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‘Evolve’ Box Art Revealed With Nary A Gun-Toting White Man In Sight
There’s an unfortunate trend that’s swept the games industry. I’m not sure who made the decision that the box art for a shooter game must have a white male holding a gun, looking grim — explosion or some sort of destruction in the background is entirely optional. Developer Turtle Rock (the makers of Left 4 Dead) unveiled their next project, the 4-on-1 cooperative shooter, Evolve. I have no idea what it looks like or how it plays, but I’m already very much looking forward to it.
Today, they revealed the game’s box art, and unlike 99.9% of the other shooters we see on retail shelves, Evolve won’t feature a man with a gun. Instead, we see a monstrous footprint surrounded by much smaller, fainter boot prints that show off the colossal size of the game’s player-controller antagonist.
In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war, but it was a cheerful illustrator from England who helped to define the terrifying war-torn imagery that inspired what we now know as Grimdark (a hybrid genre combining horror with sci-fi/fantasy).
Unfortunately for fans of Warhammer 40,000, Trench Crusade and countless other sources of Grimdark thrills, veteran artist John Blanche passed away this week after struggling with health issues for the past few years.
While the artist retired back in 2023, he leaves us with an enormous legacy of iconic artwork that continues to inspire gamers and storytellers around the world to this very day.
The news is especially gloomy as it was only last year that Daniel Lowman and Napoleon Dynamite himself Jon Heder released The Grim & the Dark: The Search for John Blanche, a documentary following Heder’s exploration of the Grimdark genre culminating in a heartwarming encounter with Blanche in his own home.
Below is one of my favorite pieces by Blanche, his highly influential depiction of Warhammer 40k’s God-Emperor of Mankind on his Golden Throne.
We send our deepest condolences to John Blanche’s family, friends, and fans.
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