Developer Omega Force is best known for its Warriors line of games (Dynasty Warriors, Hyrule Warriors, et al.), but the Koei Tecmo-owned studio’s next project returns to a genre it last flirted with a while ago. has half a decade with Toukiden: Monster Hunting. . wild heartsthat Electronic Arts publishes, takes the gameplay style popularized by Capcom’s Monster Hunter and gives it a few twists, allowing players to take on massive creatures mutated by their natural surroundings and adding a bit of tower defense mechanics.
On Thursday at The Game Awards, Omega Force and EA showed off other creatures called kemono that are coming to wild hearts. There’s an ice-infused wolf named Deathstalker, a maple-and-sun-infused hawk known as Amaterasu, and a tiger named Golden Tempest that’s infested with roots and gold dust.
The creators of wild hearts told Polygon in a Zoom interview earlier this week that their kemono monsters were designed to be believable, despite their seemingly magical nature, and scary, in terms of their aggression and will to survive.
The design of kemono began with the game’s boar creature, a beast with giant tusks and an abundance of eyes that is infused with the trees of its surroundings. These wild animals are affected by their surroundings and in turn affect the environment around them, wild hearts art director Yu Oboshi told Polygon through a translator.
Image: Omega Force/Koei Tecmo/Electronic Arts
“The boar was the first kemono we designed,” said Marina Ayano, another art director for the game.[Wild Hearts] has several themes, like the threat of nature and animals, how they merge [together], and in the process of designing the boar, we considered many ideas, including a yokai style or a fantasy-oriented style. But we wanted to keep the raw boar and its infusion with nature.
“The original kemono [form] is shy, but as it mutates it becomes more aggressive. We wanted to keep the elements of the original animal and nature elements, once we finalized the boar other kemono followed suit. Ayano noted that the art team took inspiration from ukiyo-e artwork, hanafuda cards, and religious shrines and temples to create their unique enemies.
Game director Takuto Edagawa said that in the world of wild hearts, kemono are natural creatures. “There’s something about them that allowed them to evolve over time and soak up nature,” Edagawa said. “That’s normal in their world – that was the design intent behind it. They’re your enemy in the game, but not a clearly defined villain. They’re also fighting for survival; what they want is the opposite to the interests of humans in the game.”
Image: Omega Force/Koei Tecmo/Electronic Arts
Edagawa said that wild hearts does not carry an environmentalist or ecological message “but there was the question ‘What is nature for us?’ Nature is not aware of human beings and what we do to them. We can have a positive or negative effect, but the animals are not aware of it. Nature is circular – things come and go – and that’s part of our history.
Players will need to pay close attention to their surroundings when battling the kemono. In wild hearts, a one-on-one fight can take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, with 15 being the sweet spot, the developers said. A monster infused by nearby tree growth can be relatively calm and green, reflecting the verdant surroundings, and can change to red and autumnal colors when it gets angry and nears death. Different environments can also change how kemono act in battle. a monster infused with ice and snow will behave differently than a variation of that same monster affected by wind and heat.
But don’t worry, arachnophobes. One thing players won’t face wild hearts are bugs and giant bugs, the developers said. Instead, expect giant, angry, nature-soaked monkeys, porcupines, rats, wolves and boars when wild hearts is coming to PlayStation 5, Windows PC and Xbox Series X in February.
