The design language of body armor in science fiction has attained an optimum of implausibility. Form-fitting rigidity somehow allows unrestrained mobility in ways no fantasy of material science can entertain. Will someone involved please look for one moment at a real suit of armor? Bret Devereaux:
Now the funny thing is this material problem shouldn't apply to video games at all. After all, video game armors – any armor that exists only in CGI – doesn't have to bother itself with the rules for this or that material. Thus there's nothing stopping CGI artists from making armor with articulation, scales and so on. And sometimes they do. But often, I think, there is the feedback effect where video game artists aren't imitating real world armors, they're imitating film armors, and so inheriting their problems even when they don't share their limitations. That, I think, explains quite a lot of the silliness one sees in games like Baldur's Gate III and DragonAge: Veilguard.
A funny thing about this discussion is how far it gets before you even get to the protective function of armor. The key question: where does the energy go?
Dune looked great in theaters but the publicity shots of Dave Bautista make it obvious not only that he's in greebled spandex but that half of it's missing in any given shot so he can move. On the other hand, that Harkonnens trouble themselves in the desert with high-tech but impractical armor is made a point of in the second movie.
