In celebration of Halo’s tenth anniversary, Bungie and Titan Books have released Halo: The Art of Building Worlds, a large-format art book which covers the history and development of the design of the Halo franchise from Combat Evolved to Reach.
The cover of the standard edition
I’ve long admired the consistency of the Halo art design. If there is only one thing the Halo franchise has done expertly well, it’s the use of design and visuals to really bring the game into its setting. The stuff that’s on the ring when the characters get there, designed long ago by The Founders is much differnt from the design and architecture of the fundamentalist Covenant, which is still different from the Earth-ish designs of the tech and structures for the humans. At all times in a Halo game you know just what kind of environment you’re in, and everything looks very cohesive. When you’re on the Halo, you know you’re on it—and not just because you can see other parts of it in the sky (though that certainly helps). When you’re on Reach, you know you’re on Reach.
In a visual medium like video games, graphic design is as much a part of world-building as the back-stories, politics, and relationships. The level of attention and effort that goes into such a complicated design is phenomenal, and it’s all outlined herein. It’s not just images either. While the images are beautiful, colorful, stark, and creepy, each element is accompanied by a brief description, reminding readers where the elements tie in to the plot of the game, and detailing the design process a bit. Not all of this copy is well edited or clear, but this doesn’t detract from the beauty of the book.
Master Chief sneaks up on an 'Elite' Covenant soldier
Each section of the book details a different part of the art development for the storied franchise of video games. Every aspect of the games had to be interpreted, disassembled, reinterpreted, and refined before the models could be made for the games. The book is ordered like a series of galleries in which each individual visual component of the games is broken down into a multi-page spread that shows the progression from initial sketch to final. Most of the sections also include two-page-wide paintings of the final concepts as approved for the games.
The most fun part of flipping through this book is seeing these old illustrations. Every creature, every vehicle, every building went through so many different variations before the final design was settled on, it’s interesting to think how different our impression of Halo would be today had they gone with the tall, skinny Grunt design, or the one with big, floppy, rabitty ears instead of the stubby, and comical design we’ve all become familiar with.
Our hero plummets among the wreckage of the Forerunner at the end of Halo 3
Finally, the book itself is very high quality—full stock hardback with a slick design. Under the dust-jacket, the plain black cover is embossed with a large logo, and all the pages are full-color printed heavy-weight semi-gloss, which really makes every illustration pop nicely. If you really want to go all out, Titan has released a Limited Edition version of the book which comes with four high quality prints.
In the end, this is a book every Halo fan should have on her coffee table.
The contents of the special edition, limited to 1000 copies
Both the regular and limited edition of the book are available now on Amazon.
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