They look like Elves that have been bred with the Kominoans from starwars and had their make up done by a drag queen.



Hope they make there faces better looking for final release because they are a far cry from the art for the game. The other races have at least one nice face each...but the elves...

Oh no! Creative art design! How terrible.

Seriously you people go on my nerves so much.
You keep screaming for the most boring and generic artwork.

I bet you are german.

I'm sorry, what's their mnakeup and drag queens have to do with each other at all?

They're tall, lithe, and close to nature. Like all elves ever. They're also covered in cool glowing runes and actually pretty unique, unlike most things ever.

If you want to be creative don't take a race that's been in the games before and change them into something they have never been. So like every other Divinity game they have been in they have looked normal.

Boring and generic...you mean like asking for what they have in their site artwork. However guessing most people on this forum have no idea about the other divinity games. I've played them all since Divine Divinity and they NEVER ever had anything but normal humans, dwarves and elves..so if you want something original why the hell use them? If you make pointy eared lithe elves then they are in no way unique or original they still fit the standard elf template. They are just uglier than normal elves...much uglier.


Actually its been done in a load of fantasy settings and isn't original either. At this stage nothing is really original about elves, dwarves or humans you want something original you wouldn't use Elves, Humans, Dwarves or Undead....i mean add in Orcs and you have all the standard fantasy races right there.

Muh retcon.
Divinity has been retconned every single game. The entire series is one giant retcon.
Please tell me how beyond divinity and dragon commander paint an even simmilar picture of the world.
They dont, thats fine.

Their site Artwork. certainly not the Divinity Original Sin 2 artwork, because thats what their models are based off.
No idea of the divinity games, sure, nice strawman there. I bet you are a german who doesnt like fantasy that diverges from tolkien because youve grown up with terrible german tolkien knockoff novels.

This hypothesis has exactly as much merit as you claiming people here havent played the old games.
Its nonsense.

And no the old divinity games did NOT just have humans elves and dwarves, Lizards have been either in the game or at least mentioned since the start.

Also you complain that elves are elves but look more interresting? How is that even a complaint. If they werent elves, they wouldnt call em elves.
They are elves but with a different twist. Fine YOU dont like that, stop pretending you actually have a point beyond that.

You dont like it, theres no argument to be had over this. you dont like it, Larian does, the majority of people here do, so who cares.

There is there actually a sentence in here that isn't totally false?
Ret cons? WHERE?
Beyond Divinity isn't on Rivellon and is in keeping with the story...you played the game right? I don't think Elves, Dwarves, Orcs or Lizards are in that game...so far as i recall its all humans, imps, demons and ranaar (ghosts).
Dragon Commander isn't actually one of the Divinity series games so far as plot or lore is concerned.

http://divinity.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline - No Dragon Commander and the story works all the way through. This is stone wall proof you don't know anything about the Divinity series.






Based on that? Seems legit. However i am amused that you stretch a model out and add some tattoos and suddenly its super original. I have no problem with actual original idea's or takes on things just not the same thing but uglier.



Think I have already proven you don't actually know anything about Divinity seeing you think they Retcon everything.



Lizards were not in the other games I doubt they were even mentioned. Maybe in a book but they have never been part of the games.They are in tons of fantasy settings - D&D and Warhammer to name a couple of the biggest ones hardly makes them original they are also pretty standard fantasy.



Quote me anywhere i say anything about looking "interesting" the word I used was UGLY.


To be fair i doubt anyone can argue anything with you seeing you ignore all the facts and then make up stuff that they say....which is why i quote and debunked all your rant.

I don't mind if artists use a variant of what they feel a race should look like personally.

I remember when I was playing some player made stuff on stream one time (for another game) and I was trying to RP the NPCs and I cannot do an Irish/Scottish accent to play the typical Dwarf so I made all the dwarves in the game speak Rastafarian instead.

Now, that is going to be my thing from now on, Rasta Dwarves.

Lizards were in (at least) Divine Divinity and Dragon Commander. Not counting things like dragons and wyverns, obviously.

Elves look ugly and alien but I think that is the point, they are meant to look incredibly unnerving and uncanny to human perception.

