Blackwater Archives | The Art of The Order 1886 Book Review
28Blackwater Archives: The Art of The Order 1886 is an exceptionally good video game art book, and I consider it the gold standard to which all other video game art books should aspire. It has art from all stages of the game’s development. Throughout the book there’s developer commentary that explains the design decisions for a lot of the art.
0:00 Introduction
0:40 - Quality of the Physical Book
1:08 - Content
4:24 - Aesthetics
6:04 - Nostalgia
6:34 - Backstage
7:43 - Closing Remarks
QUALITY OF PHYSICAL BOOK
-It’s wonderfully wide. Just about 12x9 inches.
-It has 267 pages,
-It has a hardcover that is bound in leather. The pages seem to be of high quality.
-I think a couple of the screenshots were probably blown up too big but on the whole I think the image quality is very good.
CONTENT/INNARDS
Variety of images and image types
-Rough sketches
-Iteration art
-More finalized concept art
-Inspiration/mood concept art
-Storyboard-ish art
-Final CGI and Screenshots
-All in all, I think there are probably too many final renders/screenshots.
Organization
-The book is organized into chapters with characters, half-breeds, weapons and devices, and environments.
-It first shows the final CGI version of something, and then it shows the process of how it was developed.
-Each image is clearly and simply labeled and overall the book feels well organized.
Is there writing or insight from the artists and developers themselves?
-Yes, and it’s completely my ideal type of commentary. They talk about how and why they designed things the way they did, the roadblocks they faced, and how they dealt with them.
-For example, how could you make someone look like they’ve been around for hundreds of years, but are not elderly? The developers discovered that they could achieve this look by adding wrinkles and scars to the face, but without adding the effects of gravity. The captions are like having a tour guide with you throughout the book, and you get so much more out of the images because of the commentary.
Quality of writing.
-It’s unclear who is doing the writing but I think it’s the Creative Director of the game. It’s to-the-point and offers lots of different insight into the design choices.
Does it have what you want it to have?
-The book has over 250 pages for a game that is something like 8 hours long. That’s a great ratio! Each character, each weapon, each location, and each monster is explored in decent depth. And, crucially, it’s not too much - I thought there was just enough of each topic to keep my interest.
-Overall, I can’t think of anything I would want from this book that isn’t in it.
AESTHETICS
-Like so few video game art books, it’s in a wide format - which is perfect for the material presented.
-I really liked the organizational aesthetic. Under each image is a simple label like “Fig. 31.21,” and another section of the page gives more information about the label - like how you’d see things in an art gallery. It makes it easy to navigate the book’s commentary while also keeping a clean aesthetic.
-Another thing I really liked is that when there’s full, double page art, it’s labeled ahead of time so you don’t go searching for the caption after-the-fact.
-There are many full pages of art.
-The cover is amazing. It looks amazing and feels amazing. It’s leather with the trim and emblem debossed.
-The pages feel thicker and nicer than most books. It’s not quite how I imagine an old scroll would feel, but it’s close.
NOSTALGIA/AFFINITY EVOKED FOR THE GAME
-Looking through this artbook has made me want a sequel even more than before.
-Lots of the art reminded me of even the relatively minor scenes in the game.
-Looking through the book made me want to play the game again to notice all of the little things that I learned about.
BACKSTAGE
-Similarly to when I read the Killzone art book, I wondered if the design team’s talents aren’t better spent on another type of game. They’re very talented and detail oriented, but I think the average player simply didn’t notice how well-designed everything is due to the linear and brief nature of The Order 1886. I think the Killzone team was always very talented, but it wasn’t until THEY made a much larger game that the average consumer really noticed. Hopefully the developer Ready at Dawn can make a game where they’re appreciated for how good they’ve always been.
-Unlike pretty much every other video game art book I’ve ever seen, this book very clearly gives credit to each artist on each image. We even get images of the artists themselves in the back of the book. I’m glad that these artists are getting credit for the images they’ve produced.
There are 17 book reviews in Season 1 of my series “Mike’s Video Game Art Book Reviews.” I hope you enjoy them!
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