Along with the reveal of a new trailer and release date for Bethesda's upcoming Doom reboot earlier this week, fans also got to see what the game's cover art will look like when it arrives in May.
The response has been ... less than enthusiastic. A NeoGAF thread quickly sprung up discussing how generic the game's art is, as it features the game's generic-looking space marine holding a gun on top of a yellow background, with the big, bold DOOM across the front. To show just how generic it is, one NeoGAF user removed the DOOM title and replaced it with other recent shooters. The results speak for themselves.
Kotaku feels the same way, and even did some Photoshops of their own. None of this should be all that surprising, however. Video game box art, especially recently, has a long, long history of being bland and boring. It often features a lone male protagonist holding a gun, either facing the viewer or with his back turned. They almost always tell very little about what the game is actually about or how it might play.
The bad box-art trend isn't new for Bethesda, either. So, we're going to do some show-and-tell. To get everybody started, here is the full Doom cover art.
Now, lets take the cover of Bethesda's most recent game, Fallout 4.
Fallout 4 is a great game, but the game's box art is almost identical to that of Fallout 3, plus it tells you absolutely nothing about the game within. If you've never played Fallout before, the power armor helmet has zero context. Bethesda is assuming you know what Fallout is.
What about the unique, stealth-action title Dishonored? The game featured an incredibly imaginative and complex world for players to explore, while a variety of stealth, combat and magic all weaved together for some of the most addictive gameplay in recent memory.
However, you wouldn't really know any of that from looking at the game's cover art. It features a close-up of a scary-looking guy in a mask holding a blade. There is no hint of the game's unique setting or it's innovative gameplay.
The Bethesda title perhaps most readily comparable to Doom is Wolfenstein: The New Order. Both games are classic shooter franchises being re-imagined for the modern age. With Wolfenstein, Bethesda opted to focus more on the game's Nazi villains than the game's protagonist (a wise choice), but it's still nothing more than a guy with a gun staring straight at the viewer. Though the color schemes and use of the black outlines of additional soldiers in the background adds some artistic flair, it's still remarkably boring.
Heck, even Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is guilty. Despite being one of the best games of last generation, its cover is nothing more than a simulated book cover bearing the game's title and a small logo, as has long been Elder Scrolls' tradition.
What happened to featuring actual art on game covers? Games occasionally will feature artwork on the reverse side of the box art for fans to use if they find the standard cover boring (Dishonored did this, for example), but it begs the question as to why more effort isn't put into the cover art to begin with. Yes, we all know it comes down to marketing, as companies attempt to appeal to as wide a number of players as possible.
It's just strange to think that a angry-looking guy with a gun is more appealing than, you know, actual artwork.
