Newsletter Discussion: Cartoony or Gloomy?

What with the furor over Diablo 3's art style, this begs a question about what you prefer - this week, we'd like to know:

Given a choice between bright, colorful, and 'cartoony,' or dark, saturated, and 'gloomy,' which would you prefer for a game?

Share your thoughts with us and post in the comment thread!

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It could certainly benefit from losing the the green/blue hue it has. Some of those altered screenshots look like something D3's art should have been like, but not so exactly, in my opinion.

It seems that the common anti-argument to this is "why would we want just gray and dark red?". Well, these people seem to suggest that gray and red are not colours. Simply because some people prefer darker to brighter doesn't make it not a colour.

It's funny how most of the replies to the questions in the article don't make much sense, though. Seems like just about the opposite of what is the reality.

Well, maybe that's just me and the others arguing on this that look at things that way. Personally, I'd much rather play a dark, realistic-looking and perhaps even bloody D3 than something with bright, cartoony visuals. This is something that separated Diablo from Warcraft all these years and games. Why merge the art style now?

My personal preferences really alter based on the genre of the game. For Lighthearted stuff, cartoony is great, for the Fantasy type stuff, I like it to be as realistic as possible, for Diablo? Give me the good old fashioned dark and gloomy everytime. I guess the answer is whatever suits the embiance for the individual game.

Well, in general, it depends on the sort of game. The art should be defined by the game type. I tend toward brighter colors in games - dull and muted colors bore me quickly.

In Diablo specifically, this is a game that would lend itself to a darker, murkier aesthetic. The outdoor shots made by Blizzard seem fine, but maybe not the blue-green ambient lighting indoors?

In all honesty, when I first saw the preview for the game I was giddy with excitement, and my opinion hasn't changed much. I rather like the new more colorful aspect taken on by Blizzard. The game looks great, and contradictory to Andraste's opinion, I rather like the blue-green ambient on the indoor lighting.

I've been a mapper for games like Halflife since as far back as I can remember and one thing that I've learned from that is that the Blue-green ambient pulls a much nicer and easier to look at view of a scene. With the light_environment entity mappers will often add a blueish hue to the ambient light to add to the effect of the level. Blizzard knows its stuff, and I seriously hope they don't change it.

However aesthetics are only part of the game, the other part being gameplay, so if they change it and the gameplay is still awesome, I'm sure it won't matter too much.

There's a balance. I like certain games cartoony (like TF2) but some games are just made to be gloomy (like diablo). i guess it's just legacy... its part of what you expect in the game, part of what makes you want to play it at certain times. If all your games are ominous and carry an oppressive sort of tone, gaming will start making you depressed!
This of course, doesnt mean games should strive to be somewhere in the middle, to please everyone all the time. Duh, that wont work. But games should choose their look based on the legacy (if its a series) and the content, to make the game harmonize better. Don't just sway because its what you think the market wants. The market wants something from every point of the spectrum, just depending on the players mood that day.

Hey! You can always adjust your Gamma setting to extra-emo ;)

Har, har. -.-

Honestly, I think Blizzard's right on the money for Diablo 3's art direction. Remember, what we've seen is the very beginning of the game - and having bright, even colorful areas to begin with is just going to make the contrast harder when everything starts to become twisted and corrupted. Imagine going through a colorful area and then coming back later and it's seared and burned to a crisp.

@snuffler - I actually like the ambient lighting, personally. I prefer color. I'm the person who's always wearing bright, bold colors (red today!). I was just looking at the uproar over the use of color and suggesting maybe the ambient color could be neutralized to appease the masses. But that's always a slippery slope...

I think it depends on the context. Some games should be cartoony, some not. I think it depends entirely on the actual type of game. For instance a game set in WWII will be horrible if it was cartoony. A Kirby game would be horrible if they made it gritty and gloomy. Some games can be both. An example of this would be Legendary, kinda cartoony but gritty at the same time.

back@Andraste; I'm sorry I wasn't aware that you were speaking on behalf of the masses. And in that case, I completely agree with you, but I still sincerely hope Blizzard doesn't change anything with the aesthetics of the game, and it seems most people here would agree!