14 DAY TRIAL // I am one of the people who was very much obsessed with the world of Fallout 3 and that of the New Vegas spin-off and one of the main reasons was the visual identity of the post-apocalyptic wastelands that the two games explored.
Unfortunately for the world of gaming, the man behind much of the concepts art for Fallout 3 and one of the graphics artists behind last year’s success The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Adam Adamowicz, has died on February 8.
Even for those who never knew him other than through his work need to feel some sadness at the news of his death because it means that his unique take on game art will never be seen again.
A very touching eulogy of Adam Adamowicz, compiled by another artist, shows why he was different than his colleagues, ready to create most of the prototypes for his art in the non-digital space rather than work directly on computers.
Other than his methods, I want to praise the results, which can be seen in both Fallout 3 and in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, both developed by Bethesda.
Fallout 3 was a revolution when it originally arrived because it managed to take a well-known 2D world and then translate it to the 3D space without losing any of its charm.
The images posted by Bethesda before release show how important art design was to the game and how monsters, weapons, locations and characters all shared a theme that can be largely traced back to Adam Adamowicz.
Anyone can get a better look at how influential he is by taking a look at this Developer Diary that he has posted before the launch of Fallout 3.
It’s highly likely that Bethesda is already working on a new Fallout game, probably using a new graphics engine and new locations, which means that they now face a choice when it comes to the art style of the game.
They can choose to tell their team to try create in the style of Adam Adamowicz or they can change the way the game looks.
Whatever their choice, gamers will be poorer for not being able to play another video game that has the former Bethesda man as the main concept artist.