International artbook publisher Udon Entertainment posed the question…. “What happens when over 80 creators from the world’s top video game studios join forces to create the ultimate dark fantasy game?“. Their response to that question is SUBSTRATA, a new artbook for release during Summer 2014 which collects designs for the heros, enemies and landscapes for this new hypothetical game world.
SUBSTRATA is the brainchild of illustrator Paul Richards, who conceived of the project as a way to reunite his fellow artists from Vigil Games, makers of the Darksiders franchise. Together, they rallied a global community of artists and the result is a tome featuring a who’s-who of top-tier talent from across the gaming industry. SUBSTRATA is a true passion project, where artists were encouraged to forsake conventions, inhibitions, and technological limitations to create something never seen before.
The artists who lent their time and effort to the project have worked on a sizable list of games including but not limited to:
Allods Online, Assassin’s Creed IV, Darksiders I & II, DayZ, Destiny, Diablo 3, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Doom 4, DotA 2, EVE Online, Evolve, Firefall, Gears of War, Guild Wars 2, Halo 4, Hearthstone, Hunted, League of Legends, Left 4 Dead 2, Overlord 1 / 2, Portal 2, Rift, Runescape, Saints Row series, SMITE, Star Citizen, Starcraft 2, Uncharted 3, Wildstar and World of Warcraft.
Unlike many of their other artbook releases, this is mostly a western video game artists who’s who book.
Paul Richards | Project Curator
SUBSTRATA gave us all a chance to conceive and execute our own ideas in our own voices. This is a mighty win for artists devoted to making exciting, original game content for its own sake. In that spirit, we’re proud to say all proceeds from the book will go to the charity organization Gamers for Good. Please visit them at www.gamersforgood.com.
Matt Moylan | Managing Editor at Udon Entertainment
UDON is honored to be involved with the Substrata project. We get to publish a book with some of the greatest game artists from around the world, and the book itself is gorgeous, really, that’s its own reward. But it was UDON’s publication of The Art of Darksiders II that spurred Paul to want to work with his studiomates again, and all of us at UDON take pride in knowing that we contributed to the inception of SUBSTRATA, and now, we’re helping to bring it to gamers and makers everywhere.
