[HN Gopher] Half-Life 2 and Dishonored art lead Viktor Antonov h...
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Half-Life 2 and Dishonored art lead Viktor Antonov has died
Author : Trasmatta
Score : 275 points
Date : 2025-02-16 17:01 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.eurogamer.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.eurogamer.net)
| Trasmatta wrote:
| Really sad to hear about this. He was only 52. It's a safe bet
| that his brilliant art direction was deeply impactful to a lot of
| HN readers.
| txdv wrote:
| O wow, the architecture in Dishonored gave me always combine
| vibes, now I do understand why
| asdf6969 wrote:
| RIP. Dishonored was a beautiful game with a surprisingly deep
| world. Sad to read this. I was hoping to see more
| karaterobot wrote:
| I didn't know the same person was involved in shaping both
| projects, but as soon as I read that, the personality that
| connected both those beautiful games was immediately clear. What
| an amazing legacy to leave despite a sadly shortened life.
| automatic6131 wrote:
| The man loves spikey metal walls in European cities, especially
| with an overhang. He couldn't help himself!
| nice_byte wrote:
| HL2 stuck with me for years and years exactly because of his art
| direction. It was the first time I ever saw a video game world
| that somewhat resembled my actual real-world surroundings.
| Incredibly sad he passed away at only 52...
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Dishonored and its sequel were two of the most memorable games
| I've played.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| Agreed. Two of the best games ever created, and I'm not sure
| we'll ever see anything like them ever again. The art design
| played a huge role in that.
|
| Let's gather for whiskey and cigars tonight, in honor of
| Viktor.
| alserio wrote:
| Indeed. I believe so.
| alserio wrote:
| I loved the first one and its dlcs and had the second on my
| steam queue for 8 years while life got in the way. This year
| I've 100% completed the game (3 playthroughs) and I'm currently
| thoroughly enjoying Death of the Outsider. These games are the
| amazing product of talented people who love their crafts and
| Viktor was one of them.
| scrlk wrote:
| RIP. For those who haven't seen it yet, he was interviewed in the
| HL2 20th Anniversary Documentary:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCjNT9qGjh4 (intro and chapter 1
| at 13:40)
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| HL2 is a masterpiece. RIP.
| maartenscholl wrote:
| This is sad news, I was aware of his work on Half Life 2 through
| art books, and I bought the first Dishonored game because of it
| portaouflop wrote:
| Half-life 2 is imo still the most important and impactful game of
| our generation -- from gameplay to art-style to game mechanics
| and so on, it's still exceptional and I struggle to come up with
| another single player game that blew me away like HL2 - Dead
| Space comes close but it was less revolutionary imo
| Trasmatta wrote:
| > I struggle to come up with another single player game that
| blew me away like HL2
|
| I feel the same, but incidentally one of the ones that blew my
| away like HL2 was Dishonored.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Prey was really good too, if not quite up to the level of HL
| and Dishonored.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| Dishonored, Prey, Deus Ex. Relics of a lost era: I don't
| know if we'll ever see big budget "immersive sims" like
| them again.
| rightbyte wrote:
| >I struggle to come up with another single player game that
| blew me away like HL2
|
| The original? I thought the first person story telling mode of
| HL1 was really mind blowing.
| strangescript wrote:
| Exactly, so many first of its kind moments in HL1. The first
| time you saw a scripted sequence, like wtf am I playing, this
| is amazing.
|
| HL2 was more refined, and the art style did help elevate the
| story telling.
