When it comes to the graffiti in particular, Massive worked with real street artists not only to design pieces for the game, but also help determine where they should be placed. The studio partnered with art collective Monorex to work with a range of street artists, including Swedish / Brazilian painter Limpo, whom they interviewed to learn more about the process. "Having conversations with people who know about these things also helped a lot," says Podlesnigg. "In a lot of cases you’ll see paint buckets or spray cans next to the pieces, or you’ll see scissor lifts and ladders being used to create the pieces in the world." The graffiti featured in the game was created by a combination of outside street artists and concept artists at Massive.

Graffiti is a pretty common tool in video games. Often it’s used to convey a message; an area full of enemies might feature "keep out!" spray painted on a wall, for instance. A lot of the time this comes off as distracting, as if the art is part of the game’s design, not an organic piece of the world itself. "We wanted to have more focus on realistic graffiti," says senior texture artist Joakim Månsson, "and less focus on the need to constantly pepper the gamers with simple messages to say something about the city that the visual state of world should already tell."

"We wanted to have more focus on realistic graffiti."

Aside from the art’s appearance, one of the ways the artists are able to make it feel authentic and integrated into the world is by putting it in the right place. "You’ll rarely find any complex artwork in shady back alleys. Usually they are placed where people would be able to see them," says Podlesnigg. "Back alleys would be more covered with random tags than complex graffiti pieces." The larger pieces are all distinct — you won’t see the same one twice — though smaller tags and stickers do repeat themselves.

While the team spent a lot of time looking at the history of American graffiti, travelling to New York and Detroit to see what things look like now and gather reference material, one of the goals was also to convey the deteriorated state of the city depicted in the game. "The artists we worked with got the background and story of the game and we pretty much asked them to do a piece they would do in that scenario," explains Månsson. "We also asked them where they would paint their piece if the system broke down."

Even though the graffiti is meant to blend into the world around it, to serve as another detail that helps create the atmosphere, it also has a gameplay purpose. Because each major piece is different, with distinct styles from a variety of artists, they can help players navigate the grimy streets of post-pandemic New York. "Unique pieces can create a sense of guidance or location marker in the game," says Månsson, "just as a landmark building would." You can also identify different areas by the tags painted on the walls; rioters might use a particular color, while the escaped convicts from Rikers Island use another.