To celebrate the second annual Haunting of Verdansk event in Call of Duty® Warzone and Cold War, our team was tasked with creating key art and the roadmap that would feature the exciting content that would be coming with the Halloween update.

We had creative freedom to explore the visual language of this key art. I had done some exploration for the previous Haunting of Verdansk event in 2020, but the overall direction got killed, and the art pivoted. When we received the creative brief, we resurfaced the explorations we did from last year, and the client revived the previously explored direction.

In 2020, Oscar Deleon-Sulecio (AD) led Maddy Wignall (Jr. Designer) and I in previous ideations. We researched and pulled inspiration from 80s and 90s horror film movie posters that fit with the Call of Duty brand, while giving a respectful nod to legendary horror films. This is the direction that was brought back to life for this project. When it came time to further build out the composite, I directed our capture team to capture in-game assets by showing them the WIP composite and requesting specific angles, lighting, and general miscellaneous shots.

My personal goal of this key art was to tell a compelling story that immerses the audience in an engaging narrative that drives users to play the event. By using event-specific teasers and call outs in the art (the destroyed Stadium, Halloween Nuketown, etc.), blue and green hues, heavy noise, and compelling composition, I strived to create a motif of classic horror anchored by the exciting content updates coming to Call of Duty.

Shingo Araki (ACD) provided general feedback, Oscar Deleon-Sulecio (AD) led the ideations and research in 2020, and I finished the leading the creative for this project in 2021.

Mondo provided The Haunting logo, and Treyarch provided Scream renders.