Age Of Empires is one of my first serious video games and and the way they used art to tell the campaign stories always intrigued me. So getting to jump into AoE2 – Definitive Edition recently has been quite a treat and I wanted to delve into the art for that.
The Definitive Edition art is done by Atomhawk Studios based in the UK and Canada.
Age Of Empires 2: DE – Visual Development
The whole drawing style for the game’s campaigns was redone. Some of these images below are from “an exercise given to multiple artists from our international team for them to use their different backgrounds and experience to produce varying samples of the potential new art style for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. The last image became the starting point for the style you see in the game today.” (from Atomhawk website)
Campaign Artwork
One of those stand-out things about the game is how they tell the story visually through the different campaign chapters. I think they did a great job reimagining those images. The campaign backgrounds we repainted too and they are a fantastic setting for the storytelling.
Age of Empires 2 art versus the Definitive Edition
Below is a little comparison between the art for the original Age Of Empires 2 and the Definitive Edition.
Be sure to visit the project page on their website and then check their Artstation page too for more.
Craig Mullins is one of the artists behind the amazing marketing and cover art for Age Of Empires. You can read more on that in this interview with him.
You can find more inspiring movie and game art in our ART section.
