Remember Me's main protagonist Nilin went through three very different design iterations before the team finally settled on her current look, according to creative director Jean-Maxime Moris.
Speaking in a video Q&A shared on Capcom Unity, Moris said Nilin's first prototype looked nothing like the version included in the final game, and appeared more like a character that had stepped out of Bladerunner. She wore khaki pants and a knee-length clear raincoat, an outfit inspired by the idea of global warming and staving off rain. As the game's focus shifted away from climate and more to memories, so did Nilin's design.
Nilin's second prototype was "much more of a character that could take on missions" and designed to look like a spy. At one point she was clad in suit made of "futuristic fabric" and toting a briefcase. This iteration stuck for around two years, but because it was too similar to designs from the Mass Effect series, it was scrapped.
Moris said the design team wanted Nilin to look futuristic but not too much so, so that players could relate with her and the world she is part of as a plausible evolution of our future. This is how they arrived at Nilin's current design, which includes a contemporary leather jacket and jeans.
The general response to Nilin as a female characters has been good, and Dotnod feels good about publishing a game with a strong female character despite thinking it could have been "easier" to find a publisher with a male character, according to Moris.
"I'm glad that in 2013 things have changed, and things are changing," he sad. "People more and more, in the games industry, relate to female characters and that's very important to me because movies and books have been portraying female characters for hundreds if not thousands of years, and I think it's time our media grew up."
Remember Me will launch for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC on June 4 in North America and June 7 in Europe. Check out the full interview with Moris in the video above.
