I mean, I get it. It's supposed to be all government-keeping-secrets-from-the-people-ish, but enough's enough. They've molested the cover with censor bars. It's like someone smeared eyeliner over a movie poster and called it a day. It doesn't even make sense contextually. What could possibly be lurking in those specific corners of the cover that must be kept on the down-low?

I dunno. Maybe I'm just crazy.

@nonused: But Black Ops 1 and 2 sold really well.

I like it because it's different, that doesn't mean it's good. It could use some improvement like, having the current design be on a slip cover and when you take off the slip cover it reveals the whole thing. And underneath the black bars there are ALIENS!

It's not genius, it's not pretty, but it's unusual and it'll stand out on a shelf a bit better.

All of this. It's different, so I'm all for it.

The slipcase idea is pretty good.

Better than orange and blue with CHIN DOWN, EYES UP

Hard to say without having the actual case, but ye it's not great. Not aggrivatingly bad or anything, but it's to the point where there's not enough art to catch your eye in any way. I'd say the problem is more that at a glance it doesn't even look like it's supposed to be redacted, it's just a lot of black. The amount would've been fine if they did a better job displaying it. I'd say thinner lines (and probably more) with seperation between them, and a few words spread here and there would make it much more impactful.

Actually, after looking at it way too much it dawned on me that they're actually not redacting any text, it's just supposed to be censoring the picture. Which makes the whole black marker thing just confusing. It also seems like a really stupid idea, "let's censor everything interesting in this picture, that way it'll look really interesting".

@ares42: Yeah, the part where it isn't redacting any text is really stupid. Black marker would be used to strike out words or entire sentences, which there aren't many of on game cover art, so this whole concept has a fairly significant uphill battle.

@coafi said:

Yeah, that's a much better idea, at least in terms of cool presentation.

Looks ugly got to be one of the worst box arts I've seen this year.

Personally, I think it's ██████

I think it looks kind of cool. What the fuck else would they put on there? A dude with a gun?

@beachthunder: Oh you fucker.

I've never understood why people care so much about cover art. Its the game that really matters. Why do you care so much about what the box looks like?

I like it.

Bad use of negative space, i have no idea what i'm supposed to look at.

I like the idea though, i think just having a document would have been better though. (obviously nobody would do that for a video game though).

@quid_pro_bono looks like he's doing the bad ass pose into another camera

Looks ugly as hell to me. I like the idea, but they went overboard on the black redaction lines.

That is one fugly cover dude. I know people say that the cover doesn't mean much as long as the game is great, which I agree with to a certain degree, but come on. It's like they are not even trying anymore seeing as 90% of all game covers are downright ugly.

The idea is fine, but the execution is terrible.

As a graphic design expert with a degree, it looks atrocious. Who is the person(s) responsible for this? Can the company get their money back? Did they hire somebody's cousin to do this piece of "work"?

I like it in concept.

I really like the idea, but I think the redacting went a little overboard. Looks like the image underneath could have been pretty cool on its own.

The idea is cool, but the end result doesn't look that great. I do like the steam image for the game in my library though. It's basically just a profile of the guy with a censor style thing cutting the eye area of his face out. Much smarter use of this censored style in my opinion. Keeps the same mysterious vibe without having to blackout a good chunk of the image.

Looking at it I get the feeling that they struggled between having too little blacked out resulting in the idea not getting across properly to people who don't know this is supposed to be a hush hush classified thing, and having so much blacked out so that the point is obvious but the image itself looks kind of bleh as a result.

Yea, I liked the whole -REDACTED- style they have been going with in the marketing, but the cover is a bit much, would have been better off showing the character from the front, and just blocking out the eyes/crazy alien watch he is probably wearing.

I play on PC so I haven't seen this before right now. Looks crappy. The Steam Grid icon pulls it off better IMO.

I ███ it.

@truthtellah: @beachthunder: I ███ what you ██████ did there.

@pudge said:

I play on PC so I haven't seen this before right now. Looks crappy. The Steam Grid icon pulls it off better IMO.

This.

They just designed the Game of the Year edition early and then redacted all the "THIS GAME IS FUCKING AWESOME! - IGN"

Declassified Version: Stupendous!

Remember Booker with a Shotgun ? Its fine!

At least with that you could tell it was a video game where you shoot things. This? I'm not so sure.

i am totally baffled as to how the design even passed through. It covers up half the cover with nothingness. It makes no fucking sense aesthetically/visually.

This is the best post I've seen in a long time.

They should've redacted the M rating and the 2K logo as well.

@probablytuna: Yep. It's neat but they should have gone all the way with it.

As a PC gamer I must ask what is this box art thing you speak of? Even if you get a physical box the front/back don't matter since all you will see is the spine when it's on the shelf. So how does the spine look?

I could care less about the box art. I hope the game is good. I haven't pre-ordered it or anything waiting to see what people have to say about the final product.

I like it in theory, they just overdid it a little on the bottom half.

It looks fine to me.