The London Games Festival has concluded, which means a few awards have been handed out from the organization. Among these was the winner of the Virtual Photo Challenge, which returned again this year.
This contest “celebrates the new artistic medium of virtual photography where creators can bring video game design and virtual worlds to life,” according to the LGF website. The contest had three categories: abstract, portrait, and landscape. The overall winning submission came from Joe Meizies, whose shot embodies Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 by placing a lone cowboy against some steppes in the desert. Meizies’ winning work can be seen below.
If you want to see the other great submissions, then you’re in luck — they’re available in a public Google Drive folder from the LGF. Other featured games include Control, Cyberpunk 2077, Horizon Forbidden West, and The Last of Us Part 2, spread across the three different categories.
Photo modes are quite popular in today’s gaming world. The aforementioned Horizon Forbidden West has one, as do Ghostwire: Tokyo and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. Even games that didn’t initially ship with such a mode often see them added later. Elden Ring, for example, doesn’t have a native photo mode, but PC modders created one within days of the Soulsborne game’s launch.
