Sunset Overdrive – Box Art Revealed

Hey everyone,

We hope you enjoyed all the awesome coverage of Sunset Overdrive yesterday. We’re so blown away and grateful for the response we’ve received. If you haven’t had a chance to read Edge Magazine’s AMAZING cover story (with exclusive screenshots and artwork as well), you can still grab the digital issue here! And check out our blog here which recaps all the online coverage as well.

Today we’re going to be taking the going into more detail on the box art of the game. You may have caught a glimpse of the box art at the end of yesterday’s First Look video (and if you haven’t seen that video, drop everything and watch it now!).

Box art (and art in general) is always a hot topic, sparking passion and debate as folks have wildly different preferences and tastes. Many times the game box and art is the only physical representation of a game you own and love. So we figured you might want to hear about the artist and our process for what we think is a terrific piece of art, and one we’re proud to use to introduce people to Sunset Overdrive.

Fortunately we had some amazing firepower on our side. Every project we usually have a list of dream artists we’d love to work with. For Resistance 3 we worked with Olly Moss, which led us to this spectacular box art. For Sunset Overdrive, we really wanted to work with ilovedust, a graphic design studio based on the south coast of England. They’ve worked with Nike, Red Bull, Wired, and many more. We’ve loved their work from a distance, and thought they fit the game’s art style. When we met them, it was clear they didn’t just understand Sunset Overdrive, they truly got us and our mindset. It was a perfect match.

When we all set out to create a box art for Sunset Overdrive, we knew we had a major challenge ahead of us. First, Sunset Overdrive isn’t a character-forward game. The character in Sunset Overdrive is YOU. You’ll customize your character and play as yourself. So the cover couldn’t really solely focus on just a game-style rendered character and weapon [today’s “standard” videogame cover].

That presented the second challenge – how do we present not just the world of Sunset City, but also the characters and factions that inhabitant it? Now, for all you minimalism loving folks, this will hurt, as we quickly decided the best way to show all of the variety and build the world was to go for a dense, detailed illustration. (But you should check out ilovedust’s awesome minimal Chemical Smile image that we used a tease at E3 2013)

ilovedust set out to create a densely layered composition that not only showed a hero character/weapon but also the rest of the world of Sunset Overdrive (And there’s actually additional hero characters traversing!). This is the result, one that uses dust’s unique style, while also staying true to Sunset Overdrive’s colour palette and world.

There’s a ton of detail packed into the cover, here’s some of the larger elements on the cover (which doesn’t even get into all the tiny hidden details!):

• Hero Character with Roman Candle gun. This was one of the tougher parts, as showing any sort of “hero” in a game where YOU are the hero and can play as male or female, various body types, and tons of customization options, means you probably won’t see this guy in your game much.
• OD, Overcharge Drinkers. Multiple varieties of OD in the mutant OD horde.
• Survivors. Other residents of Sunset City who didn’t drink Overcharge Delirium XT that you’ll meet during the game.
• Scab. The human ne’er-do-wells who are taking the opportunity to loot and plunder Sunset City.
• Effects. Fourth wall breaking effects from the Scab’s gun.
• Fizzie. Fizzco’s corporate mascot insisted on being on the box cover! He’s impossible to resist, as you’ve seen on Twitter so far. Check out his robot blimp hovering menacingly in the clouds.
• Game logo. ilovedust’s logo for the game, in bright Overcharge Orange.

As always, you’ll see this artwork in a lot of places besides just the box, and as such ilovedust created a larger version for horizontal use that incorporates even more elements and characters.

We’re really excited about this box art. Working with ilovedust was a dream for us, and they helped deliver something that’s different than anything out there. It’s an insane illustration, and one we think you’ll grow to appreciate more as you get to know the world of Sunset Overdrive even better.