Marko Djurdjevic is an artist, concept designer and author. He has created Orken, a new dark fantasy project. It’s interesting because artbooks, comic books, and even a game present it.
Djurdjevic is known for his cover work for Marvel Comics, including Thor, Captain America, and other heroes. Doing a search online, the guy has some seriously impressive work; check out his DeviantArt page.
He is now launching Orken; a new world of legendary monsters, archaic figures, and guardians of ancient civilisations. It incorporates myth, geography, cultures, religions and historical memory.
There is a demo version of Orken on Steam. Annoyingly, I have a gaming PC, but it’s only for video editing; I don’t have a controller for it anymore. I really want to check it out.
From the press release we had: Neither civilisation is presented as a faceless fantasy faction. Orken tells the conflict through shifting perspectives on both sides, following soldiers, rulers, families, believers and ordinary people caught within a collision neither culture fully understands. The result is a story about conquest, survival, identity, cultural misunderstanding and the narratives people construct to justify violence.
SIXMOREVODKA, the production company behind Orken, describes the central premise as a “clash of civilisations,” with the visual and tonal shorthand “Princess Mononoke on the set of Apocalypto.” Rather than building toward a conventional good-versus-evil fantasy war, Orken asks what happens when two sophisticated societies meet and both believe the future belongs to them.
I’ve hopefully lined up an interview with Djurdjevic next week to talk to him about Orken. Anything you would like me to ask? You can read more about it on the Official Website.
