Spy Party gets makeover from ex-Spore artist

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The Spy Party team has doubled in size. Designer Chris Hecker has been joined by former Maxis colleague John Cimino, an animator tasked with overhauling Spy Party's low-fi visuals. Joystiq have the first images of the new characters, and they look pretty swish.

So much of Spy Party depends on how good the spy is at acting like an NPC guest, which means these planned art and animation changes will have a significant impact on the way Spy Party plays.

"We spent a ton of time trying to figure out the best possible art style for the game," Hecker told Joystiq. "We really wanted the art style to reflect the same level of subtlety that the gameplay has. I didn't want it to be too realistic or too exaggerated, and I think we hit it on this really nice, call it naturalistic or illustrative – they look like illustrations. I'm super excited."

The new models will get an airing during Pax at the end of the month. Here's what Spy Party's current models look like.

And here are the new designs:
Tom Senior
Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.