Situation

Dark Souls was instrumental in defining the Soles-like genre in gaming. Game publishers typically send review copies of a game to media outlets ahead of the release date so reviewer have time to plan and write game reviews Andean of the released date of the game. This unfortunately means the game’s instruction manuals are available for the reviews to use in their understanding of the game. This is where reviewers guides come in. Reviewers guides are artfully designed books that give game reviewers all the information and context they might need to understand the game and how to play it. 

The client wanted to lower the barrier to entry as much as possible for game reviewers . In order for reviewers to understand Dark Souls we created a reviewers guide that outlined the games controls, mechanics, and features. 

We worked with the clients brand team to establish a visual style that aligned with what they had created for the game. We created a number of layouts designed to accommodate the different content types for the book.

Result

Reviewers loved the book design and the guide was even featured in a few articles. The game got amazing scores, with a Metacritic score of 89 and 4.9 million copies sold.