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| The gravity gun in hl2 was absolutely mind-blowing
|
| Every game up until then had been full of 100% static
| assets and suddenly you could just pick up and throw
| anything with realistic physics
| rightbyte wrote:
| The mix of good open landscape and good indoor maps were
| also quite impressive for the time if I remember
| correctly.
| brap wrote:
| There was also that crossbow that shoots red hot rebar,
| let's you pin things (and enemies) to walls. I had so
| much fun with that
| swinglock wrote:
| Not quite static. Hitman and Red Faction comes to mind,
| years before Half-Life 2. Still, it was groundbreaking.
| rightbyte wrote:
| >The first time you saw a scripted sequence, like wtf am I
| playing, this is amazing.
|
| Ye. It is hard to remember how stale games used to be with
| "story parts" and "game play parts".
|
| Small things like "two scientist runs towards you. One is
| eaten by head crab zombie unless you save him really fast"
| -- all these kind of small scripted events added so much.
| And fluently playing the whole mess up experiment and then
| try to escape overarching story.
| poglet wrote:
| Black Mesa is a great way to re-experience HL1 too.
| jakubmazanec wrote:
| Agree. I recently played HL2 again with the new commentary
| (added because of the 20th anniversary) and it really shows why
| the level design is so good: a lot of play testing and
| iterative design. They really did the work. Now I'm playing the
| Halo franchise and the difference in how boring and uninspired
| the levels are is really striking.
| ben_w wrote:
| Mm. Halo 3 felt really open and expensive the first time I
| played it. Second time, I tried to explore outside the normal
| path and rapidly discovered that it was a very well disguised
| rails shooter.
|
| But I've also gone back further than that in Bungie's back
| catalogue, having recently been playing Marathon 2 and
| Marathon [?] (winner of the MacFormat(?) magazine award for
| "largest version number increase between successive
| releases") on Steam, and... well, 2 has still-interesting
| levels, but Infinity's levels are a spatially confusing mess.
| rdtsc wrote:
| Absolutely agree. I just replayed all the Half Life series with
| my kids and they love it. It's a game that's just so well done
| and I think it held well after all these years.
| moralestapia wrote:
| RIP, truly a legend, very creative guy, thanks for all the good
| times!
| accrual wrote:
| Rest in peace, Viktor. Your influence and design greatly affected
| the way I viewed and experienced video games.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Art direction is the part of HL2 that has aged the least imho.
| Still would be a surprising setting and tone if done today.
| remoquete wrote:
| No matter how brilliant the game mechanics of those games were,
| they wouldn't have hooked me as they did without Antonov's
| exceptional vision. City 17 and Dunwall Will forever live in our
| memory.
| teroshan wrote:
| The bleakness of both Half Life 2 and Dishonored's really
| resonated with me. I can't overstate how much I appreciated both
| of these games, and in no small part thanks to the art direction.
|
| This is really sad news, but it's amazing how much of a profound
| impact he left on so many players, and without a doubt on so many
| past, current, and future artists.
| nixass wrote:
| Somewhat related: That Creepy Feeling - What is it with Source
| games? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=03yL_JCeQBI
| duxup wrote:
| I remember quitting HL2 at times because "man this is
| depressing".
| ReptileMan wrote:
| >The bleakness of both Half Life 2
|
| Its just Eastern Europe in the 80s and 90s.
| brap wrote:
| Not long ago I had to visit this town in Slovakia, and
| immediately upon arrival I thought "damn this is City 17".
| Fun place though. No striders or anything.
| omnimus wrote:
| Which town?
| wave-function wrote:
| Or almost all of the former USSR up to this day, excluding a
| few cities here and there. The place I'm living in basically
| hasn't changed in the last 30-40 years.
| JeanMarcS wrote:
| Well it seems I played almost all of his games recently. I have
| an Half Life 2 game in progress and finished Dishonored for the
| 4th time last december.
| caseyy wrote:
| One of the most prominent artists in games - unfortunate to hear
| this news. I hope the conditions of the stressful and demanding
| video game industry didn't contribute to this.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| RIP: He left a trail of things to behold- and you knew he was
| involved, long before the credits rolled.
| movedx wrote:
| His work and impact on both games is still fresh in my mind.
| You'll be missed, Viktor. RIP.
| eBombzor wrote:
| That's sad. Dishonored 2 is one of the greatest games of all time
| and there's truly nothing like that on the market anymore.
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(page generated 2025-02-16 23:00 UTC)