Transistor is an indie title from 2014, yet its protagonist is still one of the most popular characters in cosplay. Why is this? It’s helps that developer Supergiant is talented and the game is good, but there’s another big reason. Transistor ‘s art deco style and beautifully costumed protagonist, Red, are an inspiration to many cosplayers. There’s a hunger for quality, fashionable costume designs for female video game characters – you know, things you might see an actual human wear – and Red fits the bill nicely.
It’s not just about women and cosplay, though. A lot of video game costume design is utterly boring for male characters, and for female characters resembles a cheap plastic “sexy nurse / cop / chicken / cabbage” Halloween costume from Party City. Then there’s the “extreme” trend, in which designers appear to be in a contest to see who can graft the largest spikes onto a poor, innocent suit of armor. Our games deserve better than this, and I’d love to see more companies hire art designers with a background in fashion.
While I doubt we’d want our game characters to look like the weird-ass runway models you see at haute couture shows, having a solid foundation in the principles of fashion is very useful for somebody who is creating imaginary outfits and armor. It helps artists be aware color and fabric texture, have an understanding of the history of fashion, and have a solid idea of what makes the human (or elven, humanoid alien, or what-have-you) physique look good. They can then build on these principles and add fantasy flair that is nonetheless grounded in reality. This helps make game settings believable and builds characters that appear more interesting and individual than “generic soldier” or “chainmail bikini lady.”
Knowledge of fashion can also help designers with character customization, an increasingly essential part of character design in today’s market. Destiny is an excellent example of doing this right. It avoids the “hobo clown armor” issue that you see in a lot of online games. Bungie put a lot of thought into creating iconic looks for each of its character classes while also ensuring that players could look great even with “mismatched” armor pieces. Many players appreciate Destiny’s armor because it’s grounded in reality without being dull – it’s looks like gear a hero would wear, but it’s not over-the-top like the house-sized pauldrons that our poor characters once wore in World of Warcraft .
Destiny’s artists also made the decision to design for a classic heroic science fiction look, rather than for sex appeal. They did this uniformly for all characters, which is the important part. Part of understanding fashion as it pertains to a game universe is knowing how to create a consistent look that speaks to a particular civilization or culture. If it’s a military culture, it’s unlikely that anybody is going to be running around with peekaboo armor, but if it’s a more flamboyant or fantastical culture, we should at least see similar themes in the outfits worn by people of different genders. Understanding fashion can help developers make interesting and appealing outfits that make sense for the activities a character is performing in a game. A knowledge of fashion can also help developers, if they so desire, create characters that have sex appeal without necessarily removing as much cloth as possible within a particular ESRB rating. Sexiness is about more than just baring skin.
Gaming’s art designers should know their fashion, both historical and modern. They should be familiar with its theory and practice, so that their characters’ garb can be both fantastical yet grounded in reality. In such a large and lucrative industry, we deserve more from costume design than you can get from high school notebook doodles. Developers should look at games like Transistor and Destiny, putting thought into the clothing their characters wear and what those outfits say about their game’s characters and the world they inhabit. It will help us all enjoy games more, and the cosplayers will be thankful, too.