Motion Capture’s a Big Deal These Days
It’s not something that every game uses, or even needs, but graphics have come a long way. Graphics have come a long way, though, which risks a game where the character’s movement isn’t up to par falling into the uncanny valley. Not only that, but capturing facial features or body movement can go a long way to drawing us into the story. As heartbreaking as The Last of Us: Part 2 was, it wouldn’t have the same effect if Ellie’s voice acting wasn’t matched by her body and face. They say that body language is 55% of communication, so if we couldn’t see her face contorting in rage, or her shoulder slump in sadness, we wouldn’t feel as much for her. Motion capture makes games feel more authentic, and with video games bigger than ever we’re seeing more and more celebrity actors – not just established stars, but big names who work more exclusively with video games.
Little Hope is one such game, and following in the tradition of Supermassive Games features a mixture of established names, like Will Poulter, and relative unknowns, like Kyle Bailey. As part of their promotion for Little Hope, Bandai Namco have released two dev diaries, both focused on Motion Capture, and what goes into this aspect of gaming. Given that the game features multiple branching paths for the narrative to take, it appears that much of the cast were acting blind, with only a general idea of what the story was. However one body actor, Jack Archer, comments that although he finds it a more spontaneous acting form, they still needed to familiarize themselves with the character’s backstories.
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We do get a glimpse at some of the dangers that’ll face the characters on their journey through Little Hope as well, albeit without context. We see a character being impaled, for example, while another is being strangled by what appears to be a giant tongue. We may not know the circumstances of these events, but it looks like Little Hope has some big ideas and big scares to throw at us.
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Source: Press Release