Hey everyone!

Today we wanted to dive a little deeper into the biggest aspect of our game: Airships! We’ll discuss how they came to be, how they evolved, and how they quietly shaped the entire world around them.

But first, a little backstory on our Senior Environment Artist, Alexander!

From Film School to Floating Islands

Alexander studied film in college, and taught himself to use Blender and Unity while building a small ship combat game. He later joined Filament Games in Madison, Wisconsin, where he spent three years growing from 3D artist to Art Director. After returning to Minneapolis for contract work and medical VR projects, he eventually joined Loric Games.

Echoes of Elysium is Alexander’s first consumer video game and for most of development, he’s been the sole environment artist shaping the islands, lighting, effects, and overall look of the world.

What Environment Artist Means Here

Alexander’s role became incredibly broad within a small team but collaborating with the rest of the art team helped refine and shape the vision.

Early on, he set up tools for authoring islands such as developing shaders and building a lighting system with the engineers. From there, he created vegetation shaders and models, rock sets, the original ruins set, the original ship building set, and most environmental VFX.

And this includes all the little details too! When you smash a bush and leaves scatter, or see that sparkle when items go into your backpack, that’s Alexander. As an environment artist, it often means doing everything possible to make the world feel alive.

The Clouds

We’ve seen the messages on Discord! And yes, the clouds have certainly gotten a lot of attention.

They were inspired by Sea of Thieves, which uses a clever cloud system: simple 3D meshes are rendered separately, blurred, layered with noise, then composited back into the world. This creates the fluffy, volumetric look you see in the game. Huge credit to Alex DM, one of our engineers, for refining and polishing the system and turning it into the beautiful clouds we have today.

The Big Pivot: Making Airships Fully Buildable

Fun fact: Airships weren’t originally the centerpiece of Echoes of Elysium. Construction was going to happen on land and airships would be set models with different classes you could choose from with limited upgrades.

About two years ago, we made a huge pivot and that’s thanks to our Art Director Ilya and CEO Brian, for pushing the concept further. Instead of treating the airships like vehicles, we decided to go all in so players could build the entire airship from scratch. Creating a fully customizable flying base in the sky felt fresh and gave the game a unique identity beyond traditional ground-based survival building.

The art direction for the airships pushed the team to be bold. The goal was to make designs that would make players think “What is this? I’ve never seen this before”. Inspiration came from a surprising combination: ancient Greek Aesthetics and WWI/WWII technology with a touch of magic. The goal wasn’t to go over-the-top, but to create chunky, industrial flying factories that felt grounded yet fantastical. Happy coincidence too! WWII vehicles and planes sometimes had eyes or shark teeth painted on them, echoing the bold visual choices inspired by the Greeks.

Ilya created the original concept arts exploring all the different pieces like curved hulls and how they would align. Alexander jumped into Blender and translated pieces into 3D, iterating to see how the pieces fit so they’d snap together cleanly and interchangeably.

Over a few weeks, the team created mock ups exploring different ship sizes without texture or details, just pure form. From there, they established a level of detail for individual pieces, picking elements like sails or hull components to build fully based on the concepts. Ships started out rough and industrial, with more intricate pieces added gradually to give them character and personality.

In one particular test, a rough ship was built and the team wandered around inside it. Experiencing that interior space firsthand felt really powerful. Up until then, most of the game felt and looked the same since players were usually just outside in the sky and on islands.

Stepping into the ship felt contained, personal, and safe.

That was the team’s “Aha!” moment: the airship wasn’t just a means for transportation.

It was a home.

And from that moment on, the goal wasn’t just about functionality. There was a shift to make them feel more interactive, lived-in, and personable. And this became a defining feature that sets the game apart: a flying home that players could truly make their own.

The World Came After: Mystery Shaped by Airships

One surprising detail about Echoes of Elysium is the world was built around the airships! We paused worldbuilding for a long time to focus entirely on perfecting the concept of our ships. Every decision, from spacing and density to how ships fly and how quickly players can traverse the map, was made with the airships in mind. 

This approach also shaped how we think about mystery in an open sky. From the start, players feel like they can fly almost anywhere. In many games, mystery comes from that restriction. When you can’t reach something yet, your imagination will fill in the gaps. With floating islands visible in the distance, the environment can’t rely on obscurity alone. Future biomes lean into interior spaces within islands, dense forests, and areas that can’t be fully read from afar.

We want discovery to feel earned! By designing the world around how players interact with their ships, every new space becomes an opportunity to surprise and channel in specific emotions, and turning exploration into an experience rather than just movement across the map.

Building Ships That Feel Meaningful

With the world now shaped by the presence of airships, the next step was to ensure that the ships themselves felt purposeful and engaging. Early on, players can experiment with blocky pieces, assemble decks, and make floating rafts. But Alexander and the team started thinking: how do you give players a reason to build ships that are not just functional, but also engaging to look at and interact with?

“We’re trying to find ways of creating incentives for players to enclose the ships more,” Alexander explains. “Right now, there’s not a lot of reason why you can’t just make a big floating raft with a lot of stuff on it. But in the future, we’d like to implement threats that are obvious when your hull isn’t covered.”

The idea is that gameplay itself can reward good design. When threats appear, players are encouraged to enclose, protect, and reinforce their ship, turning aesthetic design choices into meaningful gameplay. Form and function come together naturally, rather than building something visually appealing for no reason.

“It’s frustrating if you want to make a beautiful ship but it doesn’t matter gameplay wise,” Alexander says. “If there’s a reason for it then it’s satisfying, the form and the function are united.”

Looking Ahead

We’re continuing to explore many ideas:

• Storm clouds with flyable tunnels

• Massive island clusters with interior passages

• Biomes that force you to leave your ship and explore on foot

• More ship pieces and structural variations

• Gameplay pressures that reward aesthetically cohesive hull designs

• Cosmetic additions like lights, windows and cloth pieces with customizable openings

Long term, we’d love to revisit NPC crews and boarding enemy ships as well.

A Quick Community Highlight

Oh, and speaking of airships, we built an airship together with players during a recent Community Game Night in our Discord! It was incredible to see players collaborating, experimenting, and just having fun in real time. Moments like these remind us why we love making this game: it's not just about the ships we create, but how the community can bring life to the game through their creativity and excitement!

If you’re interested in joining us for future Community Game nights, be sure to hop into our Discord server. It’s the best place to chat with the dev team, share your feedback, stay up to date with the latest patch updates (including unofficial insights!), and connect with other players through fun, collaborative events like these game nights.

Join us here: https://discord.gg/loricgames

Wrapping Up

Airships started as just a feature but they’ve grown into the biggest pillar of the game. From the initial sketches to building blocks, and the clouds that give the sky a presence, every choice has shaped the world itself.

We are hoping players see airships as more than just vehicles and they become bases and homes. Watching how players bring their own creativity and personality to their ships and interact and explore with the world is exactly what makes all the designs and iterations worth it. 

Early Access has been an incredible journey so far. We’re very thankful for the support, feedback, and enthusiasm from our community, it’s truly helped shape the game in many ways! And this is only the beginning: with a full roadmap ahead that includes new biomes, ship decorations, new bosses and enemies, Tier 3 parts, and player customization, there is so much more for players to explore.

Keep an eye out for all the future updates and events. See you guys in Elysium!

-Team Loric 🧡