The Week in Unbelievably Gorgeous Screenshots

Since running a big, enjoyable feature on Duncan Harris, the “video game photographer” behind the website DeadEndThrills. Harris takes some of the most evocative, compelling video game screenshots I’ve ever seen, and so I thought it would be fun to share some of his work each week here.

https://lastchance.cc/the-man-behind-the-worlds-best-video-game-screenshots-5866739%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

Awesomely, he has also released a new collection of shots formatted expressly for the iPad. Which means: Baller iPad backgrounds for everyone!

Anyhow, let’s go through some new entires, largely focusing on Alice: Madness Returns

“London’s Burning”

Epic shot from Alice here, one of those great long-angle shots. It took me a moment to realize that London is not, in fact, burning.

Tools and tricks: 2160p rendering, antialiasing (FXAA injection w/ texture pre-sharpening), restored UE3 developer commands, noclip, fixed camera, custom FOV.

“Reality Bites”

Very cool one of Alice here, and she does indeed look quite a bit like Wynona.

Tools and tricks: 2160p rendering, antialiasing (FXAA injection w/ texture pre-sharpening), restored UE3 developer commands, noclip, fixed camera, custom FOV.

“Porcelain”

This is interesting, so I’ll just quote Harris directly:

I’m trying something a little different with some of these, in response to what strikes me as either an odd feature or technical flaw in this game’s use of fog. You see it quite a bit in Unreal games, this featureless miasma that sucks contrast and colour from the entire scene where you’d expect it to be more precise. The solution, as much as there is one, is to freeze the game, take a shot, then disable the fog and take another, using a custom keyboard bind to toggle the effect. Then you layer one atop the other in Photoshop and simply lower the fog to about 40 per cent opacity. Tools and tricks: 2160p rendering, antialiasing (FXAA injection w/ texture pre-sharpening), restored UE3 developer commands, noclip, fixed camera, custom FOV.

Poison was the Cure

This one makes me really want to play Alice: Madness Returns. Everything I’ve heard about the game suggests something I won’t really like… but I love the fantasy implied by these screenshots.

Tools and tricks: 2160p rendering, antialiasing (FXAA injection w/ texture pre-sharpening), restored UE3 developer commands, noclip, fixed camera, custom FOV.