As part of Epic Games’ most recent Unreal Tournament live stream, the developers of the new shooter showed off a look at what art director Chris Perna calls a “working concept art.” Effectively, we get a tour of a work-in-progress level which shows off some gorgeous artwork that stands out from many of the shooters that currently dominate the market.

Perna says he was “try[ing] to come up with a look that can kind of drive direction across the project.” It’s by no means a finished project, and consists of pieces from previously created work, but Perna says, “I think the overall look is clean; it will allow characters to pop off the background.

When checking out the video (jump to the 1:31 mark to see the level), keep in mind that the game is still very early, hence the great deal of screen tearing that can be seen. Also of note is the fact that what’s seen in the video is not necessarily indicative of what the rest of the game will look like.

“This is not the look for the entire game,” Perna says. ” This, in my mind, represents kind of the sci-fi/industrial look. We could go grimier with this.”

Perna also talked about the overall look he wants to have in the game, drawing on the Batman films to illustrate his point. “To me, Unreal–and the entire franchise–has always been, I used to use this term a lot, a Tim Burton Batman-type of caricature of itself,” Perna explains.

“And where I’d like to go with the new franchise is more of a Chris Nolan kind of Batman Begins… just something a little more polished, a little more realis[tic], but without going over the top and doing kind of like what we did with Gears [of War] or [Unreal Tournament 3] and making everything dark and grimy and grungy. I think you can still have detailed environments that look amazing, and add color, and have visual clarity–and have your cake and eat it, too, basically.”

The new Unreal Tournament was announced back in May. It will be developed by a small team and will be completely free when it’s released. To make money, Epic will take a cut of sales through a store it will offer that allows modders to sell content to players. Epic has been doing regular live streams featuring discussions with its developers, who are working with the game’s community to design the game.

What do you think about the look of this map and what Perna’s vision is for the game? Let us know in the comments.

Chris Pereira is a freelance writer for GameSpot, and you can follow him on Twitter @TheSmokingManX
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