The 10 Worst Trends in Video Game Cover Art

Video game cover illustrators are getting kinda lazy these days...

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Take a look at your game collection, notice anything peculiar? Odds are you don't because we barely give cover art a second thought nowadays, but if you look carefully you can see that a couple of designs seem to dominate a majority of covers on shelves. Of course we don't mean the exact covers, but repeated themes and design elements can be found on an alarming majority of boxes.

Now, these designs aren't inherently bad, they just lack the design creativity to separate themselves, but then again that could be part of the point. Marketers put a lot of effort into finding the most visually appealing cover art for their products so you wind up buying them; it's quite possible a whole bunch of them decided a few common traits were necessary for success.

Still, it's an interesting thing to examine. This list only covers a handful of the most obvious ones and a few of the guilty titles, but there are plenty more that could be revealed. Take a look at them and examine the design elements, chances are you won't be able to look at your game shelf the same again.

Those Evil Eyes

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Those Evil Eyes

Oooh, sppoooooky! Glowing red eyes are serious business and their menacing demeanor definitely conveys danger and risk to the viewer. There are plenty of games that use this template without using specifically red glowing eyes, but this is by far the most common one on store shelves. Eyes are natural focal points, so it makes sense to use that to your advantage as a designer, but when you look at them all side-by-side a lot of that efficacy is lost.

The Collector's Split

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The Collector's Split

With the glut of HD remakes, game collections, and franchise compilations hitting the market these days, you'd think cover designers would have found something a little more interesting to do than simply dividing the frame into thirds and slapping parts of the original game's cover in each of the partitions. These covers are supposed to let you know what's in the box and they do a pretty good job of that, but some variety would be nice; maybe use a single picture that sums up the franchise rather than this one that looks like a bad supermarket flyer.

 

 

Don't Look Back In Anger

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Don't Look Back In Anger

We like it when our heroes are progressive lads and lasses. Having them face toward the action is a nice break from the typical front-facing design and says that our hero is ready to dive into the conflict, all he needs is you! Of course, faces tend to sell better than backs and so we're left with the extremely awkward positioning of heroes glancing over their shoulder. Consider it an invite to join them or a simple acknowledgement of the player, but it looks so unnatural a lot of that message is lost.

Cool Kids on the Horizon

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Cool Kids on the Horizon

Perfect for showing how interesting and diverse your cast of characters are, the horizontal fan of heroes lets players know that the game will either have them playing multiple protagonists, controlling an entire team, or that it's multiplayer-centric. Because our eyes automatically scan things from left to right, players will automatically dissect the differences between the characters, which might be necessary if you're game is largely based around that concept. However, the overuse of shilouettes deflates the effectiveness of this practice and makes things look more generic than necessary.

Weapons Up, Punk

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Weapons Up, Punk

Weapons don't belong in holsters, they belong as close to your face as possible! There are a lot of games that aim to emphasize the power of their protagonists and having them flash their armaments in close-frame is a good way of doing this.However, this is one of those designs that looks more and more goofy the longer you look at it; who the hell chooses to cover part of their face with a pistol as a battle-ready stance?

Entering The Matrix White Room

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Entering The Matrix White Room

Ample use of white space can really help make a game stick out on crowded shelves when most games are littered with as much spectacle as possible, but the more designers use this template, the less effective it becomes. Most of the games that go overboard with the white space often desaturate their subjects, save for a few accents of color to help draw the eye to details. It's a much cleaner look compared to the clustered scenes most games depict, but they're also woefully generic.

Huddle Around The Title, Children

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Huddle Around The Title, Children

Mostly found in titles with diverse, ensemble casts, the huddle is a method that allows the designer to show as many characters as possible in the limited space while drawing attention to the name of the game. With the central focus being on the headline, it does help reinforce title memorization, but with most of the characters interacting on a most basic level it can be kind of hard to tell what the game's actually about if they don't include a more descriptive image underneath.

Line In The Sand

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Line In The Sand

This is one that pretty much exclusively applies to fighting games, but that doesn't mean its any less tired. The practice of dividing the characters of a game and placing them on either half of the box art sells the conflict of the game, but it's so expected that it loses a lot of potency. A few titles try to mix this up with asymmetrical placements or by fanning secondary characters in the background, but the premise never really changes and Ryu usually ends up in the default "player 1" position.

Stare Wistfully to the Horizon

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Stare Wistfully to the Horizon

Hope is a powerful emotion and nothing sells it better than the hero of a game looking onward to the unknown just out of frame. It says volumes about the character's impending trials and their stalwart attitudes. However, it gets a little ridiculous when every hero from Master Chief to Nathan Drake is just standing there, staring off into the distance.

Walk On, Soldier

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Walk On, Soldier

We all know that cool guys don't look at explosions, they blow things up and just walk away. However, do we really need so many video game covers with soldiers literally doing just that? It's pretty clear that central placement of protagonist characters is a pretty standard, but we could really benefit from them doing something a little more interesting than just walking towards the camera.

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