Our client wanted this key art to be focused on the biggest update coming to Call of Duty: Warzone & Modern Warfare — the Subway. The original assets we received were an environment shot of the subway from our capture team, and a photo dump from a photoshoot with TacGas.

We began exploring different colour treatments and compositions. The colour treatment that we ultimately landed on is cool blue, to create an atmospheric, murky, cold basement feel.

One of the biggest innovations that came with this key art is this was the first time we built art at full bleed. We have experienced issues in the past with resizing key art to fit the different first party templates used to create digital banners. I solved this issue by developing a system where, moving forward, we build the art out at 16384x5320, 72dpi (4:1). This accommodates the extreme wide ratios that we come across.

Since the new canvas ratio is 4:1, I had to extend the background to fill the extra space on the sides using other screenshots, and painting in other objects.

Once this project was finalized, it was sent to the Motion Graphics team to animate.