Their armor sets being hideous mishmashes of sin is another story altogether... and I am not even getting started on the overall plant motif (as "It looks like a plant" isn't an excuse for it being ugly). Their armor is bad by most standards and I don't even mean just over designed and that it often clashes with the game's established aesthetic.

Yet at the same time looking at the armor in the game, I get the distinct impression the elves are supposed to also be the game's sex appeal... OR they are ugly so that their "sexy armor" isn't perceived as offensive.

It's the sort of gentle trolling I could get on-board with. "You want sexy armour? lol."

"hurr durr nobody played the games"

"Lizards werent in the games!"

Well you just discredited your entire argument. And you did it all by yourself aswell.
And the rest is... "Its been in other fantasy things too so it SHOULD be generic"

Man, i already got your bratwurst and sauerkraut ready, hans. Lets play some DSA and read Die Zwerge. Jawohl!

In all seriousness i cannot stand hypocrisy.
Just admit its simply because YOU dont like it. Thats fine, you are free not to like stuff. But thats not an argument.

Please don't use those stereotypes. They're hurtful and don't support your argument.

As for Retcons:

Well, only because the other races didn't appear in D:OS or Divinity 2, doesn't mean that they disappeared completely (most of it was for budget and engine reasons. The other races were planned in the early concept phases of 2 for example). But there ARE smal details, which stand contraire to the earlier lore:

- The Orcs are now a matriarchal culture and pray to the All-Mother, instead of their creator god. Could be a retcon, or they explain it in the lore book.
- Rivellon turned from a nation to the name of the whole world. Bigger Retcon, but I guess we will survive that .
- Hell turned into the Void, if I understand it correctly. Or it is still it's own place, I'm not sure at the moment.

The elves are a bigger problem, but they could just explain that they've changed since Dragon Commander and the villagers from Divinity 1 are remnants of their old culture. I mean the Lizards turned from a Democracy into an Empire, so why not?

A really big retcon would be, when they eradicate everything that happened in The Dragon Knight Saga in favor of a more Sourcefocused-story.

The thing about the Divinity Lore is, that it grew bigger and bigger over the years, but most of it stood alone or focused on it's own themes (for example, we saw no Dragon Knights in Original Sin). Easier for beginners to play, but for lore-lovers like me sometimes very frustrating .

That's why I hope, that they'll finally give us definite version of the lore in OS 2. Can only be easier for future stories .

Did they really eradicate it? I didn't think DKS was at odds with the other Divinities, just that it was a particular tangent in pursuit of Divinity's "main quest". It's just one that focussed on Champions and Dragon Knights and so on rather than Source, but that doesn't necessarily diminish the significance of the latter.

Nono, they didn't do it, sorry if I wasn't clear^^.

I just wanted to explain what for me would be a real retcon. We only had elves for two games in minor roles, but we already played two Dragon Knights in two games, so it would be big retcon, if they just cut out the importance of the Knights on Rivellons history.

I actually feel that they didn't go quite far enough in making them inhuman in appearance. I've always intensely disliked non-human races that physically, might as well be humans but with superficial differences.

The sort of nature quality to them could have been way cooler in my opinion if their flesh transformed during battle, and they looked like humanoid monsters carved out of wood that bleed sap.

Then, when the battle ends, they return to the normal not-quite human looking state, but still don't bleed blood. It could be left up to interpretation for the player to question whether the battle form, or out of battle form is their natural appearance.

That's actually a cool idea, though I dunno if that's quite got its place since they eat flesh to gain memories. Including / especially of their own race.

Save that idea. Seriously that idea is gold.

This is what you get for letting Lohannah eat meat.
Now her whole race are corpse eaters. You monster!

... I know you were just joking, but could somebody give this to the writers? This is brilliant .

Why does this thread still exist? I think the design of the elves in this game is the most original interpretation of an elf I've ever seen and I love it. I also like that they are uniquely making elves their own thing. I am so sick of generic, boring Forgotten Realms based games with the same old races and same old creatures over and over and over and over. I liked the original Dragon Age, because it re-invented the wheel and it looks like DoS:2 is doing the same. P.S. The elves are beautiful in their own way. Please keep the current design for elves, Larian.

