World Book Day is here, and once again it's the perfect time to celebrate and get ꧃in some of the best video game🦹 art books filled with, info, history, maps, and lore
Video game art books are some of the best video game merch we can buy. I think video game art books are some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best gaming books to collect, period, actually. I have about 50 of them now and am so glad I have each one of🐠 them. And what with today being World Book Day,𝔉 there's never been a better time to peruse
The best video game art books not only look great, but they provide so much extra information and imagery for all our favourite games. Gone are the days of strategy-only books, and even the 'how the developers made the game' approach is seen less frequently now too. Now, video game art books cover concept art, inspirations, further game-uni🌺verse lore and information, place histories, and character backgrounds. The best video game art books can now be coffee table perusal books, genuine reference books, quote mines for researching something, image-laden tomes featuring never-before-seen-in-game places, objects or scenarios. The best video game art books enhance almost everything about a game and what you thought you knew about it.
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I'm always adding to my collection of art books, often alongside the game I'm playing at the time. Throughout 2019 and 2020, for example, I acquired all the Assassin's Creed art books as I played each one from ACIII 𒅌Remastered through to Odyssey (back-to-back) - and then added the exquisite Limited Edition version of Valhalla's artbook too. I'm so pleased to have had the chance to pick up an actual, proper, physical book in this digital age, once I'd put each game down. It really does add to the experience and enjoyment.
So if you're inclined to share in my geeky art bookery fandom, then right here you'll find a selection of our favourite and best vide💟o game art books. As hinted above, these go beyond strategy or guide books; all of these are joyous glossy-paged, wonderfully-illustrated, lovingly-written, and presented art and lore books that will keep your enjoyment going long after you've finished the game. These are only a few of our highlights but there's a sea of video game art books available out in the wild to wade your way through - and I'd bet each one is totally worth it.
This is a real humdinger of a collection. Less heavy on game-creating artworks, this series concentrates on fleshing out the world of the Elder Scrolls further still. The Skyrim Library has 🎃three volumes of delicious background, culture and supporting-content goodness with info on characters and locations, the world’s history, myths, and stories on everything in between. It's something that exists simply to g☂ive more information to fans of a particular series, and it's truly magnificent.
In addition to this, is also worth a look because it packs l🥂ots of extra lore, art and information on th🎶e world of Tamriel - not just that of the online game, despite the title. The corresponding book for Bethesda’s Fallout series, , is also a really good value look at how they created post-apocalypse Boston.
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Destiny: Grimoire Anthology - Dark Mirror (Volume 1)
Supporting one of the biggest online games of the generation, Bungie’s Destiny: Grimoire Anthology - Dark Mirror is a tremendously insightful lore book. Players have b💞een picking up small titbits of background, myths and mysteries throughout Destiny’s long lifespan, but these only hinted at a universe rich and deep. This volume finally brings those tales together into a complete package that's much easier to follow. Filled with interesting lore and illustrations on everything from the fall of the Hive to the rise of corrupted Guardian Dredgen Yor, this Anthology casts new light on Destiny’s places, characters and their mark🥃ed time in history. What’s more, a second volume is coming later this year. Result.
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The World of the Witcher
Another exercise in bigger-scale world-building as opposed to pure behind-the-scenes artwork, The World of the Witcher is a brilliant compendium that accompanies the Witcher III in terms of release but also complements and contributes to the whole Witcher world. As a bit of a quirk, the in-book text is written from the perspective of Dandelion. If you’re familia👍r with the novels in particular, his wit and storytelling makes for a really fun way of journeying through this book - it’s a walk through the Witcher’s lands, creatures, lore and people in the form of a lyrical story.
Simply put, this book is the perfect companion to the Witcher III and itꦬs wider world, perfectly✱ distilling a fictional land’s history, people, flora and fauna into a wonderfully illustrated, proper-sized art book. If you’ve somehow still not played The Witcher III, this does have some spoilers for it, so it's not a video game art book to get before the game - definitely buy it after.
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Soulsborne Books
This series of games has long been lauded as having created 🅠rich, deep worlds both in terms of its aesthetic and art, but that's also tha💫nks to oodles of hidden lore and history. Just so we can all appreciate them more and soak up further Soulsborne goodness, there are art books with a Design Works book accompanying , and . Meanwhile, the book covers everything about the world of hunters and the old blood. Chock full of eerily beautiful and haunting artwork, each one of these books are a must-have for fans.
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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Creating a Champion
Thꦚis is a stupendous companion to one of the best games of recent times, includes material from the DLCs, and is one of the best entries in the video game art book market from Nintendo. It’s a beast of a tome with more than 400 pages that include sketches, official illustrations, nearly 300 pages of design artwork, and commentary about the making of the game from the creators themselves. Oh, and a fifty-five-page historical section that divulges the history of Hyrule as it is known in-game.
