Meet the father and son that created the look of Guild Wars

There’s a lot going on in Guild Wars 2. The final chunk of Living World Season 3 just launched, and ArenaNet have announced that a second expansion is in the works. It’s all good news for fans of the game, of which many were attracted to the world in the first place with the unique “painterly” presentation. That’s largely due to a style guide that was set by artist Daniel Dociu when he joined ArenaNet in 2003. He left the studio earlier this year to work on Amazon’s gaming initiative, but he left ArenaNet’s art direction in the hands of his son, Horia Dociu. Eurogamer looked into their story and it’s a pretty amazing tale of immigration, vision, and how the face model of Half-Life 2’s Father Grigori wound up dictating the signature look for ArenaNet’s MMO franchise.