Half-Life 2’s City-17 creator, Viktor Antonov, joins Darewise Entertainment

Half-Life 2

Viktor Antonov, art director and conceptual artist for Half-Life 2, designed most of City 17’s style as well as the Combine architecture and technology. You may have seen Antonov’s work more recently, though, as he was also visual design director on Dishonored, responsible for the steampunk design of Dunwall’s world. The 20-year veteran is one of the best environmental artists in the industry and he’s now joining Darewise Entertainment as chief creative officer. 

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As CCO for Darewise, Antonov will lead the creation of original IPs and universes for all projects. One of these is Darewise’s first project,ROKH, a futuristic, persistent survival game where players will have to work together as they face the dangers on planet Mars.

“Viktor is the best match to bring our creative vision to the highest level and help us deliver our transmedia ambitions”, said Benjamin Charbit, CEO of Darewise, via MCV. “His experience in managing world-class triple-A games as well as his contributions to other content formats will bring great value to our company and projects, including ROKH.”

“I enjoyed contributing to amazing games at Zenimax and I’m proud of all our common accomplishments. I now want to use the opportunity offered by my friend Benjamin to return to more indie-minded creations”, said Antonov. “Darewise Entertainment’s innovative hybrid model which stands at the crossroads of video games and the movie industry is exactly the kind of multimedia approach I’m looking forward to develop.”

Antonov will be contributing to the vehicles and machinery in ROKH, conceptualising robots, drones and weaponry, as well as helping out with building the atmosphere.

Here he is talking about all that:

ROKH is currently in development and due to be released in Early Access on PC in September 2016.