“Brilliant and original. Did everything better”: Half-Life 2 art director Viktor Antonov dies

Bulgarian artist Viktor Antonov, best known for his work on the cult shooter Half-Life 2 as art director, has passed away. This was reported by his friend and former colleague Marc Laidlaw.

Image Source: Valve

Laidlaw said he didn’t want to spread the word until it was confirmed, but “I learned today that Viktor Antonov, our visionary artistic director on HL2, has died.”

«I have no details. Only sadness. Brilliant and original. Did everything better,” wrote Laidlaw, who was previously listed as a writer for the Half-Life series and worked closely with Antonov.

A screenshot of Laidlaw’s social media post was posted by the LambdaGeneration portal, but due to the peculiarities of publishing stories on Instagram✴ (they are automatically deleted from the feed and profile after 24 hours), it is impossible to verify the authenticity of the image.

Image source: X (LambdaGeneration)

Antonov was born in 1972 in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, and rose to fame for his work on Half-Life 2. The artist left Valve “when [the studio] stopped making big AAA games like Half-Life 2.”

After leaving Valve, Antonov contributed to the art direction of the original Dishonored and Wolfenstein: The New Order, and consulted for the developers of Fallout 4, Dishonored 2, Doom (2016), and Prey.

In recent years, Antonov co-founded the Cypriot studio Eschatology Entertainment, which is developing a hardcore AAA shooter with elements of Dark Souls. At the time of his death, the artist was no more than 53 years old.