Ready to Make History - A Look into Venture's Development

news.blizzard.com:

We’re thrilled that Venture is finally in the hero lineup, and it’s been fun to see you get your hands on their groundbreaking kit and mechanics. Today two developers who were part of our newest hero's strike team will share a behind-the-scenes look at how Venture, became Venture.

Hero strike teams consist of many different disciplines across Team 4. There is no one formula for how heroes come to life, but it always starts with assembling a group of developers who will embark on the journey of creating a new hero together. Today, we’re going to hear from two of those developers – one concept artist and one narrative designer - to talk about how Venture’s art and aesthetic were created, as well as how their character and personality came to life.

Let’s get into it!

Venture’s Concept Art

Hi! I’m Daryl Tan, Lead Character Concept Artist on Team 4.

Being on the team that brought Venture to life was an incredible experience, and I’d like to share some of that with you! I’m going to walk us through some early concepts and talk about how we landed on Venture’s finalized artwork.

When we started the early concept phases for Venture, the only thing we knew about the hero was that we wanted this hero to dig underground – so, they needed a huge drill. Senior concept artist Kejun Wang tried multiple themes and configurations for the drill, including sound-based drills and exosuit setups. This early phase is where the concept team really gets to experiment and set the creative direction for the art of the hero.

Concept art is one piece of the puzzle when it comes to making a hero. Every hero has this taskforce (so to speak) that includes developers from hero design, concept art, animation, narrative—roughly, about 13-14 developers in total work on a single hero.

For Venture, narrative designer Miranda Moyer worked closely with us to land on the direction of a swashbuckling archeologist. We thought this was an awesome idea, so we started to lean into this overall aesthetic—a daring