The Road to ‘Path of the Warrior,’ Part 2 of 4

Path of the Warrior wears its influences on its studded leather sleeves. When looking to create a virtual reality brawler, we took inspiration from anything with an ’80s or early ’90s iconic feel to it.

“Specific inspirations for this game were obvious ones: Streets of Rage, Double Dragon, River City Ransom, Scott Pilgrim,” says Project Director of Art Todd Swanson. “We started the game with the mandate of recreating the feel of Streets of Rage in a first-person VR format.”

Path of the Warrior will take you through five different locations, running the gamut from an amusement park to a rundown bar to a garish casino. With such unique environments, how did we maintain a consistent look?

“The look of all of the levels came from our environment concept artist, Ted Pendergraft,” Swanson explains. “He worked very closely with the artists and designers to ensure each space had a unique look while also showcasing our game's core mechanics and features. The balance was established throughout the process, with Ted knowing his concepts needed to include points of interest for hostages and hot spots.”

Each level is populated by a colorful cast of characters to match the tone of the environment. Stylish skaters, wild wrestlers, and nimble ninjas all stand in your way, but Swanson says one level was his favorite, enemy-wise. “I think, overall, the amusement park was my favorite to work on,” he says. “Who doesn't like beating the crap out of a clown?”

To make combat satisfying, the team worked very hard on getting the animations down to give every punch a powerful feel.

“The punched-in-face animations started as very basic stubs in order to get the feel correct,” says Swanson. “Project Director of Design Eric Wenske and myself were able to find a good balance of hit-stop and face pose holding through prototyping early on. After we had the first grunt established as our example, we then set that as a rule for all hit reactions. It took a bit of time to get right, but once we did it was easy to use as a template for the rest of the game.”

Tune in next Friday for more on the making of Path of the Warrior, now available on Oculus Quest and the Rift Platform.