The recently announced Assassin’s Creed® IV Black FlagTM sees a sea change for the game franchise with a harsh new setting in the Golden Age of pirates. With intricately detailed environments and finely honed and evocative historical re-imaginings, The Art of Assassin’s Creed® IV Black FlagTM includes the game’s vast nautical gameplay, and its amazing range of locations, characters and action.
Paul Davies has worked in journalism for over 25 years, first editing gaming magazines and websites and now as a writer and consultant to games developers and publishers. He is the co-author of numerous gaming books including The Art of Assassin’s Creed Origins, The Art of Deus Ex Universe, The Art of Horizon Zero Dawn, Awakening The Art of Halo 4, The Art of Thief and Tales From the Sea of Thieves.
And so on to the second of the two artwork books I stumbled across while trawling through my favourite second hand book stores.
This time from the Blag Flag instalment from the Assassin's Creed franchise - this book I particularly like as there is a lot of concept art taking from the various scenes that are visited in the game. They are highly stylised in some cases but all are extremely evocative - to me its what the early instalments of Pirates of the Caribbean should have been.
However the book also highlights the quality of the work and planning that goes in to these games - something that I think in usual game play can often over look. A scene that may take minutes to navigate may contain material that took weeks or months to produce.
These books I think serve many purposes from providing fans a more details view in their work, to celebrating some of the unsung heroes of the games production to marking a chronicle to a part of a game few thing about when immersing themselves in the game
This book is such eye candy; every page impressed me with such intricate detail. I love the little bits of rationale behind the designs. It really feels like a behind the stage peek at the development and it's a treasure to hear about the inspirations. This is a must have for any die hard Assassin's Creed fan... Or hell, anyone who likes pirates or art would still get a kick out of this. I keep going back to it and ogling some more, so it has re-read value. Love it.
Some really nice art in here. I would have liked to see more of the fashion and character designs, as well as some more ship designs, but overall it's still good. The book focuses mostly on environments.
The publishers (Titan Books) have done it again, this art book is the best printed I have had the pleasure of viewing yet of the Assassins Creed Series. So far I have yet to play the game (I am saving up so i will buy it around Christmas time)so i expected spoilers in the book and as with the previous art book (the art of assassins creed III) it had none. At least none that I am aware of.
What you get in this book is more digital paintings and oh my glow cloud the paintings are beautiful some have dull detail some are just basic concept painting all are wonderfully produced and the printing really does the artwork justice. I cannot fault any of the artwork or printed material.
The book is divided into chapters, it starts with character design like all previous art books, then jumps into environment and location design which are all stunning. There is a section on ships and painted ships as well as the typical painted action scenes and possible moments within the game. What stands out in this art book is the ending of it, the underwater scenes are just so beautiful and i really have no words to explain how much i love this book.
The assassins creed artist have always been a group of people i have admired, since the early days and comparing this book to the very first you can see how much the artists and game has grown. I would personally recommend this to anyone who wants to buy the book, its just something you have to get.
I have yet to read the written content (I am slightly worried about bumping into spoliers) so I cannot comment on that.
As the name suggests, this book is mostly about the art. The comments on the artworks can be interesting to some, but I think they are not really necessary. Since this is only a very short book with lots of pictures, there is not really much to say about it. The artwork is good, even though I think a few concepts looks a tad too futuristic and some pictures were apparently done via a paintbrush which makes it look odd, possibly because you cannot make out many details then. Overall its a good book, with nice pictures.
However, two elements really bother me: 1) There is a pretty clear border between race/ethnicity. Despite its time and place you never see a person that might be considered mixed. They are mosty white people, black people and some East-Asians. 2) There was a clear doublestandard regarding gender here. The few women that appear are traditionally attractive and with slightyl seductive poses and are never pure warrior. There was not a single ugly woman or a woman who is simply a fighter. On the other hand the men are never pretty boys of any sort. They always look like grim fighters, something the women never did.
One thing about Ubisoft games, they tend to have terrific art direction. Assassin's Creed IV is no different and this book showcases much of that awesome art. Nearly every page is a treat for the eyes and it's a joy to flip through this book. I was getting pretty down on Assassin's Creed after III, but this has me eagerly anticipating the next one.
This is a gorgeous look at the art in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. If ever there were a picture book for adults, this is it. Even if you just like pirates, the illustrations are fantastic. I would have loved more pics of the characters but that's my only really complaint.