Did the "Brown Age" Quietly Die?

[MCerberus]

This week has been... pretty hyped in gaming. While reflecting on this, I've noticed something returning in general: color.

It seems that many of the "surprise success" stories in gaming are bright and often cheerful. The disappointments have been increasingly been old stalwarts with muted color palettes. The two big stories recently have included a multiplayer shooter with eye-exploding color and clear blue skies and bright paint from Fallout, the latest games famous for being dreary.

Now, this gets fun when we look past art direction. If there's a shift going on, it means that the 2000s era of depression and angst is ending. Gaming may be on the brink of something like animation's "New Sincerity". We could be looking at a full tonal shift.

I may be premature in looking at these trends, but man, it's exciting if it's true.

[Rodin]

Although looking at the new Deus Ex screens, the future is still Orange.

[MCerberus]

Although looking at the new Deus Ex screens, the future is still Orange.

The future looks like it uses tanning spray...
I never asked for this

[huttj509]

Although looking at the new Deus Ex screens, the future is still Orange.

Although they kinda do do that on purpose. http://gamerant.com/black-gold-color...r-trung-43719/

Whether you agree with their deliberate choice or not, it is something they did on purpose, as opposed to "reality is brown" shooters. (and they poked fun at it with all the cans of black and gold paint you can find lying around)

[Mando Knight]

This week has been... pretty hyped in gaming. While reflecting on this, I've noticed something returning in general: color.

It seems that many of the "surprise success" stories in gaming are bright and often cheerful. The disappointments have been increasingly been old stalwarts with muted color palettes. The two big stories recently have included a multiplayer shooter with eye-exploding color and clear blue skies and bright paint from Fallout, the latest games famous for being dreary.

Now, this gets fun when we look past art direction. If there's a shift going on, it means that the 2000s era of depression and angst is ending. Gaming may be on the brink of something like animation's "New Sincerity". We could be looking at a full tonal shift.

I may be premature in looking at these trends, but man, it's exciting if it's true.

Splatoon being super-colorful isn't really a surprise (color isn't a thing that Nintendo games tend to lack), and part of its success is that the Miiverse is basically an integrated meme board, and that it is so stylistically different.

I think one of the reasons why the "Brown Age" came to be is that it's one of two ways to hide some of the technical deficiencies of the era, while also showing off its capabilities. The other way is basically the Nintendo way, and bold blocks of color don't really work for a more "serious" game palette.

[MCerberus]

Splatoon being super-colorful isn't really a surprise (color isn't a thing that Nintendo games tend to lack), and part of its success is that the Miiverse is basically an integrated meme board, and that it is so stylistically different.

I think one of the reasons why the "Brown Age" came to be is that it's one of two ways to hide some of the technical deficiencies of the era, while also showing off its capabilities. The other way is basically the Nintendo way, and bold blocks of color don't really work for a more "serious" game palette.

I more attribute it to choice. There's been a ton of brown stuff that isn't hidden by fog. We can take, for example, pictures of Saint Louis, where I live and compare it to examples of brickwork in games. The real stuff is pretty bright and vibrant, often painted over as well and with a wide range of tones. Brown-age bricks almost look like they've been through a flood and nobody's chipped off the mud.

I can see your point of view, but I still think the bigger driving force behind the brownening was a general cultural depression in the US following a certain event in 2001. It sort of spread out from there and was impacted by further current events. That and it was a reaction to the 80s-90s era of NEON BRIGHTNESS

[Mando Knight]

I more attribute it to choice. There's been a ton of brown stuff that isn't hidden by fog. We can take, for example, pictures of Saint Louis, where I live and compare it to examples of brickwork in games. The real stuff is pretty bright and vibrant, often painted over as well and with a wide range of tones. Brown-age bricks almost look like they've been through a flood and nobody's chipped off the mud.

I mean that a generic tone of "brown" helps cover over things like low-res textures, low draw distance for high-detail models, hard-packed dirt is easier to do than detailed grassy fields (that don't completely fall flat when you start looking at them closely), and so on. The opposite end of the spectrum, like Splatoon or Super Mario, also use simpler textures that don't require as much detail, simpler shadows that don't need as much processing power, etc., but instead of muddying the world so the impression of higher detail is left behind the murky filter, the colors allow the games to revel in their simpler forms.

[Starwulf]

Meh, I can only hope the industry isn't shifting away into bright, "everything is wonderful" color tones. That would basically put gaming back into the 80's era and label it as strictly "children" only hobby.

