“Our external look and feel doesn’t quite represent us as game developers”— a sentiment that has been commonly echoed among employees at Virtuos, despite being a company of avid gamers who have contributed to iconic franchises such as Assassin’s Creed, BioShock, Call of Duty, Final Fantasy, and Horizon. In 2024, Virtuos celebrated its 20th anniversary, making it the perfect time to start on a brand refresh to align its image with its evolving identity and position in the eyes of its talent and clients.
The marketing team at Virtuos chose to handle the brand refresh in-house, wanting it to be a true reflection of our company. We took on the challenge, defining it as a strategic update to visual elements of the company’s brand. Essentially, Virtuos 2.0 in its 20th year in business.
Our purpose
In 2004, Virtuos was founded with the purpose of making games better, together. Gilles Langourieux, CEO of Virtuos, put it this way in an interview with GamesBeat:
“We’re all about working on different games, ensuring that they’re of high quality, and doing this in a collaborative manner. People who align with this are going to have a great time with us. We try to live up to that purpose.”
Our humble beginnings started in art and game asset production. Over 20 years, games got bigger and more complicated, and our services scaled up accordingly to cover art, game development, and engineering. And from a founding team of four, Virtuos has grown into a network of 25 studios with over 4,200 employees worldwide. Our expansion in global footprint and capabilities over 20 years have earned us the privilege of working on over 1,500 of the most ambitious games, including Astro Bot, the highly anticipated Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
With that growth story in mind, the team set out to modernize Virtuos’ visual identity in a way that will be both familiar and appealing to our talent and partners, new and old.
Assessment
We began with an audit of our existing brand assets and collateral, asking ourselves: What are our priorities in this exercise? Which elements should be retained or updated? We also interviewed our CEO; a key benefit of having a founder-CEO is our direct access to insights on the company’s foundational values, history, and goals, ensuring that the essence of Virtuos will be reflected in our refreshed visuals.
We identified three key focus areas, as detailed below.
1. To be gamer focused: Our existing collateral evoked a unified look but needed to be a little more inspiring. Focusing on the gamer—who represents both our employees and clients—as our target audience persona, we pivoted to a more vibrant palette and application of our brand colors.
Artwork from our portfolio and original pieces by our artists were also brought into the spotlight, emphasizing our role as a development partner while recognizing the talent in our team.
2. Flexibility: Just as Virtuos has evolved over 20 years, the games industry has been and continues to be a dynamic environment. We developed a flexible brand system that enables our assets to be easily applied to different events, platforms, and media formats.
The Virtuos logo was intentionally retained as it embodies the brand equity we have built over 20 years. We were particularly inspired by one of our key partners, Sony, which has maintained its iconic logo since 1973. As such, we focused instead on expanding the treatment and application of the Virtuos logo for greater versatility.
3. A cohesive identity: Virtuos is home to 25 studios, some launched as we expanded into new regions, and others integrated into our global network. As we continue to grow, it is particularly important that our collective visual identity is coherent and recognizable, while the individuality of each studio is also respected and celebrated.
Application
The three identified focus areas guided the updates to our key brand collateral: our presentation style, event materials, and website. We prioritized them as they are the most common branded items that our target audiences see and interact with.
1. Presentation style
We revamped our corporate presentation style based on our new brand system, making sure it is versatile and caters to all our needs—whether it’s introducing Virtuos, showcasing our expertise, or talking to aspiring game developers.
2. Event materials
Our event materials, from our event booth designs to pamphlets and swag, have been refreshed to showcase the games we’ve worked on while presenting a reimagined, polished look to our external target audience. In addition to highlighting our portfolio, we now place a stronger emphasis on our global footprint and key achievements, showcasing our scale and ability to take on bigger, more exciting challenges with our clients worldwide.
3. Website
As the main digital signpost of Virtuos, our website went through a major visual overhaul to reflect our identity as a gamer-focused developer. Visitors will now have a much more pleasant experience navigating through our site and exploring our history, work, and life at Virtuos.
20th Anniversary
And how could we end this article without talking about collateral for Virtuos’ 20th anniversary?
To celebrate our 20th anniversary, we created a collection of Virtuos collateral with a unified design, featuring a special logo to mark two decades of making great games.
What’s next?
While our 12-month brand refresh exercise has concluded, our journey doesn’t stop here. The refreshed look captures the excitement we feel for the future of gaming as we continue turning our partners’ visions to reality. We look forward to our next chapter of growth, where we’ll strive in our mission to shape the future of game creation.
