Games with the best low fantasy combat visuals?

News & General Discussion
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I’m looking for a sampling of games that have the best presentation of low fantasy combat in 3rd person.

I’m most interested in examples of: particles, post effects, camera movement.

Currently the best two examples I can find are Witcher 3 (not exactly low fantasy but close enough) and Assassins Creed. I’m curious about other high quality examples, and most especially in particle effect usage (what kind of visual effects make sense in a low fantasy setting).

Any examples or videos are really appreciated!

Anything that has ‘special abilities’ while maintaining a low fantasy feel is doubly appreciated!

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What’s low fantasy? No orcs and no magic? I’d have named Shadow of Mordor, but that probably doesn’t count, right?
What about Dark Souls?

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Combat that wouldn’t look too out of place in a Game of Thrones kind of environment. Shadow of Mordor, Batman, Assassins Creed. These are all kind of the same family. I’ve never really looked at dark souls, I’ll check that out.

Witcher 3 has some killer combat treatment without relying purely on ‘execution’ animations as much.

I’m just trying to collect as many examples as possible.

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Just to clarify melee combat, hand to hand (style?), hand weapons (era/theme?), firearms?

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Yes. Swords and stuff - melee combat. Stabby stab.

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Can’t say I’ve seen a great implementation of this style of combat.

Mind you if someone implemented a combination of these two it could be good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7fJGAK7EbQ

Realistic Physics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKx4FlVz6us

Realistic Damage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7nRTF2SowQ

It will be interesting to see BF1’s Melee combat system in action, but I doubt it will be realistic.

But if you went full VR with a padded RL robot opponent there are markets outside of games that would be very interested.

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Thanks dude, I’ll keep Sniper Elite 3 and Battlefield 1 in mind as good models for low fantasy RPG melee combat!

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I think the closest the world ever got to a realistic sword fighting game was Bushido Blade 1.

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To clarify - I’m not nessecarially looking for realism. I’m just looking for a ‘gritty’ aesthetic. So just stuff that isn’t all particle effect driven.

Assassins Creed / Batman / Shadow are good examples:

These games tend to use a mixture of slow motion, post effects and camera to present great looking combat.

Witcher involves magic but it still kind of retains a more realistic feel, I don’t think Witcher leans on as many post effects as it does camera shake and particle effects.

“High fantasy” is more like Dragon Age, and is almost all particle effect driven

Most RPGs use this style, and really unload crazy particle effects.

I’m trying to figure out how to best accomplish good looking combat without heavy reliance on glowing particles and stuff.

I want to present a “gritty low fantasy” feel, like Game of Thrones… but there aren’t many good examples. Sadly, the Game of Thrones game went with high fantasy combat aesthetic:

And it still looks terrible.

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Sniper Elites damage system, something missing from melee combat.

Watch the trailer for BF1 some great shovel action, they are also going to have bayonet and cavalry charges, a lot of trench warfare drops down to close quarters.

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What do you think of Mad Max’s Melee combat?

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I’m not looking to build “revolutionary new perfect combat system” I’m trying to look for visual techniques that will spice up combat in a low fantasy setting.

This is actually kind of useful and has some good examples, more impact time shifting + camera shake, but they do some impact effects that almost border on subtle, and I love the spit and blood.

Basically, I’m trying to figure out the cheapest tricks and techniques to make combat look as good as possible without resorting to glowing particles or animations I can’t afford to produce.

So I’m looking for the best examples of time shifting, camera shaking, the best examples of more subtle particle effects (dust, blood, smoke, possibly trails, etc), the best examples of post effects (assassins creed’s time shift)… stuff that I can possibly accomplish without spending 2.3 million dollars on animation - but that also won’t break the game’s aesthetic.

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Try just listening to the combat sequences with your eyes closed. Or play the best fight scene you can find in a movie, watch it then just listen to it. It might be the Sfx you’re missing?

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Ohh, so you are looking for aesthetic effects, not mechanics.

The problem here is you need to adjust both if you want the look you are going for. If the sword just passes through the enemy and you just pull off sweet combos all day, it’s already too late

Something I found really annoying about an example you give, Assassin’s Creed 3, was the fact that so many of the moves he does to some of the regular enemies would most definitely be fatal, but the enemy keeps fighting unphased if you don’t keep hitting him over and over, and it just ends up breaking immersion. In reality, people don’t take hits and lose HP, they get hit and either die, or become incapacitated. So if you want a more dark, real look, first off, get rid of combos. Second, when you or the enemy gets hit, and it isn’t fatal, there needs to be consequences, like some form of injury or incapacitation. This is the anatomy of a real fight if lethal weapons are involved.

