Geuntae An: if a mountain is on the horizon, you can walk to it

At Gamescom Dev, Pearl Abyss environment artist Geuntae An said the team considered the player’s trust in Pywel’s horizon more valuable than almost anything they made. If an object is visible in the distance, it has to be possible to reach it. The environment was meant as content, not as scenery.

Landmarks were looked at both from a kilometer away and from a few meters: the player notices a point, walks there and gets exploration, not a backdrop. Beauty and ease of exploration, the team concluded, are not the same thing. They looked for a balance between detail, density and readable navigation.

The size of Pywel and the fact that BlackSpace was still evolving got in the way separately. Hundreds of map sections had to be stitched to one level of quality.