BY AMIT BARAN ROY | Viktor Antonov, a video game art director and conceptual artist, famous for his unique designing style and creativity in Half Life 2 City 17 as well as in Dishonored, is now joining as Chief Creative Officer and will be working on their very first project, . Antonov gained initial popularity when he worked with Valve and was responsible for the conception of the Half Life 2 universe - City 17, its suburbs and the alien "Combine" architecture and technology. He has been in the industry for 20 years since 1996 and is well known for incorporating steampunk style design in games. Antonov was the visual design director of Dishonored and oversaw the design of many of the unique settings in the game. Last five years, Antonov has been working with ZeniMax Media, Inc. where he was responsible for imparting his experience to various artists as well as supporting the teams responsible for Dishonored, Fallout 4 and DOOM.

In a press release, Darewise Entertainment has announced that Viktor Antonov joined the company as Chief Creative Officer where he will lead the creation of original IPs and universes for all projects. Currently he will be working on the upcoming sandbox style, multiplayer science fiction survival game, ROKH. The game is being developed by the independent game company Nvizzio Creations and will be the first game to be published by Darewise Entertainment. ROKH is an open world game set on the futuristic planet of Mars and will involve crafting and survival elements.

“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. “His experience in managing world-class AAA 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’s main area of contribution will be in designing the futuristic atmosphere of the planet Mars while lending his expertise in the design of various space weapons, survival items and other elements of danger. Initially, Darewise Entertainment launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the game in May. Due to lack of backers, the campaign got cancelled in June. But credit to the publishers who are still on track, as the game goes into Early Access in September 2016.

Antonov further discusses about this in the video below and he also uses his to share his thoughts about ROKH.