Dead End Thrills is a site dedicated to the talent, passion and imagination of the world’s leading videogames. Any games, in fact, featuring art that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the best the entertainment industry can offer. Historically, these extraordinary collective visions have been hard, if not impossible, to appreciate, trapped behind layers of technology and distraction. Developers, marketing people, PR agencies, journalists, players: few have shown the time or desire to strip those layers away.
Applying the principles of real world photography to the virtual worlds of games is just part of the solution. Hacking and tweaking games to remove player model, HUD and restrictions on the camera are others. The toughest, though, is rendering games from throughout the 3D era, from Deus Ex to Crysis 2, at truly uncompromising quality. There is a massive difference between running a game with top-of-the-line antialiasing and quality settings, and running it with those same settings at resolutions far in excess today’s norms, using offline resampling to achieve perfect results. Only recently, and after extensive research, have such methods become possible.
There is no discrimination here. Art is art, whether it’s in Half-Life 2 or Transformers: War For Cybertron. Not all games give it up easily, though, which is why some games take longer than others, or just won’t appear at all. Few developers have ever volunteered the means to shown their games off, and some don’t even have the means available.
Also featured here are highlights of art that isn’t realtime, but rather traditional ink and CG work used for promotion and pre-visualisation. The entertainment industry is slowly coalescing, as are many disciplines of art itself. Though its cover art has some catching up to do, the concept art of games is on a par with that of a Hollywood blockbuster. You’ll find such work here, untouched and at its original resolutions.
It’s worth noting, though, that the site itself is the work of one man. A gamer. That means cars crashing into zombies, and zombies crashing into chicks with massive guns. It means massive guns in the hands of garden gnomes, and garden gnomes in the hands of chicks with massive guns*. It means spaceships and Star Trek; gimps and Mad Max. It means tiny-looking people looking at massive bloody landscapes, occasionally under at least two moons, and sometimes under the sea. As much as Dead End Thrills hopes to save the art of gaming from the technology of gaming, that’s where its mission ends. Whatever you might hear, the culture of gaming needs saving from no one.
* The ratio of guns, chicks and gnomes should not be assumed equal. I’m referring specifically to the gnomes.
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Hi there, I saw your stuff a while back and thought I’d check it out again. Stunning, epicly beatiful pictures as usual, but when i started looking for your older stuff (borderlands, enslaved, mass effect & more), it seems to be gone? Lots of archive posts about pictures but with no pictures in them… Did you (re)move those pics and galleries perhaps? Or am I just missing something here?
Sincerely,
An old fan
I have to agree with Armis, you had so many more images before and it’s impossible to find them now… why is that?
Same! Just discovered you, and christ your shots are gorgeous, but I can’t see old ones. Shame
As a photographer, I must say that your vision and way of capturing is just stunning. I am definitely in love with your pictures, specially the ones with GTA 4. It’s one of my favorite game. There was a time, when I wanted to do stuff liked this, create a short film using in game environment and characters or take pictures but never got that chance to do it but I am glad there is someone out there like you, doing such amazing work.
Thank you for your time and effort put into this, we greatly appreciate your art and talent.
Just impressive. Keep up that!
Hey Duncan.
You should check out the Killing Floor game, there’s a summer event steampunk theme going on.
The artwork and maps are pretty swell, even Unreal 2.5 can still look pretty modern with good art direction.
hi, i saw the awesome pictures you made with gta4 and icenhancer, and is better than real life.
what tools you used to get the images like that?
the only modification in geme you made is icenhancer or you used some other mod?
can you please send to my email the answer, or maybe answer here.
what do you think about the videos of fonias of gta4, is pretty awesome too, i want to know you opinion about them too. just tip fonias on youtube.
We sometimes forget the beauty of video games. We’re all obsessed with new features and changing the way we play the game, we forget how amazingly detailed and beautiful video games can be.
Thank you.
I LOVE your work! Keep it up! Even MOAR Mass Effect please. Oh and, how about doing Dragon Age some day?
