Ico and Shadow of the Colossus were beautiful, moody video games; games with a sense of place, of weird looming silences. Before gamers realized they didn't want games to be art after all, these were the games they thought were art. And now, more than a decade on, you can finally get the legendary box paintings as gorgeous "giclee" prints. They're expensive: $100 or so each.
Cook & Becker, an art dealership, is now selling prints of the paintings that Japanese game director Fumito Ueda did when conceptualizing ICO (2001) and Shadow of the Colossus (2005), limited to 500 copies each. You’ll recognize the painting for ICO if you live in Europe or Japan, as it was used as the game’s cover art—America got something much, much worse.
It takes its cues from the stylings of Italian surrealist painter Giorgio de Chirico, in particular his painting The Nostalgia of the Infinite, with its silhouetted couple, yellow landscape, and towering arches. That print is available unframed for $95.
Looking forward to completing the set when The Last Guardian prints come out in 2028. [via Judson Cowan]
