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Added by Brad Shoemaker on April 9, 2009

Valve has been candid in the past that one of the secrets to its game design success is to test, retest, and then test some more. So it shouldn't surprise you that the company's iterative design approach extends to all the minutiae of game production, even something as seemingly insignificant as the box cover. Valve artist Jeremy Bennett weighs in over at the official Left 4 Dead Blog on the process of getting the cover art just right--which, in this case, appears to have meant cycling through several somewhat lousy examples before completely switching gears and coming up with something amazing.

Magnifying the problem was the fact that there wasn't much point to having our four heroes standing around in a void. To give the box art any sort of context to the game inside, we needed zombies. So we were faced with the unpopular idea of shrinking our heroes down even more to cram some zombies into the picture.

These attempts did a good job of capturing the multiplayer aspect of L4D, not to mention the intensity of the gameplay experience. But when viewed from a distance—by someone walking through a game store and spotting it on a shelf, for instance—it just looked like cluttered noise. The individual elements were too small and varied to communicate anything visually interesting.


As Mr. Bennett mentions, the one and only real purpose of a box cover is to get people to notice and consequently buy your game, but at least you can make it look cool in the process.


Filed under : Left 4 Dead

39 Comments

KnifeySpoony
on April 9, 2009
I'm glad they chose what they did as the official art.

Death_Burnout
on April 9, 2009
Yeah 'cus, all those rough samples look terrible.

I like how Louis looks kinda like Bill Cosby in the last one. Wait no i don't

AGH! Zambies n the shootin' n the runnin' n the blah blah blah!

Edit: ok yeah, fuck the cosby comparison, that looks like a cut and paste of Mos Def.

RelentlessKnight
on April 9, 2009
Only the last one seems fitting. Other than that the official box art looks great.

iAmJohn
on April 9, 2009
Man, those samples are baaaaaaad.

AURON570
on April 9, 2009
boxart is boxart, leave it at that.

Hector
on April 9, 2009
The fourth one looks hot

GobiasIndustries
on April 9, 2009
The 3rd one is cool

Livlig
on April 9, 2009
Personally, I liked the last one. That cover would unfortunately not be well suited for commercial gain. Too bad.

Reverseface
on April 9, 2009
Zoe looks pretty BAD ASSS in that last picture.. BAD ASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

damswedon is online
on April 9, 2009
i never noticed the hand was the left one. kinda neat

basilis20
on April 9, 2009
I like the 5th.

Phished0ne
on April 9, 2009
I like the 5th  one..i kinda wish it was the acutal box-art....i do understand why they chose the one they did.

HatKing
on April 9, 2009
I HATE the last one, the others all pretty darn cool though.  Although I could see why they went with the offcial, reds and blacks blend in and the green really pops out, good to have on a store shelf.

ShaunWoo
on April 9, 2009
Actually, I think Louis looks like Mos Def.  Dead ringer for it.

papercut
on April 9, 2009
seriously, LOUIS is MOS DEF!

xxNBxx
on April 9, 2009
must be a slow news day if this is the best you can find.

Hairydutchman
on April 9, 2009
I like them all better than the one that is chosen.

Tearhead
on April 9, 2009
... Is that Mos Def in the last picture?

Tarsier
on April 9, 2009
i have always hated the box art, and those ones are even worse, they should have fired the dudes who made them =p

i mean come on, a hand with four fingers? isn't the thumb not considered a finger? it just looks awkward.

Cube
on April 9, 2009
The official looks the best.


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