Wakfu is the sequel to that old Tactics MMO game, Dofus.
This series is about to get a third entry, called “DOFUS cube”.
Ankama, the company behind it has been quite successful, even if their games are not the most talked about or the ones you often see hyped by the media blitz or even by nostalgic players. Their animation series “Wakfu” was a low key hit – Yet notice on the video above that for the third entry of their franchise, they are keeping graphics 2d and isometric. The reason for this will be self evident as we dive deep into the art of the “Wakfu” animation and game in this post, but to expand on this idea, on why this series has this unique look, one must look towards the company behind it – Ankama.
The name comes from its founders first two letters – Anthony Roux, Camille Chafer,and Emmanuel Darras – AN, CA and MA (from “Manu” – Emmanuel’s nickname).
Considering they also founded Ankama animations and how the character designs for the Dofus franchise seem to be created with animation fluidity in mind, it’s no wonder everything seems to fit their ideal vision for these games, and as we are going to see, to achieve said animation friendly designs the Ankama crew labors intensively in the pre-production stage, creating and testing concepts that will look gorgeous while still being simple to animate. Dofus is highly authorial, even if it’s a silent commercial hit. Below, we explore the art of this endeavor.
The passion and hard work of Ankama team can be felt just by seeing their production art. You can get the full artbook here.
And here is it in motion – Season 3 teaser.
Bonus Video
About the Author Arthur De Martino
The google wearing super hero know as "Wasp Eye Lad" has a secret identity: Arthur De Martino, a quiet Brazilian man who loves Digital Art a bit too much.
