DEFECT’SEMANUEL PALALIC
MICK GORDON’S
MUSICAL ANARCHY
OUR UNREAL
PARTNERSHIP
THE
OWEROF
UNREAL
OWER
DEFECT’s trailers and visual identity - all of it - was achieved in UE5.
PETROL’s ability to work within the same powerful engine as the developers at emptyvessel throughout the building and marketing journey has yielded breathtaking results on both sides.
At the same time the collaborative process between game development and creative strategy is more seamlessly interconnected than was ever before possible.
IT’S A SHARED FREQUENCY WITH STRONGER OUTCOMES
BRINGING VISUALS TO MOTION IN REAL TIME
PARITY BETWEEN KEY ART& THE GAME
RENDERING ASSETS IN REAL TIME
Once the concept is there, and the audience is identified, we are equipped to create anything we want. For DEFECT, we built a set of assets that illustrated the idea of "ANARCHY vs. AUTHORITY" for a world at war, and fully loaded with locked in characters.
Our connection to Emanuel Palalic and his team at emptyvessel, and being able to work in their Game Engine has been the key to our success so far.
M+ TOTAL
TRAILER VIEWS
ACROSS OWNED / TEAM CHANNELS
K+ STEAM
WISHLISTS
AND COUNTING
+ GLOBAL
PRESS HITS
ANNOUNCE + GAMEPLAY
REVEAL TRAILERS
WHAT IS YOUR APPROACH TO PUSHING THE BOUNDS OF
TECHNOLOGY?
“We want the game to run on a ton of different pieces of hardware,” emptyvessel’s Emanuel Palalic shared with us. “We have to build things in a smart and clever way,”.
“The game
can be as
beautiful as
it can be, but
it needs to
run well.”
WHY DOES IT MATTER TO YOU
TO MAKE DEFECT THIS WAY?
“Building
emptyvessel, the
idea was to empower
the creative side of
things.”
“When I think of creatives in games it’s not just artists; it’s programmers, designers, it’s everybody. Everyone had this idea of wanting to build their own game.”
MICK
GORDON
ON
MODERNIZINGTHE MUSIC OF
A DYSTOPIAN
FUTURE
A DYSTOPIAN
FUTURE
“The people behind the project was number one.”
DEFECT composer Mick Gordon on what convinced him to come aboard
HOW IS DEFECT DIFFERENT FROM PAST PROJECTS?
“I like, with music, when we are dealing with things that are in the periphery of what's listenable [feedback - glitches - distortion].
I feel I've done that a lot, in a lot of projects over the last ten years.”
“With Defect, what I'm incorporating here is a really strong element of groove… from what I call the heyday of hip hop. I'm talking about the late 70s, 80s, maybe a little early [90s].”
“
One thing I've been exploring a lot is the absolute extremes of distortion.
How far can we distort the absolute living hell out of a sound until we lose the musicality of it?
”
HOW ARE YOU USING TECHNOLOGY TO
ADVANCE THE CREATIVE PROCESS?
“Another element I've been working at is purposely deconstructing our decades or years or centuries of having to stick to grids as a compositional tool - as in tempo and scales.”
“These things have been very interesting and I feel are creating a very unique palette for the world of DEFECT.”
“Imagine that on a piano, all those piano keys that you have, I'm now able, with the technology that I have to create notes that exist within those keys.”
DESCRIBE THE
COLLABORATION
“I've been working with [Emanuel] for 11 years now. Our shared creative language is mutual. I know exactly what he means. I can speak Emanuel, you might say.”
“Collaborating with PETROL on the trailers has also been a brilliant experience. We've crossed paths in this industry before, and their team has really become a key conduit to bring out the absolute best in what Emanuel and the devs are doing with DEFECT.”
THE UNREALCOLLABORATION POWERING
DEFECT
DEFECT
When you combine the freedom of working in Unreal Engine with a uniquely collaborative relationship between agency and game developer, powerful synergies can start to unlock.
“We want to position the world of Defect in the right light.
We show it as it is, but maybe differently from the user experience - because every user experience is different.”
John Conway, Director of AV for PETROL
LIVING KEY ART GOES BEYOND TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING TO BRING THE CONSUMER INTO THE WORLD
LIVING KEY ART GOES BEYOND TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING
TO BRING THE CONSUMER INTO THE WORLD
“It’s now possible to show our audience the ultimate experience that they may or may not come in contact with, based on getting access to and using our partner’s UE pipeline.”
WHETHER IT’S A CHARACTER OR A DOOR There’s a story behind Even the smallest Details
“We’re so grateful that our partners at emptyvessel always give us the opportunity to explore, iterate, and capture the game from the Petrol point of view because it creates learnings we can share back to the dev team.”
“By working in this way through Unreal Engine, we can collectively sharpen the marketing campaign and the in-game experience where everything becomes so much more cohesive & rewarding for players.”
ALAN HUNTER
Chief Creative Officer, PETROL
MARKETING
THE GAME FROM
INSIDE THEGAME
Access to the developers’ engine allows for deep collaborative experimentation. By having this kind of trust and cross-collaboration, it’s even possible for us to inspire enhancements and new directions within the game itself.
“
The way we’ve helped the development team manipulate the characters within Unreal Engine for marketing has lent a hand to ideas that maybe hadn’t been thought of before.
”
Mike Capprotti
Senior 3D Creative Generalist
CREATING
AT A
HIGHER
LEVEL
BY COLLABORATING WITH DEFECT’S CREATIVE TEAM, ALL THE WORK COMES ACROSS MORE AUTHENTIC AND EXCITING, IN A WAY THAT IS ONLY POSSIBLE WITH SUCH A UNIQUE AND CLOSE WORKING RELATIONSHIP.