Hey Duncan,
As a university student of photography (where critical practice plays a big part of the course) and lover of video games I became fascinated with the idea of photographing virtual worlds and the many philosophical thoughts behind doing so. Whilst researching for a recent project I came across this site in which you have done exactly what I had planned to, but with a far far better execution and I must say I am quite envious. When I showed them in class there was a big discussion raising many questions and opinions about the nature of the images. I was just wondering how you saw your real-time ‘photographs’ and if you ever thought about them in terms of postmodernism (i.e you are in effect taking something which someone else has designed the look of and using it as your own work) or in the sense of no matter how realistic you make the images, they were never actually a physical part of this world…or thoughts along those lines!
Sorry for the long post but this just fascinates me and I’d love to hear other peoples opinions on the subject!
Hey Duncan, firstly thanks for creating such an amazing resource of images, it’s astonishing, and the work you’re producing is beautiful. Just a little heads up, which I’m sure you’re aware of (!) but the ‘print media’ section seems to have gotten borked recently – I’m getting a 404 error when I try to access it via the category menu…
Wow! awdome GTA4 wallapers!
If I give you a map loction – mind creating one of a funny billboard for me?
Awesome shots! But please, name the game title.
Is there any way to contact you?
If not, would it be possible to put your email somewhere?
I really like what you are doing. To me you opened up a new art category that underlines the fact that Video-Games are not that shallow deep inside. I value your work and I think that technology is going to give us really good artists.
On a lighter note : would it be possible for you to make a step-by-step tutorial on how to shoot screens with such high quality ?
Cheers from France.
I absolutely love your video game photography. I can’t tell, though, if I enjoy the shots or your writing skills more. I’m really enjoying everything here. Thank you, and keep up the great work!
Hi there,
fantastic website and amazing work you have published (especially your GTA IV work). I do have a request/wish I’d like to talk to you about, please do let me know how I could get in touch with you.
Thanks and have a great weekend,
–Friend
Any reason why no contact?
Is a response that hard?
Hey, I just found out about you site through Kotaku and I’ve already flipped through most of your site, your stuff looks awesome. Odds are I’ll be building a gaming PC soon and I was just wondering how your rig is set up. Thanks in advance and keep up the good work!
Found your site Via Rockpapershotgun via PCGs Graham Smiths Blog last weekend. Really lovely shots (keep it up). I’d be curious to know what sort of crazy rig you’re using on top of all the game mods.
Hi!
I don’t know i can do this or not, but i have a request. Can you make a Print Media about this image?: http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/5180/hitmanbloodmoney2011073.png
This is a place from the game ‘Hitman – Blood Money’. It is the last map named ‘Requiem’.
Please e-mail me to the given address, and tell me that You or I can do anything to get it somehow.
Thank you!
Truly stunning images! Will be following henceforth, keep it up!
Hello, I’m a follower of your amazing images. I want to write a article about your works in a local gaming community forum (http://bfx.tw/). Would you let me use some of your images in the article? I’ll include their original links in the article.
After reading through the entire back-catalogue (and I am not going to lie, right clicking and saving a fair portion that will end up on a rotation as desktop wallpapers), I felt compelled to just let you know how impressed I am with your work, and how much I appreciate you taking the time to put it up here.
You have one new RSS subscriber!
Following your stuff every couple of days, fairly sure I’ve gone through your back catalogue multiple times.
Just wanted to say thanks, well done, and keep up the good work
Just an awesome web site. I check in every 2 or 3 weeks, and I’m never disappointed. Respect to yourself and the 3D artists.
hey man, great website. i love it. keep it up.
i was wondering if you were ever going to do a collection of deus ex human revolution.
i think that game has the most potential of any other title that came out recently.
unfortunately i won’t be able to play it (for some time at least) and sometime i spend several hours trying to look for good screencaps online.. because i think it is just too beautiful.
well, i hope you decide to do it !
keep it up in general, great stuff.
-jj
Hey D, re-upload your Mass Effect collection sometime!
Hey, your work is awesome!!! I love it! Keep up the good work!! Greetings from Portugal!
