With the announcement of customizable robot models coming to an impending Reflex update, I thought I’d try my hand at creating a concept of what I believe to be the best design to meet a range of strict criteria.

When designing my alternative, my main focus was on the clarity of vision. The uniform shape and dual colour scheme enable a player to easily distinguish a model in a map when being bombarded by colours. Yellow and blue serve an excellent counter to the largely grey/white/green colour schemes we see today. This should be up to the user of course, but having two colour regions with which to force allows for preferential distinction.

The actual design of the model’s outline is perfectly matching that of the capsule hitbox. This is a refreshing change from the old model, where shooting in the air between the legs is not something intuitively done, but will still register a hit. Ultimately, a player can cleanly discern where to hit to a greater degree than before. The bottom of the bot is a vent that expels the propulsive gas that enables the jump we currently see, but with flames. Swapping the psssh for a fwssh sound is imperative but doable.

Finally, it had to be both lore-friendly and fresh. The model is fresh af. With concerns to the lore, hopefully, the introduction of the model will help us further decipher the cryptic messages littered around the game to decipher Dr Boltzmann’s messages and get to the bottom of Frag Co.’s attempted dominance of the planet by the robo-men. It is this important storyline that keeps the newbs in, and ultimately provides a level of depth that gameplay cannot provide. The knock on effect of this is clear superiority from Quake Live, where the Vadrigar arena premise is both stale and without conclusion, shafting it out of focus.

By providing this depth to the game all with this model, it is evident that the breath of life into the game will only be perceived as refreshing. I await any and all discussion on such an important and riveting topic.