Everyone! Hello!
I’m in charge of the animation in Anarchy Reigns. Name’s Muranaka.

Killer weapons.
A part of Anarchy Reigns that makes it what it is.
For this entry, I’m going to try to explain the animation that goes with each character bringing their killer weapons out.

But first, what is a killer weapon?
Some of you here might already know the answer, but for a brief explanation:

-You know that gigantic chainsaw Jack’s got on his arm? It’s that.
-Everybody’s got one (in this game).
-Build up your gauge, then let that baby rip when it’s full (pretty devastating attack is underway).

When a character readies their killer weapon, they bring it out from somewhere on their person and activate it. Killer weapons are modeled after the character that uses them, and as such, are important for conveying that character’s personality.

We were a bit particular about killer weapon animation in this game.

When we were first developing them,
The animation for taking out a killer weapon looked like this:

ut… that’s a little too shaky, right? Can’t use it like that.

If you’re playing a speed character, you need to have your killer weapon out in just a few frames after you’ve hit the attack button.

If, for example, you had 10 frames until the hit landed, that means you’d have 1/3 of a second. (This game runs on 30 frames per second, so one second has about 30 different pictures to get through.) If we were to just shrink the animation time, it’d be so fast no one would be able to appreciate it.

So, we decided to bring the main part of the weapon out first (in Jack’s case, the chainsaw) and then add all its surrounding parts.

This way, you see the blade, and then you’re shown the rest of the process: you can attack while the killer weapon is putting itself together.

Jack’s killer weapon was the first one we made. Part of the reason its design stands out a bit from the rest.

We put time to make the animation in each killer weapon unique. Other characters may have their suits change, their bodies might change themselves, they may turn half-transparent…

There’s also a gallery included in the game to give you a full-on view of each character in the lineup and their killer weapon, so be sure to check it out!

Anyway, that about sums it up on my killer weapons talk.

Be sure to check every character (and their killer weapon) out! It’s a unique, eye-pleasing, well-developed cast.

Hope I can see you online after the release. Until then!