Interview with Eric Kohler
.gif)
“Basically, my first thought about anything when I was a kid was ‘How can I turn that into a weapon?’”
Meet Eric Kohler, Principal Concept Artist for F.E.A.R. 2 and general weapons guru at Monolith.
After playing with some of the weapons he’s designed, most recently for F.E.A.R. 2, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that he’s had a lifelong obsession with them—both the ones that come to life in his art and those in the real world. What might be a surprise is the way he balances practicality, creativity, and fun factor to build some of the coolest and most satisfying weapons in the gaming world.
Leaving the homemade bows and arrows of his childhood behind, Eric got his first post-college art job working in a medium that’s got more than its share of firepower—comic books. As he digitally colored comics, he continued pursuing his own art, designing characters, weapons, and armor. The balance of coloring for other artists while developing his own visual style gave Eric the perfect opportunity to advance both his technical and creative skills at the same time.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Perhaps it was his personal interests, specifically his training in martial arts and combat shooting, though, that best honed his insight on the intention behind the use of a weapon—not just the action of using it, but the very function of the design. “I learned to think, how would a weapon really work?”
When the prospect of working at a certain young gaming studio known as Monolith appeared in 1996, Eric jumped at the chance. The only problem is “they were looking for someone who had done a lot of anime [they were working on Shogo at the time] and most of my stuff was more fantasy based.” But he wasn’t willing to let a perceived blind spot in his portfolio stand in his way. “So I drew a huge anime-style cover image and left it behind to convince them that they should give me the job… and it worked.”
So he got the job and made it his own, but where does he start when he’s working on a new game? "Generally with bugging the s*** out of the game designer,” he says, laughing. “The key is to find answers to questions like: ‘What makes these weapons work and how do the characters use them?’” For Eric, answering the question of whether the company that makes the guns for its soldiers cares more about money or safety is a big deal—if the company is cheap and the combatant is expendable, there goes some of the cowling on the weapon, which makes the weapons cheaper, lighter, and easier to produce… but also more volatile.
It’s this kind of detail, things that the player may never actual consciously notice, that contributes to the level of depth and realism to the worlds that Eric, and Monolith as a whole, create.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Don’t get him wrong, though, realism is great and all, but his first rule? “It’s got to be fun.” He is making games after all. “Sure,” he says, “if you actually fire a handgun in an enclosed space, you’re going to be deaf for the rest of the day. But does that make you feel like a badass?” An important part of what he does is knowing where to draw the line between realism and frustration. “At the end of the day it’s not so much the realism,” he says, “but the convincing re-creation of that feeling you get when you shoot a powerful weapon, you’re in control of tremendous power... in fact, probably the most power an average civilian can get their hands on.”
So next time you pick up guns in a game, try judging them using the same criteria that Eric uses to make them: “What they look like, how you operate them, what they sound like, but most of all, how powerful they feel and how fun they are to shoot.” Who knows, you might be able to help him build the next round of kick-ass weapons. Stranger things have happened (all the time at Monolith, in fact). What are you waiting for?