The Concept Of An Imagined World In The Games Animation And VFX Industries

To better our understanding of an imagined world we have been asked to conduct a detailed investigation into an artist or an artistic movement that has used its own unique style for an imagined world and examine how this could be translated into a Games, Animation or VFX Project. This should be around a 1000 words in Length.

The main art movement I will be focusing on is Retro-Futurism and its influences on Games and movies as well as how some pieces of art in this movement could potentially be used in future projects. One of the game series that has based its art style in Retro-Futurism is the Fallout games series. The games are set in a fictional version of the world in where the transistors was never invented and instead the main sources of power are from compact nuclear reactors in everyday technology such as cars. The games themselves are set in a post-apocalyptic future but the influences of retro-futurism in the games’ worlds are easy to see. A good example of the types of art pieces used as an influence on the design and artistic direction of Fallout is this piece by James R. Powers, a designer at Ford in the 1950s and 60s showing what he called the “Volante” (flying car) and the “Nucleon” (Nuclear-powered car). And for comparison, here are several vehicles taken from Fallout 4, most of which bear similarity to the designs created by Powers, as well as other Ford concept art in the 60s.

The reason that the retro futuristic art style translates into so well into games is because it presents a more hopeful view of what the future could’ve been in comparison to the dystopian futures of modern futurism present in games like Deus Ex or Cyberpunk 2077, where the technology present seems amazing but has caused significant turmoil and strife. It also helps that the designs present in retro-futuristic art are unique and eye-catching, as evidenced by the vehicles present in Fallout which seem more akin to spaceships than the typical designs of cars seen in modern life. The architecture and settings present in retro futuristic art also lends itself well to a game world’s design as, like the vehicles, they often have their own unique style and spin on the world they present. A great example of this is the underwater city of Rapture in Bioshock, where both the idea of a city underwater as well as the actual architecture of the city are heavily inspired by retro futuristic ideas and art.

Despite a significant amount of games drawing from retro futurism’s aesthetics, most of the main themes of this art style, such as nostalgia and hope for the future, are abandoned in favour of a more dystopian outlook where the technology developed ends up impacting the world in a more negative manner than the original preconceived benefits of the technology designed. A lot of games choose this themes alongside a cyberpunk art style in favour of retro-futurism as these are themes integral to a cyberpunk style, but Fallout has its own unique spin in where the aesthetics of the world are retro futuristic but the actual game’s themes are negative and dystopian and in fact the world has become far worse as a result of reliance on technology designed in the fifties, eventually culminating in a nuclear war because of a reliance on fossil fuels draining their reserves. Unfortunately, though, most games making uses of retro-futurism in their art style tend to focus more on these dystopian offshoots as these tend to appeal more to audiences, but the actual art style is still used to provide an interesting contrast. A good example of this is We Happy Few, a game in which an entire town is subject to a drug called Joy which skews their perception of the world and the emotions they feel in order to keep with a certain terrible event after World War 2 which the residents don’t wish to remember. The game represents the world while under the influence of Joy as being bright and colourful, with architecture and technology dreamed up by Retro Futurism artists and the real world still having similar architecture and technology but in a far worse state, with a darker colour palette.

The aforementioned Bioshock also falls into this category as while the technology and architecture seen in it are retro futuristic, that actual plot of the game is that the underwater city of Rapture has been overrun by people transformed by the game’s mutations that were developed by science into Splicers. Some of the advertisements and the general aesthetic of the city draw heavily from Retro futurism and even present some of the themes of hope and nostalgia but like most other games influenced by this art style, the actual plot and story itself stray away from these themes in favour of a Dystopian future.

Overall I feel that Retro Futurism is an excellent art style to choose for an imagined world inside of a video game as the general aesthetic and the ideas presented by the art for future technologies translate well into games and give them plenty of options for settings and the game mechanics that can be used within them. I mean, who wouldn’t want to take control of flying cars? But it is unfortunate that the majority of games that have been influenced by the art style decide to ignore the art’s main themes in favour of darker and grittier worlds because developers believe they are more audience appropriate and hopefully games like Fallout can show more of the hopeful world that they have imagined before it was destroyed, especially considering how well received that small pre-war segment at the start of Fallout 4 is.