I would think it appropriate if, in the same vein, the stereotypical tree-hugging attitude has been twisted into a fondness for pitcher plants, sundews, and the like.

I fucking LOVE the elves in this game. They are an incredibly creative and fresh take on a classic fantasy race. Everything about them is terrific. I'd hate to see anything changed just to appease people with shallow tastes that want to see the same designs iterated over and over and over again.

In something like a classic fantasy DnD setting, elves have been among my least favorite races. In D:OS2, elves are by far my favorite race.

Keep up the good work Larian, don't listen to the swine

I personaly adore this version! No more stereotypically overly beautiful and exotic elves that exist only as eye-candy with random cliche'd culture traits. The look and lore for elves in this game is seriously awesome.

It would be easy to find sonourous negatives to explain the love for the new elves, in a similar manner as the design-defenders frequently speak negatively about the people who don't like it.

Instead I simply say that I like the design of the body and clothing but not the bork-like appearance of the skin.

I am lazy, so I copy what I wrote in Steam forums:

"I am sorry, but elves in this game look absolutely awful in my eyes, though I am fine them eating people. I am not huge fan of stereotypes either, but in this case I would take any elf stereotype over this. Because they wear human face and skin it makes things even worse, they look like some weird mutants created by chernobyl radiation. If their color would be somehing other than human or they had scales or fur or something that they didnt look at all like humans I would be fine with them, though I wish there would be one skin option for elf that makes them look like same than in game cover art.

Speaking about cover art its compeletely misleading considering how elves look like ingame, why?

I was going to play elf in this game (based on cover art), but my choice was human after I saw there is no elf model that I could tolerate through game, its unlikely my party has elf either. Yeah yeah, I am hardcore elf-racist...

I apologize my harsh words from artist that created elves for Original Sin 2, they just don't match my taste at all, majority seem to like them though."

I don't want to take anything away from those who like this design, so I would hope there would be few or even one skin option that is closer to cover art elf. I know this will never happen and my only hope are mods. I just want to play with character that I can look at through whole game, then again I played Nier through too and liked it and in that main character was hit with the ugly stick...twice, though how MC looked bothered me in that one too.

Anyway if cover art would have been closer to ingame look it would have been unlikely that I would have been writing about OS2 elves ugliness in any forums.

All the games I've played thus far, MMO or otherwise, have had a different Elven designs.. some look awful, and others look good. I'd say for this game, they are ok.

That is the first thing I thought, a little variation on the standard Elf take. It's a special breed of elf... Next. Lots of different human types in the real, fantasy human type too narrow.

They look bad.

Call it opinion, call it aesthetic. It's bad.

"Original" and "different" isn't always better, and you shouldn't force racial aesthetic on your player base. For a game that thrives on elements such as feasibility and semi-realism, nothing about the armor makes sense. Are we growing it? Are we incapable of dressing in a manner similar to the other races?

In a world where standing near a fire may dry me, or a puddle of water can conduct electricity, i'm supposed to be alright with the fact that an armor chest piece I just looted from a human corpse looks like a bark tube top on my elf?

You severely limit the potential for individual expression when you force things like this.

Bare in mind that this is just a gripe about armor itself.

That's not even covering that fact that across the board male elves have less customization options than literally any other race in the game.

For every person whining about not getting their Tolkein aesthetic, you've got some sycophant jumping down their throat screaming about how much better this "fresh" and "different" take on the elves adds to the flavor of the game.

Most everything about the elf race seems ham-fisted and poorly thought out.

Only thing I don't like about the elves is that Sebille looks nothing like theload screen/site banner picture. If what we have is what they were going for, the artists should of made her look similar in game.

They remind me a bit of the elves (Sylvari) in Guild Wars 2. In fact, look at the armor on this female elf: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/races/sylvari/ O.o

Anyway, I'm probably so used to other elf types (night elf, blood elf, drow, etc.) that these non-sunshine elves are ok to me

I actually like how Sylvari looks, I wish elves here would be at least half as good looking as them.

The elves in Divinity: Original Sin 2 are truly amazing because they look feral and magical at the same time. Unlike with BioWare and their "re-make" of the elves for Dragon Age 2 it's quite clear that Larian Studios actually managed to "pull it off".