Once you understand that, look into something like this

While you obviously aren’t looking for comedy and want to make gritty game #9,000,001, the visual pacing is still important. This should give you some good hints about the visual aspects of action sequences.

Now, if you want to do this cheaply, you need to swallow the difficult fact that something like this, especially if it’s 3D, just isn’t possible to do cheaply, unless you know a guy who owns a mocap studio who will let you use it for free.

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Blade of Darkness (aka Severance)? It is sorta old, but combat-wise it is pretty much similar to dark souls.

I wouldn’t call Witcher “low-fantasy”, but I remembered Dragon age the moment you mentioned witcher.
Thief games… Dishonered… Vampire Masquerade: Redemption… Hexen… Heretic… Die by the sword? can’t think of anything else at the moment.

I suspect this won’t won’t be possible. Because you’ll either need particles OR you’ll need root motion-based animation which will give you tension of darksouls game. If you can’t produce either of those you’ll need to go some different route, like making the game turn-based, for example.

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I think good sfx would really help, I remember one of the Prince of Persia games had some really nice ‘ripping’ sfx during combat and that was one of the most memorable things for me the few times I played it.

I think the most important thing is player feedback. You have to look at your combat mechanics, your animations, so on, and look for every opportunity to amplify the feedback when a player does something. Amplify the slashing sound, amplify the grunt the enemy makes when hit, amplify the visuals (with weapon trails/vfx). Make the animations with follow-through for emphasis, and hold the position at the end of the swing to really drive it in. Also make an extended ‘stumble’ sequence for the enemy when a particularly good swipe found its mark.

If you make an example perhaps it would be easier for people to comment on what could be improved.

IMO for a turn-based game, where the gameplay is broken up into small set-pieces, it would be important to have an intro and outro to really mark the beginning and end, and so as not to make it look like the characters simply decided to stop fighting. A short dialogue or some poses wouldn’t be a bad idea imo.

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For turn based games it might make sense to look at shin-megami tensei nocturne and related series (Digital Devil Saga, too). The combat there is a blast, however amount of animation clips per monster is very low (however they have a large number of monsters in the game).

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Before I forget about it…

There aren’t many fantasy games that grab player with combat mechanics. Mostly they use visuals/storytelling/sound. Ones that have awesome combat are pretty much blade of darkness/dark souls.

For more combat mechanics take a look at Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and Enclave.

For more fantasy games, take a look at games based on DarkEye (Demonicon, Blackguards, Drakensang)

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Alright - here’s a clip of my current combat system. It’s a turnbased game but it’s using animation techniques that aren’t generally associated with turn based games. I am using root motion based animation.

Obviously, I am not up to the standard set in the AAA examples above, but in the turn based genre, it’s probably one of the most active and responsive examples I’ve come across. I’m looking for examples of games that do excellent visuals so I can better attempt to steal stuff.

I am not asking “how do you” or “where is the make me a game button” - I am looking for examples of great looking games so I can improve the current combat visuals as well as learn additional techniques.

Yes, I am aware of the fact that if a guy gets hit with a sword he isn’t going to go back to ‘standing there till his hp goes to 0’ - but I am trying to make a video game. Not talk about making video games.

I am not shooting for ‘realism’ as much as I am a narrative that involves your men being not special, as in non-magical. Like a peasant with a pitch fork, and a drunk. These kinds of characters should not glow with magic power. They are not “chosen ones”, they’re random bums and deviants. So I’m trying to keep a consistent aesthetic for narrative purposes, not to make a realistic combat simulator.

So – does anyone have any videos of good looking medieval style combat other than mad max, battlefield 1 and jakie chan film analysis?

I need like real examples of stuff like debuff indicators and the like, specific types of impact effects, etc. Examples of HUD indicator and damage information. Stuff so I can see different techniques and approaches in action.

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The thing that strikes me the most about the gameplay you just showed, is how the “why isn’t this guy doing anything” feeling ONLY comes when the characters are able to move and make adjustments during the turn.

I think it would be better to try to paint each turn as a single ‘blow’ to the enemy, in that you mark your moves by each member, and then the combat happens in one continuous action, followed by the opposite team’s turn. I think the worst feeling is when one of your players delivers a blow to the enemy, and then the camera moves to one of your teammates and the enemy that just got damaged is still immobile while your teammate makes adjustments. It would be better if the enemy responded immediately following any action in which it received damage (i.e., the enemy’s turn begins immediately after any damage is done to it).

Have you played Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic? Combat isn’t turn based, but the scene freezes when an enemy is sighted so that you can coordinate an attack amongst your team-mates. The crucial point is that once you’ve coordinated the attack, all your team strikes at the same time.