Book Review: Killzone Visual Design

Guerrilla Games celebrates the 15-year anniversary of Killzone with this 208-page hardcover concept artbook. Six games have been launched so far and I've always wondered why there weren't any artbooks for Killzone and here it is, finally.

Construction quality of the book is fantastic. The cover is a simple matte surface with the embossed symbols. What I like is they used matte paper inside.

The artworks are fantastic. Many are mostly realised and highly detailed concept paintings and renders. There are also some sketches. There are some 3D renders with textures too and those look fantastic when shown full page.

You'll get to see the designs for the environments, Helghan soldiers, weapons and vehicles. Highlight to be would be the level of realism and detail put into the art to make you look longer. I love the blend of painterly style with the hard edge 3D renders. The lighting in all their environments are very beautiful. And of course the designs themselves look really cool and grounded. The environment artworks reminds me of the style used in those condominium or house brochures except high-tech sci-fi cities are used here.

Unfortunately, I've played Killzone 3 only so I can't recognise the places from other games. I'm not sure if they have managed to squeeze in the six games worth of content into a single book, but from what I can see the selection is very well done. The artworks are not always labeled for each game in the series.

Some translucent paper were used to present artworks although I'm not sure why they wanted to do that since the the paper does not overlay onto a corresponding design on the other page.

In addition to the art, there's also commentary on the design process and also the history of Guerrilla Games.

This is a very high quality and beautiful artbook where the production value is on par with The Art of God of War Ascension and Blackwater Archives | The Art of The Order: 1886.

In addition to the hardcover, there's also a 1000-copy limited edition. You get a hand-numbered 270gsm giclee print "Stahl Arms" and a luxury box.

You can buy the books at Candb.com and at the Playstation Gear stores here and here.

That's my favourite design in the game on the right. I love those holes.