In developing Eternal Strands, Yellow Brick Games, founded by Ubisoft veterans, chose a stylized aesthetic instead of high-fidelity photorealism, diverging from common trends in the industry. The action RPG features a character, Brynn, who weaves magic influenced by thermodynamic principles. This allows the game to visually indicate elements like temperature through color—red for hot and blue for cold—enhancing player comprehension of the game's mechanics. By utilizing familiar materials like rock and wood, the developers aimed to make interactions intuitive, while destructible environments support engaging gameplay.
Because we knew from the first week that we wanted something akin to the thermodynamic system that we have, this requires dramatic change visually to be understandable by the player.
It's easy for the player to understand the physical properties of rock and wood; you can make rock brittle because it's seen so many times in movies.
Having something that is more stylised lets us say that a hot rock is red, or something that is really cold is blue, which, in reality, makes no sense.
The decision was made early on to pursue a more stylised aesthetic that also serves the gameplay.
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