When Square Enix asked Fire Without Smoke to help them develop explosive key art for Just Cause 3, working closely with the internal marketing department, we begin to develop a working concept and assembled a suite of assets captured from the game itself. These were laid out and composed to get the imagery finalised for approval.

Taking the 3D models from the game allowed us to upscale, remodel and re-render at extremely high detail. Once all these elements were fully created we set about putting them together into the final artwork. You may recognise the car from our “Firestarter” trailer.

This gave us the scope to create an extremely fine level of detail across the entire composition giving the final pack art both in-store and online standout.

An extremely explosive final result!

After creating the main art for Just Cause 3, Square Enix asked us to work with them again to create a second piece of Key art showcasing Rico’s wingsuit.

We scouted the island of Medici from the shores to the mountain tops and finally settled on the FALCO MAXIME tower complex. The tower’s shape lent itself perfectly to our premise that Rico had ‘fought his way to the top, planted explosives and then dived from the top to escape’.

Using a heavily foreshortened perspective we wanted to create a sense of height making Rico our main focal point. Everything was modelled and textured in 3D at extremely high resolution with explosions, shattered glass and individual detail added later.