Dark Souls: Design Works: Volume 1

I'm a big fan of the souls franchise so this art book was something I really wanted. It has three sections;complete art, concept art and a small interview and it goes into a bit of detail and shows you everything even the unused parts which were used for later games I believe. The quality of the prints were decent some of them were very slightly blurring but I really had to look at it to tell. The interview really goes into detail about their process in designing the environment and bosses like the gaping dragon and the belfry gargoyles It's really great and was worth the money, definitely cheaper then some other art books out there.

just had a quick look come woth concept art and unused pieces and covers some of the bosses towards the end there is an inteview included

The art direction is incredible

This book may be slightly slim (as most artbooks are, really) but it's worth the asking price, in my view. Dark Souls is my favourite game of the last 10 years, if not ever. My adoration of it is largely due to its visual design, which establishes the dark fantasy theme of the world of Lordran perfectly. Seeing the original conceptualisations of characters, armour, environments, and enemies that I'm so familiar with in 3D is a fascinating experience. Incidental details, like how Siegemeyer's onion helm opens (it's on a hinge), or alternative designs for Smough's mask, or even how Smough isn't actual fat under that armour, will be like catnip to any Dark Souls dweeb. Some of the pictures are a wee bit small on the printed page, but overall I'd say the layout is solid and the printing quality is good. Best of all, in my opinion, is the lengthy interview at the back with some of the principal designers. The attention to detail combined with fertile imaginations is evident in how the team answer the questions and I just wish it was longer. A whole book about the conceptualisation and design of the game would be nice, Fromsoft, cheers.

A must have for a Dark Souls fanatic, like myself, but be wary of the cost to content ratio. I have bought UDON books before and this cover art is probably up there with the likes of the Okami book. It even comes with a reflective sleeve that you can take off and still get a nice cover, which is black and red, rather than black and white. The art inside is great with both big and small images, but not a lot of text. You only get the names of what it represents, so it might say the name of the enemy in the drawing, or the area for example. Funnily enough, there was an error. I am not sure if it's due to the translation or the original write up of the Japanese book. The error was getting the labels for 2 enemies mixed up, it's nothing major to me, but a perfectionist might want to take note. I primarily buy these books for the text so to only have information about the art in an interview, a very lengthy one at that (about 9 full A4 pages) was a bit disappointing. But the interview is really good and gives quite a lot of information on the design of Dark Souls throughout the development of the game, and it taught me that Miyazaki has a great sense of humour and learns from the mistakes he made producing this game. Sadly, the book ends after the interview at only 128 pages long. At 30 pounds, really consider how much you want it. After 1500 hours poured into the game, I saw it as a no-brainer. Some of the art you may have seen already, but it's still nice to have it in a physical format. So thank you very much UDON for translating this, and many others. Highly recommend, but just consider the price.

Beautiful quality to the print and cover. The art of Darks Souls is special due to its sense of death, decay and isolation and the fact that its rich story lies within the environment and characters design, rather than being explained to the player. An extended interview with Miyazaki is included in the last pages, giving extra value to this book from an artist's point of view.

This book is a must for any Dark Souls fans, beautifully images to gander over and really interesting interviews. The Art is broken down down into concept art and design materials. the first containing prints of previous released art ( in collectors edition/ptde) and some unreleased art. The design works, as far as i can tell is mostly unreleased items, some of ideas that never made it, and small notes for developers. The interview(s) that fill the last chapter is really interesting and gives a good insight into the design processes that go on at from software. overall i would definitely recommended to any Souls fan.

It’s Dark Souls!