Fallout 4 features more art than any game we’ve ever done. Which, naturally, means The Art of Fallout 4 is the biggest art book that we and our friends at Dark Horse have ever created. This collectible book weighs in at 368 oversized pages, packed with never-before-seen designs, concept art, character art, weapons and more – along with commentary from the team here at Bethesda Game Studios. The Art of Fallout 4 is available December 22, and can be purchased. To give you a taste of what’s inside, we’re sharing with you a selection of pages, along with Lead Artist Istvan Pely’s foreword.
When you play our games, you live in a world that the team at Bethesda Game Studios has already lived in for years. Day by day we see it grow around us, from the initial germ of an idea to a fully realized universe. Each day, new content is added or iterated on, and the world gradually takes form, gains detail, and becomes real.
After years of living in this place, our playground and our home, we open the gates and invite millions to enter and play. This book is an opportunity for us to share with you a bit of the history behind this world, how it has evolved over those years, and why some of the artistic choices were made.
Creating art is a very personal thing. Every individual who works here puts a little bit of him or herself into the game. A project of this complexity and scope requires extensive planning, structure, and organization, but our best work comes from the cumulative result of all these personal touches made by many creative individuals. You will encounter numerous things of this kind during your travels in the Wasteland—things that might have originated as an unexpected but inspired doodle or a little idea that an individual or group came up with, were passionate about, and then added to the game.
The tip of our creative spear is our concept team: Adam Adamowicz, Ray Lederer, Ilya Nazarov, and John Gravato. Their work is done in an area we call the “Art Pit”: a room in the middle of the art department with walls covered in drawings. Many ideas originate here, born out of lively discussions between game director Todd Howard, lead designer Emil Pagliarulo, the concept artists, and me. Each artist has a unique visual style, and together they drafted a rich and varied world, with every design having personality and authenticity. Our process is very iterative: we start with loose, rough sketches, which are gradually refined into detailed drawings that are then handed off to our 3-D artists. And even after a model is built and textured, we often revisit and rework that model until it achieves a level of quality we can be proud to ship. In these pages, we try to show a variety of images from all stages of this process. As you can see, we carefully consider every detail of the game, sometimes to an obsessive level; this is pretty much the Bethesda way.
While the focus of this book is on art, the amount of work done by professionals across multiple disciplines at the studio cannot be overstated. Designers give the work purpose and context; programmers ensure that everything works smoothly. Animators give it life, while audio engineers give it voice. And producers make sure all of these parts come together efficiently. Without all of this effort, the images you see here would have never left the page. To witness the amount of passion and talent that goes into this process is truly humbling.
I hope this book gives you some sense of what it’s like to see a world materialize around you from scratch. It truly is an amazing thing to experience and a privilege to be a part of.
My thanks to Todd Howard for his inspiring vision and support, and thanks also to the exceedingly talented and driven team at Bethesda Game Studios.
Istvan Pely
Lead Artist
