Cuphead Could've Been A Drastically Different Character, Says Designers

Cuphead has turned out to be one of this year's greatest sleeper games – if not one of the best games of the year in general. But it's kind of funny how we've just learned that the main hero didn't always have a cup for a head. No, seriously. At one point he was…Treehead?

While speaking with IGN Unfilitered last week, Chad and Jared Moldenhauer, who are the creators of the team behind Cuphead at Studio MDHR, explained that the Cuphead concept was just one design it had in mind for the lead characters.

The team actually made the decision behind the characters' final design based on some experimentation, as they had different ideas on how they wanted them to look. "Cuphead and Mugman came from the tail end of the concept phase, where we were like, 'None of these that we have work," explained Chad, who also serves as the game's art director.

So the team took a closer look at classic cartoons, and managed to turn objects into different types of characters, including palm trees and hammers.

"Something within when we were already knowing it wasn't an animal or a humanoid type character, we made a decision to go further into the depths," Jared explained. "Something stood out, and we knew that was the path to be chasing."

The team went through a number of concepts, including anvils and hammers and such as character heads, but eventually it settled with Cuphead and Mugman – and the rest is history.

Studio MDHR has already expressed interest in continuing the Cuphead adventures, but hasn't said exactly how it will do so yet. There's a possibility we could see character variations introduced somewhere down the road, though, and it'd be fascinating to see what a Treehead-style character would look like. We'll see what comes in the months ahead.

In the meantime, don't miss Cuphead. It's available now for Xbox One, Windows 10 and Steam.