Ultra V was always my favorite character. “We iterated a couple times to be sure that we were capturing the ‘inspiration’ of those classic monsters without being too close. “We had earlier versions of Togera and Congor that were absolutely IP infringements,” DeVore explains. We wanted something that we could use for a more cartoon color style, like a comic book color style.” Harryhausen was a massive influence and Frazetta was a massive influence as well.
#WAR OF THE MONSTERS REMAKE PS4 MOVIE#
“We had movie posters from almost every movie that was monster-related from 1930 to about 1970.
“Some of our favorite characters were a little bit too close to actual published things,” adds Simonich. “I really wanted to capture the sense of awe and wonder that those movies planted in the mind of a six-year-old kid, and I think you can see that in the monster designs, color palette, and music style.” Having grown up in the early 1960s, Hatch was a longtime fan of Godzilla, War of the Worlds, Jason and the Argonauts, Forbidden Planet, and Journey to the Center of the Earth. “Those films were an essential part of my identity,” he continues. I also had a two-headed cyclops à la Harryhausen, but I lost the fight with the Sony people on that one.” Your brain kept wanting to make her human-size, so we dropped her. Hatch reveals that the woman was named was “Atomica,” but echoes DeVore’s sentiment that the team “just couldn’t make her work, visually. There was a 50-foot Amazon Woman that never really came together, as well as a more amorphous blob character that just didn’t read very well in combat.” “Sony had a lot of ideas of things they wanted to try that ended up working poorly in the game and ended up getting cut. “A number of the monsters were really no-brainers, just fill in the most expected monster slots,” says lead animator Lars DeVore, currently Game Director at Iron Galaxy Studios. Once we had those, the team brainstormed their attacks and special abilities that harmonized with their B-movie personalities.” “We tried to have each monster reflect a classic monster…or robot! The goal was to help players feel like they were playing those classic battles the same vintage monsters beating each other up. “The teams at Incognito and at Santa Monica started by just thinking about those movies and the archetypes that were popular,” says Jobe. It was one of those ‘it just clicked’ moments when you know you are headed in the right direction.”Ĭhoosing from a roster of 10 gargantuan abominations (such as the King Kong-inspired Congar, Godzilla-adjacent Togera, and Raydeen tribute Ultra V), players could either go head-to-head in 13 highly-destructible maps or undertake the campaign mode, which featured bosses like giant ants (a clear homage to 1954’s Them!) and the plant-based Vegon (most likely based on Biollante in Toho’s Godzilla universe). I remember the night we put that contact sheet of references and lighting examples together that helped steer the team towards that final look. The bold colors and graphic treatment saturated so much of what we ultimately settled on.
“Over time, however, the team developed a visual style that was more strongly driven by the genre’s iconic movie posters. While the plan was always to draw inspiration from classic B-movies, the earlier “visual style was a bit more realistic and always felt a bit discordant,” he says. Per Jobe, nailing down the appropriate tone proved to be one of the bigger obstacles. I think it came in tonally correct with that sensitivity in mind.” “Then 9/11 happened and so, everybody was like, ‘This feels a little weird to do a game like this right now.’ We actually had to shelve it for a while, but ultimately, I think the more campy style allowed kids to handle that kind of concept in a way that’s a little bit safer. “I wasn’t necessarily as sure that the ‘50s style would be as compelling to the public,” he admits. You were firmly rooted in a retro mindset long before the gameplay even started.Īccording to designer Eric Simonich, the “campy” aesthetic is what ultimately saved the game from being an utter failure. From the cheesy/Ed Wood-esque opening cinematic, to the drive-in main menu screen, to the movie poster interludes that preceded each battle, the game absolutely oozed charm and creativity. Developed in the early 2000s by the now-defunct Incognito Entertainment and Santa Monica Studio (both subsidiaries of Sony), the fighting title was a pastiche of 1950s and ‘60s B-movies, as well as the kaiju and mecha genres of Japanese culture.
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