The Art of War

War is a theme as old as the video game medium itself; leaps in game presentation have typically corresponded to some kind of combat themed game.

In the more than 15 years since the introduction of the first-person shooter genre, and nearly 10 since tactical shooters came on the scene, the progressive immersion in one's environment has represented the cutting edge of these games.

Designers, artists and staff of three shooter developers - Guerrilla Games, which just put out Killzone 2; Gearbox Software, of the Brothers in Arms franchise, and Call of Duty's Infinity Ward - were gracious enough to speak with Kotaku about the increasingly complex set design and art direction of these kinds of combat-based first-person shooters. There's an art to war, after all, and this is theirs.