What's more, the book chucks in some interviews from heavyweight names behind the games for good measure. It’s part of the broader series that started with the the in 2013, but also has and in it, so you cou☂ld collect quite the collection of informative and rich books if you are a big Zelda fan.
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The Art of Final Fantasy XV
Being a series of such distinct worlds, vivid imagery, styles and aesthetics, there’s no surprise that the Final Fantasy franchise has art and lore books to spare as well. There’s so much to show from these game worlds that there could be a whole plethora of supporting material (and certainly more than that which is actually, readily available), but we lead with the available-at-most-retailers The Art of Final Fantasy XV, a great art companion to the latest entry in the gargantuan series, as well as the Ki༺ngslaive movie. It’s unashamedly a coffee-table artwork book stuffed with brilliant information, images, art work and screens that gorgeously show the background to XV across glossy pages.
However, if you’re looking for more Fin⛎al Fantasy art and background and perhaps particularly from the earlier days then The Sky book series may wellꦓ be for you. It’s a three book series covering the first 10 games’ artwork, sketches and supporting info: ; ; and .
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The Art of Super Mario Odyssey
This seems to be the rarest of all beasts - a shame considering it’s one of the most popular series of all time. This is a joyous book that collates all the wonderful glory of the recent Mario hit featuring loads of artwork, sketches, and notes from designers in one of the most colourful books you’ve ever seen. However, it is currently only available in Japanese - but you can still get it from Amaz🐓on.
If you’d prefer to wait and see if that one gets translated, you could instead go for the very co꧋mprehensive . This will give you great insight into the world of Mario and its creators from its beginning in 1985 right up to 2013’s Super Mario 3D World.
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The Art of Metal Gear Solid I-IV
This fantastic book covers a lot of ground and is crammed full of video game artistry of the Metal Gear Solid series featuring environments, characters, weapons and vehicles to fully flesh out and give insight into 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Hideo Kojima’s s🔯tealth spectaculars. Coming in at an absolutely massive 800 pages in length, you get an ൩enormous amount of bang for your buck.
Split into two books, it arr꧅ives in a smart case to keep both safe and is perfect for those Metal Gear fans who have a thirst to devour as much lore, art and supporting content as possible. From sketches with the original Japanese notes to completed artwork shots and screens, this has it all... and more. Yes, there’s no Metal Gear Solid V content, but that has its that you can get if you’re looking to complete the whole set.
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The Dunwall Archives
An exercise in brilliant place-making and telling stories through a world and its environments, Dishonored’s Dunwall and surrounding world simply had to be complemented with a lore o꧒r art book. And so it came to be that the Dunwall Archiveဣs came out in 2014, after the DLC had all been finished.
It’s a rather understated entry in this list as it&rsq꧙uo;s not a pure ‘making of’ book with concept artist’s work on display showing development behind the scenes; it's more an art and lore book that collates and presen꧅ts artwork, maps, writings, and pictures that were found in the game instead (as well as some more artwork from the Dishonored aesthetic, of course). It is fascinating to re-read, re-visit, and sort of ‘re-see’ some of the excellent portrayed posters and book extracts that you originally found in the game organically.
If you’re on the lookout for more of the concept artwork behind the making of the Dishonored series and✨ its expanded world, you’ll want to pick up as well.
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Renowned for having some of the best artwork and representations in games, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Naughty Dog’s collective book, The Art of Naughty Dog, gives a compr♛ehensive picture of the paintings, research, and styles that went into creating their biggest titles, from Crash Bandicoot through to The Last of Us. This is truly a video game art book in the purest sense, featuring loads of behind-the-scenes concept art, supporting essays and commentary covering the company’s 30+ year game-making history.
It should be said that there are independent books for the first Uncharted games in (th🦄ough this now seems, Nate’s swansong in , and, my personal favourite, the art and stories behind Joel and Ellie’s journey in .
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The Art of the Mass Effect Universe
While the latest game in the series received a lukewarm reception, there can be no denying the impact of the series' place-making, locations, and the wider universe. It’s incredibly varied and beautiful, not to mention full of different cultures and aesthetics. This book also covers the first three games so you can see how the world was built upon with each entry thanks to new characters, planets, and places. A personal favourite of mine is the work that went into creating the Citadel; it’s a piece of landꦿscape architectural brillian🍌ce and the images that provided the basis for it are exceptional.
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Rob is the Deputy Editor of sister site, TechRadar Gaming, and has been in the games and tech industry for years. Prior to a recent stint as Gaming Editor at WePC, Rob was the Commissioning Editor for Hardware at GamesRadar+, and was on the hardware team for more than four years, since its inception in late 2018. He is also a writer on games and has had work published ove𓃲r the last six years or so at the likes of Eurogamer, RPS, PCGN, and more. He is also a qualified landscape and garden designer, so does that in his spare time, while he is also an expert on the virtual landscapes and environments of games and loves to write about them too, including in an !
