Despite working with members of the Nez Percé tribe during the development of the Killer Instinct reboot, developers didn’t get the details of Native American warrior Thunder’s costume quite right. Today’s free Legends of Thunder costume fixes that.
According to a post by Killer Instinct senior marketing manager Nicole Fawcette on Xbox Wire, the rush to release the game with the launch of the Xbox One and pressure to make Thunder more familiar to fans of the franchise contributed in a look missed the mark.
Thunders regular Killer Instinct costume.
To make up for the mistakes, Microsoft and Iron Galaxy consulted closely with Josiah Blackeagle Pinkham and Thomas tátlo Gregory, representatives of the Pacific Northwest Nez Percé tribe to which the fictional fighting game character belongs.
Fawcette over goes over the changes made in a post on the official Killer Instinct website.
- Headdress has been removed: We learned that headdresses are mostly worn for ceremonial events vs battles or combat
- Hair: Thunder now has a traditional warrior style pompadour hairstyle, based off historical photos
- Added arm braces and a belt with traditional Nez Perce beadwork in the common colour palette of pink & green with geometric pattern
- Buckskin pants with the same traditional Nez Perce beadwork in pink & green with geometric pattern
- Traditional moccasins: Worn for more agile combat and handcrafted from raw materials
- Traditional metal-work axes
You can check out the result of the collaboration in the video below.
The free Legends of Thunder pack is available to all Killer Instinct players today.
Comments
2 responses to “Killer Instinct’s Thunder Gets A More Culturally Accurate Outfit”
Good on them for going back and doing that.
I doubt many people would’ve cared or noticed…
Is that physique historically accurate?
Gonna have to kill a lot of Bison to get enough protein to maintain that mass.
Absolutely the way to go, historical accuracy even within fiction always gives more depth to characters and the bonus is it respects the culture it is using for profit.