Then we have Bethesda Softworks and their take on elves and especially looking on their "Dunmer" for Skyrim, wow, it's really something special.

Not to go around in circles here, but of all the elves I ever played in fantasy games I like the elves in Divinity: Original Sin 2 the most.

To be honest I am little bit shocked that I seem to be in minority with this. I know beauty is in eye of beholder, but as I said before to me elves here look absolutely hideous to my eye and when you play with character that you have to look through game you want it look something you like to watch or at least tolerate.

I really wish I could see elves like those who like them because then I could enjoy the game more, but I just can't. It just like someones favourite food make you gag, you know that person loves it, but to you it tastes terrible and you can't help it.

In this case where there seem to be disturbing things behind elves this time (cannibalism) I think it would have been much more interesting if elves would still look beautiful, now they look the part and you can easily believe they eat people.

I think sylvari is fine example that you can make species unique without making them ugly. Only thing elven about these new elves are pointy ears, without ears you could not even recognize them as elves, at least I sure could not.

I think I put game on hold for awhile, and no, this is not "change elves back or I don't ever play this game again!!!" hold, I just want to wait and see if someone makes mod that "fixes" elves for me (hmm, maybe this kind of is "change elves back!!!" hold...?), though seeing how many people likes new elves I am worried that there never be a mod. Mods or not I still play the game at some point, it seems far too good to pass and I loved first Original Sin.

To think the Divine "romanced" one of these in Divine Divinity.


lol

Wow the elves in the pic look 10000000 times better than the elves in divinity original sin 2. Maybe we will see a mod with these design from the pic in DOS2 in the future

Are you dense on purpose? That's not the point the OP is making.

If Larian is so "creative" how come they aren't able to come off with a creative name for this new race they created and instead call them generically "elves". Your comment is a contradiction, hilariously hypocritical for that is what you accuse others of doing.

And let's not forget all those creative "tr-ents", "mithral" armors, "dark elves", "halflings" etc.


Nothing wrong with creative design but calling them an already established name makes as much sense as calling turtles - humans. Turtles are not humans. Invent your own goddamn name.

It is particularly stupid that you call Germans names here, but German folklore is the reason Tolkien's laywers aren't all over the place.

Like 2015, Tolkien Lawyers Target “Hobbit House” With Copyright Threats

I think you mean Germanic as opposed to German?

Old Norse and Danish folklore were the only ones who almost exclusively depicted elves as being *more* beautiful than man.

Elves were rarely portrayed as being beautiful in German folklore until the 1700's. Which was when they became romanticized in literature, in both Germany and England. Even then elves were more often than not synonymous with fairies before and after the view of them had changed. Both were mostly portrayed as having the peak of beauty standards for people ( aka humans) at that time, just with pointed ears, wings and of various shapes and sizes. Instead having a beauty unobtainable by humans (thus a different beauty standard loosely based off the ones used for humans), including pointed ears. Which is more akin to Tolkien's interpretation of Elves, who are closer to Old Norse folklore. There are several Germanic countries where elves were portrayed as horrid, spreading disease and killing or stealing livestock in their folklore.

The point being that elves have gone through very many iterations in Germanic culture before Tolkien published any of his work. Tolkien's interpretation has certainly become a standard in the fantasy genre that is often referenced in design.

However, to act as if different interpretations of folklore pre-existing Tolkien's work aren't allowed to use the name elf (even though Tolkien had originally adopted the german words Elb and Elben until they didn't stick with his audience) is kind of childish. It's fine if you don't like Larian's design choices. Lashing out at someone (whether they were being an ass or not) and presenting your contradictory opinion as factual adds nothing to the conversation. There is nothing to be given or gained in this thread by acting like a brat.

It's not so much how the elves look for me, but more so how their armor looks. Most look like they got slapped with a Salad and called it a day. Not a fan. But there are some armor that looks like normal plate on them. Few and far between though.

Modders, do your thing!

whatever the history is, the name 'elves' causes certain expectations, if your interpretation does not fit those expectations, there will always be quite some amount of unhappy people. Inventing a new name would seperate them better from typical elf expectations and also make them more unique.

There is difference using unknown interpretation from Germanic folklore as base than using widely known and accepted interpretation.

