The first-person shooter genre has a host of memorable protagonists, from 3D Realms' crass, one-liner spouting Duke Nukem to Valve’s theoretical physicist Gordon Freeman from theHalf-Lifeseries. Many of those characters are also protected by futuristic power armor, be they the black-and-white nanotech suits of EA’sCrysis— which recently returned in thetrailer forCrysis Remastered— or the iconic green suits ofHalo’s Master Chief andDOOM’s Doomguy.
A French artist who goes by Playbox36 created a series of images crossing over Bungie and id Software’s franchises by taking Master Chief’s post from the cover of the 2010 animated film collectionHalo Legendsand re-painting it in the iconic red-and-black art style of the marketing material seen forDoom (2016)and the recently releasedDoom Eternal. The result is a striking image that can be found on Playbox36’s Twitter and DeviantArt accounts with multiple croppings fit to be used as wallpapers on various devices.
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The artist is heavily inspired by the long-runningHalofranchise, and has a number of different takes on its iconography plastered all across his DeviantArt account. One of his series takes images from differentHalogames to create posters in the 80’s synthwave graphical style, while others have taken an interest in theupcoming Xbox Series X titleHalo: Infinite.
The red-heavy art style of id Software’s recentDoomtitles has been used to great effect when crossing over with other famous video game franchises too. When Square Enix released itsFinal Fantasy 7 Remakeearlier this month, the officialDoomTwitter account put out arecreation of theFinal Fantasy 7cover imagewith Cloud Strife standing in front of Shinra Headquarters but instead featuring Doomguy with his DoomBlade.
Then there was the hefty amount ofDoom EternalandAnimal Crossing: New Horizonscrossover art which flooded the Internet leading up to the two games' dual release on March 20. The trend was so prevalent thatNew Horizons' director and producer commented on the crossoverswhen talking to IGN a few days before both games came out.
Amid ongoing worldwide shutdowns and work from home policies meant to stem the spread of coronavirus, there are some concerns thatHalo: Infinite’s development may be impacted, which would be a huge blow for one of the landmark games Microsoft is looking to use for the launch of its next-generation console. Luckily fans like Playbox36 will always be there to bide time by showing fans what could be when crossing over franchises likeHaloandDOOM.
