Helping a video game studio level-up branding for their upcoming FPS title. (Aka - a dream come true).

Role:
Design Lead

Platforms:
Steam, PC

Areas:
Strategy, Brand, Social

Background

AEY Studios are a fresh-on-the-scene indie game studio with a lot of incredible ideas. They approached us with a great proposal for a new FPS-MOBA game they’d just started to develop, and wanted a hand in bringing this idea to life in the form of a chart-topping visual identity that would turn heads.

I’m a huge fan of gaming and this sounded right up my street. Admittedly, I needed a minute to collect myself as I’d just realised my childhood dreams had come true.

The problem was - none of their team could decide how they wanted this to look. They could, however, tell us what ‘type’ of game they were planning. It was an innovative fusion of a traditional first person shooter, cross with the strategy of a MOBA, and the tone was to be a gritty, noir-style military shooter where opposing factions compete against one another for resources.

Before getting started, I wanted to better understand the direction they wanted to take, so I decided to put together an interactive workshop for the guys at AEY to help spark their creativity and funnel us into a direction.

Approach

With a set direction locked-in, I produced three conceptual routes that explored different takes on how DFUSE could present itself.

Route one, titled ‘Loud and Proud’ was all about grabbing attention through striking use of colour, while keeping things minimal - hero-ing characters of the game against vibrant high-contrast, slightly playful backgrounds. Route two, titled ‘Behind the mask’, employed a more dark and moody look and feel, with sharp angles and textures to reflect a more gritty/military setting. Route 3, the most ambitious of the lot, titled ‘Past, meet future’, dialled up the action to 11, with a visual style reminiscent of blade-runner-esque action blockbusters and analogue textures.

Route 2 was the clear winner for the team at AEY - but they wished to incorporate elements from Route 1 and blend them together. The final outcome was something I and the team were incredibly happy with.

Brand Rollout

Over the course of the next few months, various brand assets were created - including all of the Steam marketplace imagery, box art, OOH, promo ads, merchandise and an array of social posts targeted at driving hype around the game.