Hey everyone,
Hardened criminals, ruthless bounty hunters, violent psychopaths: Tertium’s Hive Scum are coming to Darktide as the next DLC class.
This is the final part of a series of dev blogs breaking down different aspects of the Hive Scum! Check out the previous dev blog here. For this one, we’ve interviewed our Art Director Mattias Rousk and our Character Art Lead Linn Pennanen about the visual identity of the class and its design!
“My name is Mattias and I’m the Art Director on Darktide, previously on Vermintide. I’m an Industrial Designer by trade [...] I knew from college that I wanted to do Entertainment Design and then I kinda slipped into gaming back in 2004. [...] I started here in 2008 and basically I’ve been a part of every project that we’ve done here, first as a Concept Artist but then during Vermintide 2 I stepped into the role as an Art Director.” ~ Mattias
“I’m Linn Pennanen. I am the Craft Lead for Character Art right now and we’re a big part of the work on the class. A lot of the stuff [of the character art] we’re making in-house, for example [...] and we’re using this as an opportunity to push technologies as well, which is great fun. [...] All of us are super excited for Hive Scum while working on it!” ~ Linn
The Hive Scum Fantasy
Hive Scum as a class is a unique opportunity for us in many aspects that we were very excited to explore. The criminal side of Warhammer: 40,000 visually stands out in a very distinct way; it is colorful, wild, rebellious and diverse. It is a goldmine of inspiration, as every Hive Scum in the Imperium is unique and has their own flair, letting us represent a wide range of visuals that still fit their theme.
Darktide’s Hive Scum all being natives to Tertium is also a big draw for us, as it allows us to create and show the criminal culture that has brewed in it, giving the Hive more character and allowing the players to connect more intimately with them.
“This is as close as you can get to being an original Tertium badass. The whole spectrum of underhive inhabitants is what we’re trying to portray here, but they have their own culture and look. They are of course a part of the Imperium, but it is what happens beneath the surface.” ~ Mattias
Pictured: Boom Bringer Blitz
Because of all this, we wanted to go above and beyond on the customization options available to Hive Scum not just on gear and cosmetics but also hair colors, hairstyles, tattoos and face paints. More than any other class in Darktide, the Hive Scum allows each player to express their creativity and take advantage of all the options to make their character truly their own.
“I hope the players can expect that, even though they have a strong identity and a strong personality already added, they can create their own Hive Scum, with a lot of customizable options to bring out what they would like to see in their Hive Scum, their identity. They can actually build a lot of variations with this.” ~ Linn
Hive Scum also brings four new unique faces, and these also were a great opportunity to push the envelope. While the existing face options for creating Rejects all have their own level of roughness, these ones were made to look like they carry their entire history in their features. You could get an idea of the kind of hardships and life of bad choices that they’ve led by just reading their faces.
“We started off firstly on the faces, actually. [...] We wanted you to feel like they have been out there, they have seen things, and they are a bit rebellious!” ~ Linn
But also, as they are Hive Scum, these also let us add extra details to the face selection itself, such as gold teeth, piercings, or scars that are built into the face itself.
We wanted to make sure we represent each aspect of what a Hive Scum is in their design. They’re rebels who’ve lived entire lives off the system, an entire subculture born out of the anarchy that is their way of life. We wanted to make absolutely sure that this class stood out and that its identity was evident in every feature.
While the Hive Scum are particularly diverse and varied in their looks, there is nonetheless an underlying, cohesive theme behind their visual design, an aesthetic that makes them Hive Scum.
Pictured: Chem Grenade Blitz
Character and Weapon Cosmetics
Pictured: Penance Cosmetic
The Hive Scum and other criminals of Warhammer: 40,000 are a practically endless source of inspiration, giving us plenty of ideas and options for cosmetics. For some pieces this meant us representing Tertium’s unique brand of bounty hunters and troublemakers, but those with keen eyes will hopefully also recognize the specific miniatures or characters that we based some of the other cosmetics on, adapting them and bringing them to life in Darktide in our own way.
Every class has a variety of character cosmetics that are unlocked as you level up your character. For most classes, the cosmetics gained in the higher levels are essentially improved versions of the cosmetics in the previous levels, gaining more decorations and symbols of status with each stage.
For Hive Scum, we very purposely moved away from that, and made each cosmetic gained from progression have its own look and style.
“We want the player to potentially want to [for example] have the level 20 upper body and the 30 lower body. [...] We want the player to potentially find their favorites within the progression curve [...] We really hope that this time around, it’s something that can speak to different people throughout the curve.” ~ Mattias
With Hive Scum we also had the opportunity to have cosmetics that show a lot more skin, which meant not only more variety in how the class can look but also more possibilities to show off your chosen assortment of tattoos. This is part of the reason why the Hive Scum has access to their own unique set of Full Body Tattoos, on top of the already existing tattoos available to the other classes.
Pictured: Progression unlock cosmetics.
Combined, you’ll hopefully get to not just show off those tattoos to other players, but also see them in first person while blasting away the heretics!
Pictured: Dual Autopistols
For the weapons, a key point in their visual design was making them look worn down and patched up, not just because of the scrappy nature of the Hive Scum, but also to give an idea of the attachment that these people have to their favorite weapons. They often treat them like relics or even heirlooms, treasuring them for more than just their lethality.
“It’s not like a standard issue military weapon, it’s kind of a tool of a craftman, more than a classic weapon. That is something that I tried to push a lot, both on the concept and especially when it’s being textured and built.” ~ Mattias
Pictured: Dual Stub Guns
Pictured: Needle Pistol
Customization options
Pictured: A set of Full Body Tattoos
Pictured: Various face paints
Hive Scum’s unique hairstyles are especially designed to stand out. These are statements, meant to look wild and rebellious, as do the unique colors they come with.
“We were actively picking the ones that most stand out, you know, you have these crazy hair styles with spikes everywhere… [...] We wanted you to feel like they found some green goo on the ground and they picked it up and dyed their hair with it. Super cool.” ~ Linn
There was also some innovation done to the hair system to allow for certain cool details, like some colored hairstyles having a look like the roots have grown out and the color is stronger further up.
“For all the hairstyles now we have secondary UVs to add where we can be creative with which part of the hairstyle we would like to highlight even further. [...] Which has been fun!” ~ Linn
Pictured: Various face paints
Face paints are something that the team had actually been exploring for a while, experimenting and figuring out ways to implement it. The Hive Scum class was the perfect fit for this feature, and so we were finally able to bring it to life!
Bonus: What’s your personal highlight of the Hive Scum’s visuals?
“For one thing, looking at the headgears, I think they are next-level cool. Secondly, I think that the face paint and the tattoos… The character creator part of Hive Scum, I think, will feel really, really nice. You can really build something completely different even before you put gear on.” ~ Mattias
Pictured: Commodore’s Vestures head cosmetics.
“I think, 100%, having so many different options for customization. [...] They feel different, they look different, they come with different cosmetics that you can choose from… So yeah, I really hope that will tie it all together.” ~ Linn
That’s all for today, and the end of this series of dev blogs! We hope you enjoyed reading these breakdowns and behind the scenes of Hive Scum and the No Man’s Land mission.
For the Conclave!
Purchase the Hive Scum class here:
We’ll see you on the Mourningstar.
– The Darktide Team