Behemoths of Dauntless: Shrike

Four Slayers drop from the airship that ferries them throughout the Shattered Isles and instantly fall right into a routine realized from 100 hunts earlier than – fanning out by the woodland, trying to find the behemoth that has made this island its residence. One participant spots a blip on an in any other case excellent horizon – a feathered crown. It turns, cocks its head to 1 facet, after which the Shrike locks eyes with the participant. Those chilly orbs in its cranium gained’t sway their gaze till both of them is lifeless.

The designers of Dauntless had that particular picture in thoughts from the earliest days of engaged on the game’s distinctive owl-bear behemoth. At sure factors, although, the Shrike was too intimidating. “There were times when we first started working on him when his head was on a full swivel and could do 360 degrees,” advertising supervisor Nick Clifford laughs. “He was way too eerie.”

Phoenix Labs wrestled with that steadiness all through a lot of Shrike’s creation. As Dauntless’s second ever behemoth – after the slow-moving reptile, Drask – the owl-bear was the studio’s largest problem by way of tone.

“We don’t want the player to feel like they’re hitting up an animal sanctuary and just beating up some woodland creatures,” artwork director Katie De Sousa says. “So we tried to push the animations as aggressive, vicious, and fast as we possibly could – more than you would ever see in nature or any kind of normal situation. That gives him that mythical beast quality.”

There comes a degree in each Dauntless battle the place the behemoth is visibly weakened, animated to seem in ache. That’s when Phoenix Labs has to work additional exhausting to make sure you’re not overcome with guilt, and as a substitute encourage you to push on with the battle. “I think I’m usually a gut check,” De Sousa says. “I’m a vegetarian and I love animals.”

For some time, the Shrike had pupils in its eyes – nevertheless it made the beast too relatable. Then and since, the studio has as a substitute given its monsters an aether glow, as if possessed by the identical, unusual energy that causes the islands of Dauntless to drift. “We go through that with every single behemoth,” Clifford notes. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad do you feel beating them up?”

That’s not the one approach during which Shrike served as a prototype for different behemoths to observe. This monster was the origin level for the interrupt mechanic which is now a central tenet of the game as an entire.

“We wanted to do a higher mobility behemoth, because we wanted to push ourselves in the opposite direction of Drask,” behemoth designer Reid Buckmaster remembers. “One of the things that that afforded us is the interrupt, being able to knock him out of his glide attack. Shrike was our first test case and pioneer for that, and we ended up leaning into it quite a bit with his revamp earlier this year.”

Shrike is just not solely the primary instance of a battle full of interrupts, however probably the most approachable one, too. “He shows off a lot of what the behemoths throughout Dauntless can do,” Buckmaster says, “but he does it in a slower, safer, easier-to-learn way than the behemoths later down the road.”

Shrike is the primary place gamers are likely to study variable assaults as effectively. Those massive bear claws can swipe a various variety of occasions relying on context – how grouped collectively you’re as a group, as an example, or your place relative to the behemoth. “From my perspective as an encounter designer he’s one of the first, best teachers we have in the game,” Buckmaster says.

If you’ve performed any Dauntless, you’ll know that Shrike set a development at Phoenix Labs for splicing actual animals collectively. But this one has an ancestor who far predates this monster searching game nonetheless in open beta. “There are a lot of D&D fans here at the office,” Buckmaster admits, “and Owlbear was a definite starting point for him. He’s a grizzly mixed with a barn owl.”

As such, Shrike introduced a chance for the Dauntless group to familiarize yourself with each feathers and fur on the similar time. “Feathers are [visually] noisy,” De Sousa notes. “There’s so many of them. Our style is really simply and graphic – big blocks of shade and bright colours. Feathers and fur are inherently a bunch of tiny strands. It’s hard to take that, make giant shapes out of it, and align it to our style. Over time, and a lot of frustration, we figured out how to do it.”

The outcomes had been well worth the battle. Dauntless doesn’t have well being bars – so is reliant totally on visuals to speak injury. On Shrike, you possibly can actually see the feathers knocked off him, altering the behemoth’s silhouette in a major approach and making it straightforward to inform what stage the battle is at with a look.

While most of Shrike’s assaults are rooted in his brawling, bear-like facet, the group has at all times thought of the behemoth an owl-like persona initially. If you had been to dig up the design doc and discover the blurb written there, you’ll recognise the identical, evocative owl-bear we all know and battle in the present day.

“Shrike is one part lumbering grizzly, one part horned owl,” it reads. “He’s keenly aware of his surroundings and the movements of his prey, and pounces on them like field mice. Both swift and devastating, Shrike will be on you faster than you expect.’”