This game is an excellent example of how this is not childish, including copyright strikes, lest everyone ends up as a cannibalistic slave giraffe, driven by sensationalism.


Maybe you can see the irony in how an incorporation of certain elements (like slavery) makes them more generic than any ear shape could ever achieve. Again, the complete opposite of creative or unique. This was also visible in Dragon Age, where the so called elves are basically the "oppressed natives".

I'm not 100% on Tolkien's side either btw, but his elves don't violate canon.

While my post was meant to being a direct reply to NickNick's, I guess I kind of indirectly replied to several opinions as well. I feel like it's safe to assume you're responding to me as you've referenced what I talked about specifically. I'm more than happy to explain my post more in-depth and talk about intent and interpretation as it will give me a chance to voice my own opinion on Larian's design choices.

It fits closer to older depictions of elves in folklore where they were viewed as harmful/disruptive to human society. As opposed to to being elusive and desirable when they became romanticized. I brought it up, as NickNick's post read as if there was no room to draw reference from anything other than Tolkien's interpretation if it had the name elf. As if it's the end all, be all. I didn't, nor was I trying to imply that Larian drew inspiration solely from germanic folore. I brought it up to illustrate that elves in design can come from the Tolkien depiction most fantasy media adopts. I think it's kind of short-sighted and inappropriate to demand every design choice of physical appearance and story/lore follow the same mold every time someone creates something fantasy related. I think it was Larian's intent to make design choices that drew inspiration from somewhere other than the many Tolkien clones that are out there. That being said, I'm also not trying to claim that the choices they've made are the most original or inventive. Making elves slaves, or viewed as savages because of their connection to nature or removal from society isn't new. They literally just flipped the typical roles of elves and lizard people in most fantasy media. However, I appreciate the lore behind *how* elven society got to where they were in DOS2.

As for the aesthetic design choices; I like the height, elongated and slender limbs/neck. They were easy/effective design choices to separate them from more typical elf designs. Not that it's ever been done before (hey Bioware). The proportion Larian achieve is more "correct". I also like the lean, lithe, sinewy muscularity to them. I think all of the choices relate and work in tandem with each other to depict their tribal-esque culture. I think they were good choices in relation to their designs in Dragon Commander to show the changes the race has undergone since. Dragon Commander being the first game in the timeline at 8800 AR while DOS2 takes place between 1233 AD and 1238 AD. Physical appearance is a great and easy way to narrate change over a period of time as long as that. Granted, that kind of physical evolution would've taken longer in real life, we're dealing with a fantasy setting. I do think the weird ridges/lines on the torso are unnecessary and distracting. There's definitely better ways they could've added more diversity from typical or their past designs. Ones that would've been more appealing and functional.

As for the actual 3d renders themselves, I like the female models. The head selections have a good mix of following the beauty triangle vs. characterization. Leaving a few that are more atypically beautiful and some that are more exaggerate to fit the new overall design. As for people complaining that Sebille doesn't look *exactly* like she does in a single piece of art, it's a CRPG, they were never going to spend the time/money on the facial renders to make them as detailed as the art. It's just not feasible or functional for a game with a top down view. The established features and proportion are rendered in her head model, however. Being a little simplified with slightly more exaggerated features (such as her eyes) reads better from a distance and is less expensive/time consuming to make.
I'm pretty disappointed in the male renders though. They focused way more on characterization to the point where most of them feel unusable for a personal character. I also don't like the choice to make the males shorter as they already did that with another unusually tall race in the game, the lizards. Not only is it more appealing on them, it also feels weird to repeat it. I feel like making the males and females the same height would have been better. The hairstyles are disappointing as well. There are too many tribal motiff options, that are frankly either poorly designed or just need better proportions. They should have made just as many civilized hair options to account for either circumstance (such as Sebille's hair being more tame/civilized because she didn't live in elven society) or realism because Elves wouldn't have *as much* access to construct them at Fort Joy. Most of them aren't functional either.

I also have a problem with the armor design. I feel like it should've been limited to several armor sets you can only get in either elven territory, from elven vendors or found in ruins (Or a combination of the three). It's un-immersive to have a majority of armor pieces somehow be fully elven so far removed from elven society. Not to mention it's somewhat disruptive to the flow in design of the rest of the game to have *so many* of them be over the top tribal motifs. I don't think they're bad, just too frequent.

