Backbreaker's creators included a design customization engine so deep, a producer says you can recreate Da Vinci's The Last Supper in your team's end zone. He knows what most folks will try first though: "People, yeah, they're gonna create dicks."
"Let's face it, the first two days of the game being out, all we're going to see is a bunch of cocks, like, spread across the end zone," Rob Donald, the game's associate producer, told Kotaku. "Look at Spore when that came out. That was quite a sophisticated game, and this is a football game. So, people, yeah, they're gonna create dicks. Massive, giant phalluses that you're running into and scoring on."
That's for those who choose to use Backbreaker as a tool for evil. For those who see it as a force for good, they'll find a canvas that enables some pretty amazing creations. For example, Donald said one of the game's testers spent a week building OutRun themed end zone art in a 16-bit style, entirely within the game's closed editing system. "The end zone was like a screenshot from OutRun, you've got the car in the middle and palm trees at the outside," Donald said.
NaturalMotion Games, the developer, took inspiration from Forza Motorsport's customization tools, which have led to eye-popping car designs from that game's community. So while Backbreaker will include some clip art, and its existing team logos also are fully editable and palette-swappable, the real creative stuff will come from stamping down layers and shapes, coloring them, and painstakingly crafting a stunner.
"The really, really complex logos are made when you stack layers on top of each other," Donald said. "Then you can put blockers in so that everything under that is protected, then you layer up some more in a different color, and cut through those layers. It's a really in-depth system, we're really proud of it."
Donald is convinced we'll see some masterpieces - literally - shortly after the game hits the street tomorrow.
"I've said this a few times, I am totally expecting to see on YouTube, a fortnight after the game is out, a perfect recreation of The Last Supper in someone's end zone," he said. "It's stuck in my head as something that will happen. In fact, I'll put that as a challenge to Kotaku's readers."
Of course, when playing online, you will not see anyone's custom uniforms, logos, or endzone art unless they appear in your friends list. Otherwise you get a generic kit by default, Donald said.
"We know what people are like, we know what the Internet is like. So we've been careful there," Donald said. "However if you want to put whatever design you want, your mates will be able to see it online. You can be as insulting and as rude as you like, or as inspirational as you like. But we know which one's gonna get done the most."
Dicks.
"The Denver Dicks, yes," Donald said, laughing.