South Korean studio Pearl Abyss, better known for action games like Black Desert Online, first revealed gameplay from its upcoming creature collector DokeV at gamescom 2021. The trailer revealed a beautiful world packed with fantasy and tech with a touch of childlike enthusiasm. Now, the Korean YouTube channel OMG-electronics has revealed a behind-the-scenes look at how the developers creates such detailed objects for DokeV.
The video also shows how Pearl Abyss built the game’s landscapes and buildings and created the delightful character motions for movement and action. Plus, it gives us a little more insight into the narrative. That last piece of news is particularly welcome. I had no idea what was happening in the first gameplay trailer,but I did love what I saw.
Scanning the world
The level of detail that Pearl Abyss has put into creating simple objects for DokeV is staggering. The studio has an entire room dedicated to 3D scanning objects for use in-game. In the video, you can see an incense burner that was scanned and placed in the background of DokeV’s Chuseok video. It was just in the background, but the object was fully scanned and rendered in 3D. The video also shows a woven carpet being scanned. You can see the detail it contained in the same Chuseok video.
As for the game world, I lived in South Korea for over two years and the buildings and landscape look exactly like they do in the real world. Minus the fantastical technology and creatures. The studio scoured the country with cameras to ensure they faithfully recreated the iconic Korean scenery.
Characters were animated using the same motion-capture technique that the FIFA franchise uses to create realistic and familiar movements in its games. Pearl Abyss had people in the studio skateboarding, riding bikes, and, of course, bouncing around on hopper balls. That must have been a hard day at the office.
After the behind-the-scenes technical coverage, the OMG-electronics video gets to the good stuff — the narrative. DokeV looks like a Pokémon and Ghostbusters hybrid, but with a more youthful slant. The reason for that is because only kids can see the creatures in-game. Adults have lost the will or desire to see things they can’t explain. So, they see the creatures as natural phenomena like tornados.
DokeV is a single-player-focused game. However, the last thing revealed by the studio in the behind-the-scenes video is that it is also working on multiplayer elements. That’s very exciting for me. I really hope it offers some features similar to Temtem.
