Late last night Ubisoft unveiled the teaser campaign for Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. It involved a fairly elaborate live stream lasting eight hours that ended with the reveal of Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla’s location.
The best thing about the stream was that the art was done by none other than Australia’s BossLogic. For those that don’t know, BossLogic (who is also known as Kode Abdo) is a self taught digital artist with nearly two million Instagram followers. He’s well known for turning all kinds of pop culture into art with a pretty big focus on games.
We got to have a quick chat to BossLogic ahead of the Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla reveal stream and ask him a few questions about the process, but the thing that stood out most was his pure excitement for being involved in the reveal of not only one of the biggest games of 2020, but a series that he obviously loves so much.
Press Start: Just going through your Instagram and Twitter feeds, you’re obviously a gamer. Is this the first time you’ve collaborated with a publisher to promote a game?
BossLogic: A long time ago, probably five years back I did some promotion for Need for Speed (I can’t remember which one it was) but yeah, it was just like a mini campaign but not anything on this scale.
Press Start: How did the collaboration with Ubisoft come about?
BossLogic: Basically they reached out and didn’t tell me what game it was, but just said that we’ve got something big in the works. Obviously, I had to sign an NDA for confidentiality, but as soon as I signed and found out the title, I was on board.
Press Start: How much involvement, did you have in actually putting the artwork together? Did they sort of hand you everything or did you get a big say in what it looked like?
BossLogic: No they gave us the information about the game and me and my team, basically did it from scratch, putting everything together ourselves.
Press Start: There’s a lot going on in the artwork. What does the artwork say to you and could you tell us why you put certain things in there?
BossLogic: My team and I wanted to convey the whole clash, the whole world, in one picture without giving away too much. Like, we wanted to show people the burden in the centre, the clashing within the sides, the coolness, the warmth, all that together.
Press Start: I know you’re a bit of an Assassin’s Creed fan, but what’s your experience with the franchise and what’s your favourite game?
BossLogic: Oh, look, the franchise has changed, like a lot of things in the gaming industry in general but my favorite, hands down, has to be Origins, because I’m a mythology buff and it really inspires me in art. I love Egyptian mythology the most and that took the franchise to a new level for me, and I even created a few pieces of mythology, like right out of that game because I was so inspired by it.
Press Start: Lastly, with your art pieces do you tend to create art based on what’s trending, purely things that you like yourself or a bit of both.
BossLogic: It’s a bit of both, sometimes like you have your days where you’re not feeling so creative, but you’re really just sitting down and something pops up that interests you and that will appeal to people as well. So, I usually ride on that train but it has to be something I like for sure.
Press Start: It must be hugely exciting to be a part of one of the biggest game reveals for 2020?
BossLogic: I’m excited to see it unfold. I didn’t fathom how big it was till now, I’ve got so many interviews to talk about the art which is exciting.
We’ve popped some of BossLogic’s amazing artwork below for you to have a look at: