Take a Deep Dive into the Body Horror, Visual, Mechanicsl, and Musical Design Behind Akkan in Lost Ark
The Lost Ark team is spotlighting monster creation with a new deep dive with the team on how Akkan, Plague Legion Commander, from rotting flesh to musical cues.
If when you enter a raid, you don't pay attention to the lore too closely, some of these background stories maybe a little disturbing once you actually get familiar with them. Of course, we get to the body horror fast with Akkan, and if you're interested in that kind of development, this new devblog is for you.
Akkan was originally slain in the Chain War and then later resurrected with some feelings. particularly, a deep hatred for the Sidereals responsible for his death. “Akkan is obsessed with living bodies, so he plasters himself with the flesh of living beings,” that rot, an obsession sprung from a few sources, including his own bodily imperfections in life. Later, he also starts creating undead.
With that background, his attacks and his weapons centered around debuffing enemies, infecting and controlling living creatures and spreading plagues. As far as his raid goes, this was what they were working with to start — “ Overall Concept: “The dying city with disease and contamination”.
As the Smilegate RPG team worked on the raid, they also changed his ultimate appearance to be more like a “King of Death”. To do that, they wanted to make him look more powerful, but also more rotted. This is why some people are monster designers, and many of us probably can't decide what ‘rotted but powerful’ would look like.
The full design blog goes deep into his design even further, including how the Korean team were making tweaks to his raid until an hour before the launch, and the ways the sound team contributed to setting the mood and backing his visual design with
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