Concept art is an interesting avenue to gain insight into a director’s vision for a project. I’m one of those people who loves poring over the concept art and behind-the-scenes footage of a title, usually when I’ve unlocked it in the game itself. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and God of War III are some of the best examples of this type of goodness I’ve yet encountered.

Sometimes the game ends up looking not nearly as cool as its concept art, and then there’s those rare titles which take the concept art and apply all kinds of amazing to it until there’s a living, breathing landscape/character/enemy inhabiting your TV. It’s incredible to think of how many talented people must be involved in turning a conceptual drawing into a 3D object or environment, which possesses realistic colours, textures, animations, physics and effects.

On this inspiring note, a beautiful batch of Dark Souls concept art was released recently. It offers a glimpse at some of the shadow-infused locales and saturnine enemies set to invoke feelings of dread in our hearts when the game launches towards the end of the year.

Take a look at the images below and you should begin to sense your spirit making peace with the fact that Dark Souls is going to be awesome.