The Best Video Game Concept Art of All Time

Making a video game with iconic heroes, villains, and level-design is no easy task. That’s why gaming developers often need to draft and redraft their ideas to make sure they’ve settled on the right look and feel. Thankfully, most gaming studios typically keep their old concept art around to show off to their loving fans. In celebration of the years of great artwork produced through the medium of video games, I’m here to countdown the video game concept art so cool, I actually wish I could hang the pieces up in my house.

1. Bioshock Infinite

Bioshock Infinite brings its players back in time to the turn of the 20^th century. Except it’s not our 20^th century, it’s the 20^th century in a parallel universe. In this version of the United States, a portion of the nation leaves to build a new country, one that floats in the sky like a cloud, and along with it comes brilliant new inventions as well as a surplus of Columbian propaganda. But since this is still technically the early 20^th century, all of it bears a striking resemblance to some of the architecture, marketing, and propaganda art found in our actual history.

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2. Okami

It makes sense that Okami would have such beautiful concept-art, since the game itself is art, and I don’t mean that in the typical gaming is an art-form way, although I believe that to be true. I mean that it was literally designed to look like a moving painting. There’s even a feature in the game that allows players to paint new pathways by using an item called the Celestial Brush. It’s pretty far out.

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3. Dark Souls

Dark Souls is most widely known for its oftentimes grueling difficulty level, but there’s much more to this deep action-RPG. For one, the creature and level design is some of the best that can be found in modern gaming.

The painting of the bridge leading to a snow-covered fortress in the woods is actually just that in the actual game, a painting. But it’s not just there to be passively admired. It’s actually a portal to a new area of the game, not unlike Super Mario 64.

The sketch of the grave site is where the saddest boss fight in gaming history occurs. That’s all I’ll say. Just thinking of it nearly makes me shed a tear. Poor, poor, Sif.

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4. Final Fantasy (Series)

I remember when I was a kid playing the early Final Fantasy games, I’d flip through the game manuals and drool over the gorgeous illustration by Yoshitaka Amano. The game didn’t ever look like the sketches, but I had always dreamed of a day in the future, when gaming systems would be ten times more powerful than my Super Nintendo, that I could finally play a Final Fantasy game that truly embodied the work of Yoshitaka Amano. Unfortunately, gaming systems are more powerful than I could have imagined, and I’m stuck with Final Fantasy games with pop-stars for main characters.

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5. Metal Gear Solid

The original Metal Gear Solid provided the best stealth-action experience that could be found on Playstation. It also brought a slew of awesome minimal artwork depicting the colorful cast of characters in the game. While the pencil sketch of Octopus is one of my personal favorites on this list, I still think if I could only choose on piece to hang up on my wall, it’d be the blood-red Twin Snakes. Those two would make great company at my house.