I like the overall design going on(more so when including the lore). However there are definite flaws in some of the execution (looking at you male elves) and what I feel were some poor choices such as the armor and disparity/disconnect with the hairstyles.

How is this about sides? What canon is there to violate? The entire point is that all of these depictions, Tolkien's included, are in some way based off of folklore that nobody owns (in retrospect this is a much easier way to state that).

I never claimed anything what they did was new or inventive. I didn't express that it was good. Neither of those things have anything to do with my initial reply to you. All I said was; it was childish to expect every depiction of elves to be like Tolkien's, illustrated that his depiction is based off an era of literature that was loosely based off folklore that existed before them, and that you shouldn't present your opinions as facts.

Being a slave isn't exclusive or specific to elves in any way. It is however present in Sebille's backstory (I guess she's all elves now?). The Lizards take members of all races as slaves. Something evident in the first five minutes of gameplay, as no matter your race, the Red Prince attempts inspect your character as a potential slave. Have you even played this game?

If people need to dig deep from wikipedia to find out that these elves are interpretation from some germanic folklore (aaand those folklore creatures sound more like vampires than elves as majority knows them), then what's the point? Most people won't bother searching origins of the elves and thus wonder "this is interpretation from what? this is not anything like elves I know". So definition of elves is pointy ears and thats it? I could put pointy ears to a log and claim that is my interpretation of elf?

Sorry, I have bit difficulties to put my thoughts into text, someone smarter could explain this better, I mean that without pointy ears and elf name it would be almost impossible to know from what they are interpretation from, unless you don't have knowledge from german folklore. It feels like whole image that has been born from elves after Tolkien is completely overwritten. This does not feel like interpretation, more like reboot.

Besides to me they don't look all that original, they look lot like Kaminoan species from Star Wars, only difference is that they wear human skin and thus look much more disturbing. Maybe they are Kaminoan from Star Wars wearing human skin and I just accidentally spoiled major crossover plot twist, sorry about that.

Anyway interpretation origins does not matter to me, things that matter:

1. I find them ugly, epic ugly, even Nier main character is handsome compared to these. It's my opinion I know...

2. Cover art is completely different from ingame. Elf is central character in art, almost like main character, problem is character in that art is not in the game, completely different creature with same name is, I feel bit cheated.

The more woodsy folklore/ dryad type aesthetic is fine. It's been done many countless times by other games already and I personally like it. That's not what this is about.

Sylvari armor worked because it was at least semi realistic in how it covered you most often.

I can see the similarity with the original sin 2 version, but they ruin it by over exposing calves, thighs legs and mid sections. Can you spot the difference?










I sure can.

Really, there are so many ways they could have gone about capturing that woodsy/dryad aesthetic while still making the race appear both cool and different.

We could have even gotten this...




Instead we got this.



One seems familiar, but with just enough variance to appear distinct and flavorful.

The other looks as if it were made with such a focus on being different and unique, it never stopped to realize the look it achieved simply does not look good.

Elves, like most(all) creatures in pagan mythologies are magical creature of nature, neither benevolent or harmful by design but they can be. Again, they represent nature first and foremost. Tolkien's elves, while generally benevolent toward humanity, are not its protectors and did plenty of nasty things, if you actually read The Silmarillion. They are a product of mythology, and as myths and magic recede at the end of the Lord of the Rings, so do the elves, just as it happened in the real world. So you see Tolkien did not do anything to elves, neither did anyone else for that matter.

Tolkien's elves are not "good elves", and "bad elves" are not "edgy original elves", this division doesn't even make sense.


So you try to claim there is no canon while judging how close they are to a canon that you claim doesn't exist. Ok..

All this results in, is a misuse of the term "elf" and the corresponding loree as a shell for a random construct.

Would you mind answering why this random mind construct has to be named an "Elf" specifically? What do you derive from this? Since you claim there is no canonical depiction of an elf, what is the purpose of defending this name specifically and not let elves represent actual elves, let giraffes represent giraffes, and let Lizards represent Lizards.. ops, and it seem Larian already did that.