Territory & Environment
Overall identity, environmental contrast, biome hierarchy, landmarks, regional differentiation, composition and player-facing visual readability.
Case study · AAA Art Direction
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
Wrath of the Druids
Full visual leadership of the expansion at Ubisoft Bordeaux—from the initial art-direction framework to daily on-floor direction across every art discipline, final implementation, and the worldwide marketing key art developed with Ubisoft Montreal.
The mandate
Own the visual identity from concept to campaign.
My responsibility was not limited to environment supervision or final visual approval. I owned the artistic direction of the expansion as a whole: defining the identity of Ireland, translating that identity into executable direction for each department, directing the art team daily on the production floor, aligning priorities with production, working daily with Graphic Technical Director Philippe Trarieux “Bob” to translate the vision into the game engine, and protecting the direction through final delivery.
The central challenge was to create a territory that felt immediately new and memorable while remaining fully credible inside Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Every discipline had to contribute to the same world: landscape, architecture, materials, characters, lighting, atmosphere, VFX, technical solutions and marketing representation.
Confidentiality
Internal art-direction decks, benchmarks, review packs, production notes, paintovers and iteration documents remain confidential and are not displayed. This page describes their function, the leadership process and the public result without reproducing proprietary material.
Art-direction scope
A unified vision across every department.
I converted the creative ambition into a shared visual system, then adapted the direction to the language, constraints and decisions of each discipline.
Architecture & Materials
Historical coherence, settlement language, structural families, material contrast, surface vocabulary and consistency between buildings and landscape.
Characters & Factions
Character identity, silhouette, cultural readability, iteration reviews, visual hierarchy and alignment between narrative intent and final design.
Lighting & VFX
Mood, time-of-day identity, visual focus, weather, ritual atmosphere, supernatural restraint and clarity during gameplay and cinematics.
Level, Terrain & Technical Art
Artistic intent translated into playable locations, terrain structure, asset reuse, technical constraints, performance considerations and scalable solutions.
Direction Documents & Reviews
Department-specific direction packs, references, benchmarks, paintovers, comparisons, briefs and daily review material used to turn intent into actionable decisions.
Leadership & core partnerships
The team I directed—and the partners who helped make the vision executable.
The artists and leads listed below were under my direct artistic direction during production. I worked with them in person on the floor through daily reviews, visual feedback, problem-solving, milestone preparation and final validation. Alongside this direct leadership, Philippe Trarieux “Bob” was my daily technical partner, helping translate the artistic direction into robust in-engine implementation.
Direct Art Team
Lead ArtistAlexandre Lutz
Concept ArtArnaud Kleindienst, Lucas Leger
Level ArtCorentin Marquet, Nicolas Gorszczyk, Natanael Millet, Raphael Thiessard, Anthony Lemetayer, Jerome Rajcek, Quentin Donnaint, Cristel Mrowka
Lighting ArtLaurent Harduin, Ines Helmer
Technical ArtJoao Pereira Lemos Costa, Gery Arduino
Terrain ArtRobert Farrand
VFX ArtHugo Marouzé, Anaïs Riff
Material ArtLudovic Petiot
Core Production & Technical Partnerships
Graphic Technical DirectorPhilippe Trarieux “Bob” — daily partner for translating the artistic vision into the game engine and helping establish practical technical solutions for implementation.
ProductionOlivia Forni, Nicolas Freeman
Working modelContinuous collaboration on artistic intent, engine implementation, technical feasibility, priorities, dependencies, milestones, quality targets and delivery risk.
Art / Production balanceProtect the artistic ambition while ensuring that decisions remained executable within schedule, technology and resource constraints.
Leadership outcomeA common visual target shared across departments rather than a collection of independently successful assets.
Art direction was delivered through direct human leadership: sitting with artists, reviewing their work in context, clarifying the intention, making decisions and helping teams solve the visual problem without taking ownership away from them.
Public shipped work
The visible result of a shared direction.
These public images demonstrate different parts of the finished visual identity. They are team-produced work shown here as evidence of the direction, not as claims of individual asset authorship.
Marketing Art Direction
Extending the game’s identity into a global campaign.
I completely directed the final marketing visuals in direct collaboration with the Ubisoft Montreal team. My role was to ensure that the campaign did not become a generic fantasy image, but remained a concentrated, immediately readable expression of the expansion’s actual visual identity.
I guided the composition, character staging, environment, monumentality, atmosphere, lighting, narrative clarity, visual hierarchy and the controlled suggestion of the supernatural. I then supervised the adaptation of the final composition across landscape, square and vertical formats.
PlaceMake Ireland visually present through landscape, vegetation, moisture, scale and color.
ThreatCommunicate the Children of Danu as a ritual and cultural danger, not generic enemies.
MonumentalityUse ancient structures and environmental scale to imply history, mystery and weight.
RestraintTease the fantastic without explaining or revealing everything in a single image.
Project credits
A collaborative production under a unified art direction.
Final assets were created collaboratively. The credits below distinguish overall art direction, direct departmental leadership and production partnership.
Art Direction
David Pellet
Cinematic Director
Olivier Fleurette
Lead Artist
Alexandre Lutz
Concept Art
Arnaud Kleindienst, Lucas Leger
Level Art
Corentin Marquet, Nicolas Gorszczyk, Natanael Millet, Raphael Thiessard, Anthony Lemetayer, Jerome Rajcek, Quentin Donnaint, Cristel Mrowka
Lighting Art
Laurent Harduin, Ines Helmer
Technical Art
Joao Pereira Lemos Costa, Gery Arduino
Terrain Art
Robert Farrand
VFX Art
Hugo Marouzé, Anaïs Riff
Material Art
Ludovic Petiot
Graphic Technical Director
Philippe Trarieux “Bob” — David Pellet’s daily technical partner for in-engine implementation of the art direction.
Production
Olivia Forni, Nicolas Freeman
Marketing Collaboration
Ubisoft Montreal team — final key-art production under David Pellet’s direct visual supervision.