“We wanted [Remember Me‘s Nilin] to feel real,” says Dontnod, which is why it didn’t go the overly sexy route.
“I think that our industry is still constrained by codes,” says Dontnod’s co-art director Michel Koch. “Mostly the norm is to have a perfect character; male characters need to be brown-haired, muscular, have a bad shave and be very manly. Female characters need to be overly sexy, very thin and have a perfect face with no flaws.” This is why, Koch says, we get the video game protagonists we do; but that’s not the way Dontnod wanted to go with its Remember Me protagonist, Nilin.
“We wanted her to feel real and slightly casual,” says Koch, “so yes we tried to avoid as much as we could the overly sexy approach.” This was part of the solution to a problem that Dontnod identified very early on; Nilin just didn’t feel right. Either she resembled a space marine in full body armor, or some kind of sci-fi superhero, neither of which really worked for Remember Me‘s cyberpunk memory-stealing aesthetic.
“We really wanted her to look like someone that could exist,” says Koch, “something like your everyday character, not a super-heroine with clothing that nobody else would wear.” Hence Nilin’s current visual aesthetic, which mixes futurist elements with relatively ordinary blue jeans and jacket.
Remember Me, formerly Adrift, has you, as ex-memory hunter Nilin, navigating through a hostile futuristic Paris, in a quest to regain the life – and memories – you once called your own. This one’s due for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in June 2013.
Source: VG24/7
