Underzone is the debut title from indie studio Strike Game Labs, released on PC in 2020.
Players control The Mole, an off world drilling mech re-purposed for search & rescue operations as it delves deep below the streets of a decimated future London. With the city left devastated following a national disaster, players must pilot their mole deep into the Underzone, a sprawling network of tunnels, factories and dwellings to rescue trapped survivors.
I worked with the studio as the Lead 3D Artist and was responsible for the creation of characters, environments, props and animations and their implementation.
The following page shows the creation of the main playable character The Mole.
Creating the games main character was a big challenge technically as the game design required for the character to be playable in several states: a bipedal form, a flying form and a digger form with real time transformation animations to each on screen. Additionally each of these states also required unique traversal and combat animations as well as various weapons and upgradeds and the ability to open up to allow human passegners in and out of the machine. These considerations informed every factor of its creation from the model to its rig and animations and setting up the animation states in Unity.
Working from original concept art by Matthew Beakes, The Mole was the first asset to be created for the game. Its creation presented a big technical challenge as the character needed to be able to transform in real time between 2 different states, the walker and the burrower, whilst maintaining functional parity in across these forms. Additionally upgradeable weapons and features were also a requirement due to the rogue-like nature of the game.
The final game asset was modelled, rigged and animated using 3Ds Max with texture baking and creation taking place in XNormal and Quixel Suite.
Original 'Mole' concept art by Matthew Beakes. The legs were redesigned by myself during the 3D production stage to allow for the design directors vision of bipedal walking. The thrusters/ counterweight on the back were also redesigned during 3D production to make the circular drill segment more streamlined.
The Mole captured in-game.
