Half-Life 2 artist Viktor Antonov has outlined his reasons for quitting the legendary Valve Corporation to join Arkane Studios as visual design director on new IP Dishonored.
"I left precisely when they stopped making epic, triple-As, which was Half-Life 2," Viktor Antonov told Eurogamer. "Since then, they were episodes. Valve is a great place, but I'm interested in projects, not in companies. I went to Valve specifically for Half-Life 2. I went and I collaborated with Arkane to do The Crossing and Dishonored. I put the project above everything else.
"They've grown now, they're much bigger, and I'm interested in a certain level of creative risk taking and a certain energy that can be compared to jazz, jamming or rock n' roll, where it's small, it's intense and it's about making revolutions in the media."
But he was adamant that this wasn't the reason for his departure. "It causes a lot of surprise that anyone would leave Valve. I left Valve, and all my good friends from there, for the specific reason that I had spent six years of my life on one single project, and that's a lot. And, as an artist, I wanted to express myself in a whole variety of ways.
"So, since then, I have done two feature films, TV series, I've designed a third feature film, I have done three separate games and an illustrated novel, as an independent author. It was very important for me to be independent and active and work with European talent, and have more manoeuvrability in my life."
For more on the rather promising Dishonored, read our sibling features seven ways to succeed gloriously and seven ways to fail completely and die.
