything we create. Like most artistic endeavours, each environment is a team effort with many many parts, without any of which it would not be quite as impactful or successful as it is.

We are constantly building on and adding to the foundation of what we’ve already created. We have a lot of development process we use, breaking down our various efforts into steps and tasks that artists, designers, engineers etc all undertake. Tools like the art or game pillars help to guide us in where to focus and ensure what we build aligns with the overall vision for the project.

Our team is also very open discussion focused in how we plan and decide what we work on. Like any team we have a hierarchy with leaders and vision holders, however we believe good ideas can come from anywhere and quite a number of visual easter eggs that players remember, or features players love, came up through collaborative discussion and “ah-ah” moments along the way. 

Charles Bradbury: Over the course of the project, through our initial PC launch and soon releasing New World: Aeternum, we’ve definitely learned a lot. On the art side, we’ve been able to receive a massive amount of feedback.

We can look at data about what things have resonated with players as well as how players act in game; where they spent time or struggled. We’ve also found that players themselves are very diverse and what one group of players gravitates towards may be different than another group. It’s been eye opening in some cases, things we expected or didn’t anticipate. Our tools and processes also have evolved quite a bit over the course of the project.