Find your own visual style
Most Asian MMORPGs released in recent years or set to release in the coming years use or will use the Unreal Engine. That’s not bad in itself. The graphic engine from Epic Games is popular and widely used (although the current Unreal Engine 5 often struggles with performance issues when trying to display large worlds).
Lost Ark stands out from many other modern genre representatives thanks to its isometric perspective but employs a style typical of Asian MMORPGs:
However, many 3D MMORPGs from Asia that use the Unreal Engine look quite similar in terms of character model design, game worlds, color schemes, and so on – in the community, this typical “Unreal Engine” look is often referenced.
Among the visual idiosyncrasies of many Asian MMORPGs are also the design of races, clothing, and characters. The cliché of female fighters with long legs, short skirts, big eyes, and deep necklines is fulfilled in many Asian games.
The typical look has already been criticized by players for the presented gameplay of Aion 2 and ArcheAge Chronicles. A Chrono Odyssey, however, received praise for its unusually dark setting with elements from sci-fi and cosmic horror – here, though, the quality of the technology (lighting, textures, draw distance, performance) still has much room for improvement.
Asian studios should feel encouraged to deviate more frequently from the usual style to find their own identity. A positive example from the West is Guild Wars 2, which stands out with its painting-watercolor look compared to other genre representatives.
