The growing (and welcome) trend of studios to passionately carry on with projects after they have been cancelled by the client continues with the release of this cutscene compilation produced by Glasgow CG mavens Revenant.

Luke Angus, head of animation at Revenant: “At the beginning of 2024, Revenant developed seven stylized cinematics for Phoenix Labs’ ‘Everhaven’ (Codename: Project Dragon), a sandbox fantasy action-adventure game which was shelved due to restructuring within the company.

“Each cut scene vividly illustrates the rich backstory for a hero character, crafted in a 3D pipeline in accordance with a beautiful bespoke 2.5D style with hand-painted textures.
 

“As an animator, this was one of those dream projects full of fantastical creatures, a gorgeous art style, and lore as deep and realized as it was beautiful.”

 
“The aim was to bring these lovingly crafted characters’ stories to life while maintaining the integrity of the wonderful visual and world building principles established by the developers at Phoenix Labs. As an animator, this was one of those dream projects full of fantastical creatures, a gorgeous art style, and lore as deep and realized as it was beautiful.

Art director Alan MacEachern: “The main challenge from a design point of view was in the nature of how each story focused on a different culture within the game. This meant a unique bespoke art style and design language per cut scene. Fortunately, Phoenix Labs were able to provide key art which we then extrapolated and built upon to flesh out the environments.

“Our asset and environment teams did a fantastic job interpreting these designs and really stepped up to what was a deceptively simple art style. Clever procedural solutions were also utilized on the more complex hieroglyphs and environments to streamline a laborious job and allow us to focus on the finer details. Without doubt this was one the most challenging but rewarding projects I’ve worked on.”
 
 

 
Client: Phoenix Labs
Principal Concept: Nicholas Kole
Art Director: Josh Nadelberg
Game Director: Hunter Howe
Storyboard Artist: Erika Schnellert
Composer: Cris Velasco

Production: Revenant
CD: Kevin McCrae
Managing Director: Pamela Nelson
EP: Debbie Ferguson
Head of Animation: Luke Angus
Art Director: Alan MacEachern
CG Supervisor: Alex Frydrych
Producer: Sean Ewins, Nicole Anderson, Scott Taylor
Production Coordinator: Rebecca Wallace, Maeve Matheson
Environment Artist: Craig Simmers
3D Generalist: Craig Reid, Jacq Burns
FX Artist: Simon Reher, Ignasi Casas
Junior Animator: Ryan Mottershead
FX Concept Artist: Julia Wesolowska
Lead Compositor: Abby Barr
Editor: Marco di Goia

Sound Design: Echoic Audio