Best Art Direction of 2024
by
Taneli Palola
, posted 9 hours ago / 639 Views
These days it takes something quite special to stand out from the crowd when it comes to the look and visual style of your game. Having the prettiest graphics is nice, but just having beautiful imagery simply isn’t enough to make people take notice anymore. What matters is how, when, and why a game uses its visual features to draw out a specific reaction from the audience and create a tone & atmosphere that shows the player something truly unique. The following five 2024 titles used these assets to their fullest potential.
The Shortlist:
Metaphor: ReFantazio
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
Astro Bot
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II
The Runner-Up:
Metaphor: ReFantazio
Taking more than a few lessons from Persona 5, Metaphor: ReFantazio is nonetheless a truly striking game to behold. The use of colours, fonts, animation, special effects, and character & enemy design all come together wonderfully to form a single, cohesive vision that genuinely stands out among its peers. The closest comparison is, as mentioned above, Persona 5, but even against that this new effort from Atlus’ Studio Zero more than lives up to expectations. Rare is the title where even the menus are a delight to behold, after all.
The Winner:
Astro Bot
There’s a lot to be said about the power of sheer unadulterated charm when it comes to a game’s visuals. It feels like every aspect of Astro Bot was designed specifically to make everything look and feel as appealing as possible, and if that was indeed the case, then job well done. In lesser hands a game like this could easily come off as a cynical cash-in, banking on the name value of recognizable characters and games, but Team Asobi has proven several times now that it’s far too talented to rely on cheap tactics like that, and Astro Bot is the developer’s crowning achievement thus far.
