Review: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Official Artworks

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Official Artworks is a 304-page paperback video game artbook companion. This is the English translation of the original Japanese artbook which was published in 2019. The page flows from right to left.

I only got to know of this game after I saw this book. When I flipped through the book, I instantly got the Dark Souls vibe. Turns out FromSoftware, the company that made this game, also made the Souls series of games. I like the designs and the whole Souls world so the art for Sekiro feels very familiar.

The artworks created of Japan during the Sengoku period is about as dark, gloomy and depressing as art from the Souls series. I mean that in a good way. The atmosphere is captured really well. Mystery and danger lurk everywhere.

Character designs, especially for the enemies, look as creepy as they possibly can. You just don't know what to expect. And that's really cool because nowadays concept art from sci-fi games are starting to look generic and difficult to tell apart. It's easy to tell at a glance that the artworks in this book are either from Sekiro or from Souls games. FromSoftware has nailed the look and mood.

The book also includes screenshots of items from the games.

Downside of the book is some of the environment artworks are too dark. It's difficult to see details in the shadow areas. The paper is semi-gloss which is suppose to be able to show details better compared matte paper but it seems like the artworks are printed too dark. Or maybe it's just the original artworks which are really that dark.

There's a Kindle ebook version available which is cheaper. The artworks on the preview pages available on Amazon are still quite dark but they do show slightly more details.

Despite the downside, it's still a pretty good book. I may recommend the Kindle version more due to the details with the art being more visible.

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This book was borrowed from Basheer Graphic Books for review purposes. You can order the book from them. Check with Basheer on Facebook.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Official Artworks is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | AU | JP | CN)

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This book was borrowed from Basheer Graphic Books for review purposes. You can order the book from them. Check with Basheer on Facebook.