[VoxRationis]

I more attribute it to choice. There's been a ton of brown stuff that isn't hidden by fog. We can take, for example, pictures of Saint Louis, where I live and compare it to examples of brickwork in games. The real stuff is pretty bright and vibrant, often painted over as well and with a wide range of tones. Brown-age bricks almost look like they've been through a flood and nobody's chipped off the mud.

I can see your point of view, but I still think the bigger driving force behind the brownening was a general cultural depression in the US following a certain event in 2001. It sort of spread out from there and was impacted by further current events. That and it was a reaction to the 80s-90s era of NEON BRIGHTNESS

Well, I hope the movie industry can get out of the "everything is blue-grey" phase of this "greater cultural depression." I mean, I'm from a place where it actually looks like that for much of the year and even I think it's excessive.

[Aotrs Commander]

Not that I play shooters, the most commonly attributed adherents to the school of the brown everythings, it would still be nice if they started acknowleging that the world is, in fact, not shades of brown and grey and that "realism" is not modelled by that. Muting the pallet may be an artistic choice, perhaps (a poor one, in my opinion), but what it isn't is "realistic".

(Save perhaps, as mentined earlier, save perhaps in the middle of winter in certain rural areas, or the middle of a desert or something, where there aren't any humans coming along with their briighly coloured artifices.)

[NichG]

I think muting the palette is a smart choice in general, but then you want to fill in that gap using environmental lighting variations. A bright red object doesn't communicate the scene very well compared to a tan or pink object, it just communicates 'I'm a bright red object'. But with the more muted object, you can get a better feeling for the light sources in the scene (direct sunlight? light on a cloudy day? a campfire? moonlight? reflected light?), and that can be used to layer particular moods on top the actors, without the actors 'forcing' particular moods too much.

[Razade]

The idea that the "Age of Brown" has ended just in this current wave just speaks to a lack of Indie Games in your gaming diet. Gaming has been colorful since Super Meat Boy, just not if you stick to Triple A titles.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

The idea that the "Age of Brown" has ended just in this current wave just speaks to a lack of Indie Games in your gaming diet. Gaming has been colorful since Super Meat Boy, just not if you stick to Triple A titles.

"Real is Brown" generally only applies to fully 3-D environments.

[MCerberus]

The idea that the "Age of Brown" has ended just in this current wave just speaks to a lack of Indie Games in your gaming diet. Gaming has been colorful since Super Meat Boy, just not if you stick to Triple A titles.

The thing is that Indie, possibly by definition, is generally fringe and "AA" has really only gotten acceptance recently (outside of Tripwire). Remember that the gaming community threw A FREAKING FIT over Diablo 3 being 'cartoony'

[Rodin]

The thing is that Indie, possibly by definition, is generally fringe and "AA" has really only gotten acceptance recently (outside of Tripwire). Remember that the gaming community threw A FREAKING FIT over Diablo 3 being 'cartoony'

To be fair, it kinda was. It's telling that when I think "Diablo II sequel", I don't think "Diablo III" but instead think "Path of Exile". While it wasn't worth the RUINED FOREVER outrage that it brought on, I can definitely see their point. DIII had an art style much more reminiscent of Torchlight than DII.

I don't mind dark and grim atmospheres in games that are meant to be dark and grim. The problem was that ALL the games were going for that aesthetic when most of them shouldn't have been. Fallout 3 came with this sort of muddy brownish green filter over everything when the original game was sharp and vibrant.

[Pronounceable]

I always did and will keep blaming the 90s kids for the Age of Brown. Now that younger, less 90s people have started working, things can only get better.

[Closet_Skeleton]

The de-saturated colour aesthetic really comes from Saving Private Ryan via Medal of Honour and was originally meant to reference old film footage. Its a highly stylised choice, it just took with it grittyness associations from that movie.

Remember that the gaming community threw A FREAKING FIT over Diablo 3 being 'cartoony'

I found the jump to cartoonyness in Warcraft III and WoW a bit odd, but the lack of resolution in the older games means its hard to tell exactly how much of a leap it is.

The Blizzard style is always exaggerated but it used to have more bite to it.

I always did and will keep blaming the 90s kids for the Age of Brown. Now that younger, less 90s people have started working, things can only get better.

Profressional generations don't move that quickly. Its more likely it was 80s kids running the show still in the 2000s and the 90s kids only started to get to make important choices in at the end of that decade.

Most of the guys making the media that defined those 90s kids were still guys who grew up in the 70s.

