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This image is a product of the creative genius of Patrick Tatopoulos. In this image, Patrick sought to convey a visual design concept for The Wheel of Time. It is important to understand that this image is not intended as a literal portrayal of a scene from any of our video games or the forthcoming Wheel of Time motion picture. Instead, this image is meant to distill a thousand complex words into a single visual moment in order to inspire, advance and guide our creative thinking as to the visual style of our movie and gaming projects.

For over a decade, Patrick’s creative achievements in Production Design and Creature Effects have left a lasting impression in the motion picture industry, with a unique style that is rich, complex and diverse. His growing body of work has a distinct signature that attests to his boundless imagination. Patrick’s signature style is recognizable in such notable feature films as I, Robot, Stargate, Independence Day, Dark City, Underworld, Underworld Evolution, Godzilla, Pitch Black, Silent Hill, Van Helsing, Dracula, Demolition Man, Last Action Hero, Alien vs. Predator, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Live Free or Die Hard, 10,000 B.C. and I Am Legend. Patrick recently directed Sony Pictures Entertainment’s feature film Underworld: Rise of the Lycans.

Patrick uses the following words to describe his design concept for the image:

“Grounded and surrounded by the geological canvas of our past, the story of evolution is told in every aspect of the design: landscape, architecture, costumes, and tools. It is a timeless world. Look in detail, and what appears to be a mountain in the distance, is in fact the layered remains of our past and future architectures. As ancient life is discovered in archeology, our past, present and future is fossilized and layered in the natural world of The Wheel of Time. The land, made of a symbiosis of cultures, religions, and aesthetic from multiple periods, becomes the breeding ground of the societies our characters will either explore or belong to.

Because its roots are a mix of what we know and what has yet to come, this is a world strangely familiar to us, yet strikingly new. This approach allows us the freedom of choosing the blend of aesthetic vocabulary we find to be the most interesting and surprising. It will allow us to create a unique design ethic for The Wheel of Time.

Since the design is anchored in our actual past, present, and future, it will always remain realistic. The dramatic story of The Wheel of Time needs to be supported by coherent and believable visuals, yet the audience will enter worlds never seen before because they are made of all these time periods co-existing in one world. A concept design never before exercised in a motion picture.

The design, however, should not be a patchwork of our past, present, and future but rather the essence of all these periods together.

The design for The Wheel of Time will not be the next level of our future and technologies, as we could imagine it but rather the rethinking of all our histories and worlds in the primeval melting pot of an original society.”