Art Direction & Inspiration

Earth vs Mars is crashing onto our planet later this year — our love letter to the turn-based strategy genre. Beyond putting a Relic spin on this style of game, we’re introducing a whole new universe; a colorful and fun world built to immerse, surprise, and keep you engaged for hours.

In this series, we’ll explore the inspirations, designs, and ideas that shape the Earth vs Mars experience.

First up: where did this weird, wonderful aesthetic come from? Let’s find out!

[h2]Defining the Style and Look[/h2]

While Earth vs Mars draws a lot of inspiration from other games in the turn-based strategy genre, we wanted to add our own Relic twist. Developing the overall visual direction of the game we wanted to go for something more playful and light-hearted with a sophisticated "Graphic Novel" look. Bright and bold color choices, neutral environments with eye-catching and bombastic VFX to bring forth the spectacle of play. Allowing the artists and players to focus on the clarity of shape, silhouette, and color rather than fine textures and overly detailed scenery.

Pre-Alpha VFX

[h2]Earth vs Mars – Inspiration and Influences[/h2]

The original concepts for Earth vs Mars were heavily influenced by 1950’s nostalgia, looking to capture the vibes of B-movie science fiction films. The team worked highly collaboratively assembling the games characters and units. Each craft area sharing their experience and perspective, this cross-team effort fully realized the cast and made them relatable. While Earth vs Mars is influenced by our world, it does not exist in the same universe, allowing us to tell the story we want and create a visual language that reinforces this in interesting ways.

Early Reference Exploration

A unique challenge was deciding upon an original look for the Martians. We wanted something unique but with so many established visual references we decided on the core inspiration for the Martians to be culturally inspired by 50s-60s era design aesthetics. Mixed with the strong silhouettes of modern urban vinyl toys this combination resulted in a look that feels nostalgic, familiar, and contrasts greatly with the Earth’s military utilitarian aesthetic.

Early Martian Concept Art

That’s a wrap for now! Stay tuned for more and let us know in the comments if you want us to tackle specific aspects of the artistic process behind Earth vs Mars!