[Knaight]

The thing is that Indie, possibly by definition, is generally fringe and "AA" has really only gotten acceptance recently (outside of Tripwire). Remember that the gaming community threw A FREAKING FIT over Diablo 3 being 'cartoony'

Diablo 3 is a bit of a special case though - the core aesthetic to the Diablo series is bleakness, and plenty of other AAA franchises got colorful with no complaint.

Meh, I can only hope the industry isn't shifting away into bright, "everything is wonderful" color tones. That would basically put gaming back into the 80's era and label it as strictly "children" only hobby.

There's a lot of room between "everything is wonderful" color tones and having a three color brown-grey-muzzle flash palette. Consider the Crysis series - nobody is getting the impression that it is aimed at children, and yet because it generally in a jungle you get plenty of lush greens, you get colorful animals, you get lots and lots of water much of which is fairly clean. Then there's the part where there was the freak snowstorm, which also had lots of whites and blues.. Even in things like industrial settings, bright colors aren't uncommon. Consider warning labels, which are generally made to stand out.

The brown-grey scheme largely emerged for a few things. One was battlefields, where it often was just really muddy with little vegetation after a while, particularly in cases like the Somme. Another is the post apocalyptic genre, which often doesn't even make sense, as nature tends to reclaim abandoned territory. There's room for that aesthetic, but it's dramatically overused.

As for the claim that the colors will label videogames as for children only, it's not like movies aren't often colorful, including those for adults. Books frequently have covers with fairly striking covers, and even more frequently have descriptions that evoke something other than muted browns and greys.

[Avilan the Grey]

The only truly Brown game I played was Quake. The first one.
That was basically Brown.

[Inyssius Tor]

Meh, I can only hope the industry isn't shifting away into bright, "everything is wonderful" color tones. That would basically put gaming back into the 80's era and label it as strictly "children" only hobby.

Ah, yes, following in the footsteps of movies and traditional art, whose increased use of color over the years has likewise doomed them to childish niches, hideous outdated styles, and a deserved lack of appreciation as mature artistic mediums.

[Starwulf]

Ah, yes, following in the footsteps of movies and traditional art, whose increased use of color over the years has likewise doomed them to childish niches, hideous outdated styles, and a deserved lack of appreciation as mature artistic mediums.

You and Knaight need to stop putting words into my mouth, it's extremely flipping rude, and I freaking hate that crap >< Not once did I say "more color" was going to turn the gaming industry back into it's "Only for children" state. I instead said "Everything is wonderful" bright colors would. I'm not talking about lush, vibrant forests or jungles, or a beautiful sunset over an ocean in Hawaii. I'm referencing garishly bold bright colors that have no business being used in anything except in extremely niche games like the recently released Splatoon. If every game suddenly became like Splatoon, that would doom the industry to being relegated to children's games only.

[Eldan]

Ah, yes, following in the footsteps of movies and traditional art, whose increased use of color over the years has likewise doomed them to childish niches, hideous outdated styles, and a deserved lack of appreciation as mature artistic mediums.

Well, you know. "All movies are Orange/Blue" is a legitimate concern, too.

[hamishspence]

Personally I thought D3's palette was pretty good. Act 2's deserts are very like D2 Act 2's, its oasis is like D2 Act 3, the snowy areas of Act 3 are very much like D2 Lord of Destruction Act 5, and so on.

Act 1's spider caverns are very Hellfire-esque - but I liked Hellfire, so it's not a problem for me.

[Psyren]

There are no doubt plenty of brown CoDField shooters to come. But right now the number one shooter is a colorful, if somewhat bland, sci-fi romp where Peter Dinklage is assiduously phoning it in.

D3 has a very varied palette and the game uses 3D extremely well given its camera. I still remember having a "whoa!" moment in Act 2 when all those Lacuni stalking me on the rocks far above my character actually ended up leaping down to fight me.

And if you want bleak, that describes pretty much all of Act 5.

[MCerberus]

You and Knaight need to stop putting words into my mouth, it's extremely flipping rude, and I freaking hate that crap >< Not once did I say "more color" was going to turn the gaming industry back into it's "Only for children" state. I instead said "Everything is wonderful" bright colors would. I'm not talking about lush, vibrant forests or jungles, or a beautiful sunset over an ocean in Hawaii. I'm referencing garishly bold bright colors that have no business being used in anything except in extremely niche games like the recently released Splatoon. If every game suddenly became like Splatoon, that would doom the industry to being relegated to children's games only.

