The Warden has been in the spotlight since For Honor’s announcement at E3 in June. You’ve probably seen him in action in our Multiplayer Gameplay Video and you may even have played him yourself in the For Honor booth at one of the events we attended.
But what do we actually know about the Warden? We know he’s a very versatile warrior equipped with heavy, two-handed longsword. We know he’s an elite knight wearing a full suit of armor. But what inspired his look and style? Is he historically accurate or is he a character born of fantasy? We asked our art team about the creation process, and they not only gave us answers, but also revealed some concept art for the very first time!
Notes from Guillaume Menuel, Character Artist from the For Honor team:
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The Warden is the purest archetype of what a knight is supposed to be: lawful, deadly, and distinguished ... a pure warrior.
Our goal with the Warden was to put our own unique spin on the archetype of the classic knight-soldier. He had to be everything people might be expecting from a knight, but remains interesting and unique. We wanted to differentiate For Honor’s hero from the purely historical knight.
For Honor is neither a truly historical game nor a truly fantasy game, so we had to find a good balance between historically accurate and fantasy-looking armor and style. In the end, we wanted everything to look like it could have been made in the real medieval times, but with a cool-looking modern approach.
The first direction we came up with was to make him a kind of medieval Spec-Op: a highly skilled and deadly soldier.
One of the challenges was to create original designs with a lot of subtle details, avoiding a too-busy look that would distract players.
For Honor is a team VS team game, and character designs must be clear and distinct enough to ensure that players always know who’s who. That means bringing back very simple shapes and iconic design elements that allow players to recognize any character right away, at first sight.
The design also has to fulfill game design expectations: the Warden is a mid-armored character, not to heavy, not too light, and he is the perfect introductory character in our world. He is fast, but he strikes hard; he’s pretty much a Jack-of-all-trades character. So I started working with this equal mix of leather, metal and cloth that fits well with his abilities.
When it comes to PvP, colors and emblems are also of great importance in For Honor, so I had to keep in mind that some strategic space was needed to allow players to apply their choice of colors and express their creativity.
Here are some of the first exploratory designs for the Warden shape, trying to achieve, in a few brush strokes, the most significant aspects of our character.
Some pen-and-paper explorations for costume and armor details
On the left, a very early version of the Warden, with pretty much all the elements already included. A few changes were made later in the process in order to refine the design (picture on the right)
A few variations on the cape, a key element of the character. We finally agreed on this more uncommon "under the belt cape”, which we explained by considering the character’s need to always be able to move very quickly without being slowed down by this piece of clothing.
Final design
- Guillaume Menuel, Character Artist & Emile “SpaceElephant” Gauthier, Community Developer