Hey, just want to join the choirus. I LOVE your screenshots, SO beautiful and full of touch, life and atmosphere, and crystal clear. In short: Perfect. Especially the Skyrim ones. My favourite is ‘Heat’, the one with the wizard on the the mountain top and the dragon spewing fire on him. Reminds me of Gandalf and the Balrog lol
… I wish I could play Skyrim and have it look like your screenshots… *drools* 
This site is such a treasure, please keep doing what you do, because we (gamers) appreciate it. Thanks!
Just wanted you to know I appreciate what you are doing. I’d love to see some Shadow of the Colossus but whatever you do, keep up the good work. I’ll continue to follow you!
Hi
awesome gallery 
how do you take the screenshots? is there a certain software?
THX for your job dudes
Wonderful job, truly amazing…any way we can offer you support?
nice post!
i cant share this link : https://deadendthrills.com/about
am i doing it wrong ?
21 months ago, I was invited to add some of my screenshots to the Dead End Thrills Flickr pool. I didn’t think much of it then because of the lack of activity. I had forgotten about the pool, until now…
I’m so glad I stumbled upon this. I really, really believe in what you’re doing. Keep up the good work.
Long live the art of gaming!
I like your stuff
But jesus christ its as if gamers are DYING to be vindicated by the mainstream, to be seen as ‘art’. It’s fucking pathetic.
Games can be artistically driven, no one is claiming otherwise. If they are, they’re ignorant. Simple as.
Good work nonetheless, but I am getting sick of this whole argument.
Wow. I’ve been taking screenshots for something like 10 years now but these are really impressive! I can’t wait to see what you do once you get a stereoscopic rig going!
To everyone else out there, TAKE SCREENSHOTS! And maybe even some videos. Once you finish a game, give them a quick view, throw away the blah ones, and save the rest off in a folder somewhere. Viewing those shots again years later is great fun!
Dead End Thrills | About – just great!
I too have been taking screenshots from the games I have played and kept them in a sort of scrapbook of memories over the last decade. Your work is the next level…I’ve spent the past week going through all 46 or so pages of your stuff. I love it. Keep it up!
Awesome! Youv’e taken the concept of a screenshot an squeezed every drop of blood out of it – but in a good way.
I’d love to see what you can do with Battlefield 3! That game has some very powerful and beautiful moments.
Fucking amazing
I enjoyed the tone of your intro, it certainly made me remember just how much the barrier of graphical compromise appears everytime I load up a fresh install of any modern FPS or open world game like Skyrim.
I’m a big fan of Mass Effect so I’ve often wanted to take screen shots of my favourite scenes on the Xbox 360 but I didn’t have the means to capture any of them apart from by using a conventional DSLR camera or investing in an expensive PVR recorder. I never thought taking screen shots classed as art, more of a personal obsession out of seeing those stunning prescreen alpha shots in EDGE, I was under the impression all those were prepared by the game artists themselves and released in drip form during the hype build up.
Your site inspired me to capture high quality images of my own from Skyrim so it looks like I’ll be buying two copies of Mass Effect 3, one to play it on and another for hi res capture. I’ll doubt that I’ll ever afford to purchase such high end gaming hardware you have at your disposal but I’ll have a damn good crack at getting the best out of the hardware I do possess!
Awesome! I enjoyed your photography and it is really beautiful. Keep it up dude! It rocks!
Hey,
I love your Skyrim screenshots they are absolutely amazing!!
I visit your site every day with anticipation of a skyrim new screen shot
It’s like you know exactly what type of shot I am looking for. I especially love the ones you do with the girl in them. Any chance you can tell me what armor the girl is wearing in the shots? There are a couple I am struggling to find and I relly like them.
Perhaps you could mention them in the footnotes where you mention the mods.
Please don’t stop doing skyrim shots. No other screenshot compares to the ones you produce, You Rock!!
It goes without saying, your pieces of art are amazing and you really unleash the artistic direction of those game. I Was wondering however if, so that we could navigate more easily, you could like put a pages button acces at the bottom of the page. Cause I spent like ten minutes trying to recall where was a Mass Effect 2 screenshot that I love, and I found out that it was page thirty something (thanks to the URL).
brilliant images but the site needs more organizing so i can find even more great pictures. any chance of you doing more screenshots of fallout new vegas? its a beautiful game and im surprised not to find more pics of it here.