At the same time there are plenty of surrealist, romantic, and examples from many movements in art that use bright, almost idealistic colors but they are not considered for children.

On the super-bright end, the choice is usually meant to denote unreality. William's Street, Southpark Studios, and the like have been using this effect in non-child's animation for a while now. This sort of art design is why people are able to suspend disbelief about Archer's anachronism.

More importantly, I don't see the big players using this method to try and steer their game towards target demographics. Nintendo maybe, but they've had the same stylebook since the N64 and it's been about mechanics for them anyway.

[Jayngfet]

I feel it was always there, people just aren't searching properly.

I finally got around to playing the Witcher games and in terms of color scheme they tend towards the brighter side with each new entry. The forests are bright green, the fabrics scarlet red, and there's a certain air of nobility to it even where you don't expect there to be.

[Tvtyrant]

I didn't mind the Brown Age so much, so I probably didn't notice either way. Counterstrike is the only one that bothered me, because that game is so monotoned that I can't actually distinguish individuals from backgrounds.

[Artanis]

Personally I thought D3's palette was pretty good. Act 2's deserts are very like D2 Act 2's, its oasis is like D2 Act 3, the snowy areas of Act 3 are very much like D2 Lord of Destruction Act 5, and so on.

Act 1's spider caverns are very Hellfire-esque - but I liked Hellfire, so it's not a problem for me.

Agreed. Every time I saw somebody complaining about Diablo 3 being so bright and cheerful compared to Diablo 2, my brain immediately thought back to screens filled with Frozen Orbs, packs of monsters trapped in fire walls created by a spray of Immolation Arrows, and the mightiest demon in the setting's history hosing players down with pink f****** lightning. It was never long before my memories also turned back to the exact same complaints around D2's release about it being too colorful and cartoony compared to the original Diablo.

I'm also always reminded of the pre-release Everquest II vs. World of Warcraft "debates", where EQ2 fanboys would prophesize WoW's doom due to mock "cartoony" WoW screenshots while Blizzard fanboys would cite artistic vision and mock two-color EQ2 palettes. When the two juggernauts finally clashed on the field of battle for players' wallets...well...you know the rest.

I didn't mind the Brown Age so much, so I probably didn't notice either way. Counterstrike is the only one that bothered me, because that game is so monotoned that I can't actually distinguish individuals from backgrounds.

Eh, I give Counterstrike a bit of leeway because it started as a mod for Half-Life 1 *shrug*

[Lethologica]

Agreed. Every time I saw somebody complaining about Diablo 3 being so bright and cheerful compared to Diablo 2, my brain immediately thought back to screens filled with Frozen Orbs, packs of monsters trapped in fire walls created by a spray of Immolation Arrows, and the mightiest demon in the setting's history hosing players down with pink f****** lightning. It was never long before my memories also turned back to the exact same complaints around D2's release about it being too colorful and cartoony compared to the original Diablo.

I'm also always reminded of the pre-release Everquest II vs. World of Warcraft "debates", where EQ2 fanboys would prophesize WoW's doom due to mock "cartoony" WoW screenshots while Blizzard fanboys would cite artistic vision and mock two-color EQ2 palettes. When the two juggernauts finally clashed on the field of battle for players' wallets...well...you know the rest.

See also: "League of Legends is just DotA with s***ty cartoony graphics, it'll never succeed." (Circa 2009.) Not that DotA was particularly brown, of course.

[Erloas]

The success and failure of WoW and EQ2 had little (directly) to do with their color choices. Given WoW's graphics design was such that it would run on a wide range of system and that helped it reach the numbers it did. But that wasn't why one game was wildly successful and the other wasn't. And while I personally didn't find WoW's graphics appealing (I wasn't going to stay around to see more of the world they build) they also didn't drive me away, it was their gameplay choices that I didn't like. In fact I think that was one of the biggest things that killed all MMOs for me, more and more tried to follow WoW's design decisions and those same decisions are what I didn't like WoW for in the first place.

I really haven't found the color palettes choices in any game bothering me. Sure, there are a lot of games with a lot of brown but many of them fit the setting they are going for. Given after a while the setting gets old and it is nice to see something new, it is the new part that is important to me, not the colors that that new happens to be.

And I think that is why the color schemes are changing more in games, some companies have decided they don't have to emulate the last big game and I think a lot of developers are finding that finding the market for the game they want to make is better than trying to jump into another market just because someone else did well there.