Human Fulgore, Sabrewulf in a baseball cap and a wizard? - Killer Instinct's character designer showcases the 1st game's early and unused fighters
Killer Instinct marked a massive shift in tone for Rare back in the early '90s from their more cartoony visuals that would put them on a map with its violent androids and twin-headed monsters, but how did they come up with those in the first place?
Well, former Rare character designer and artist Kevin Bayliss recently opened the floodgates on that by pulling out a bunch of old Killer Instinct concept art for the fighters that he breaks down and gives the history of in a new video.
The first thing we get to see in the folder labeled 'Killer Instinct Sketches' is a portrait of the original Fulgore, who was apparently meant to be a human ninja with cybernetic enhancements at first before receiving the metal makeover we know today.
He underwent numerous reworks judging by the amount of pages shown which make him more and more robotic as time goes on while some of his human side may have made its way over to Jago.
Riptor apparently used to be a snake man with a cobra head instead of a dinosaur and was also much more human-like in its early incarnations though we can see another where they're much more round than muscular.
Bayliss also showed off an unused character design who he called Gunn, who well, fought with an Uzi and had a bunch of bullets strapped around his legs and chest.
The current Playtonic developer states that many of KI's initial designs were more robotic or monster-like because of perceived limitations of what they could accomplish with the graphics.
That would change as production ramped up, however, as the team were able to create better human models though many of those early fighters would still become iconic for being unique.
You can check out Bayliss' fascinating look at the earliest of days of Killer Instinct below where he also showcases sketches for Chief Thunder, a guy with a tiger on his shirt, a wizard, Sabrewulf in a baseball cap, a hockey player and a Terminator-like cyborg.
