Book Review: WipEout Futurism: The Graphic Archives
January 24th 2025
If you are after a book full of gaming nostalgia, WipEout: Futurism: The Graphic Archives might be what you are looking for. This book covers the history of the studio Psygnosis, later named Sony Liverpool, and the WipEout games from 1995 to 2017.
If you have somehow stumbled across this review and are unaware of the WipEout series, they are zero gravity racing games that began on the original PlayStation, popular for their combination of visuals, speed and music. They began at the perfect time during the rave scene that was exploding in 90’s England.
I see the book as a 3 piece combo meal, the written history, the graphic design and the art. It was created by Read-Only Memory and released as a limited edition book. This retail version is published by Thames and Hudson and was released in November 2024. Find out if this book belongs on your shelf here!
Build Quality
The book is a hardcover, which is great as it comes with a good heft of 320 pages. I’m happy to say they binding is solid, I see no issues here and the paper is of good quality too.
The pages inside come in multiple colours, with some nice reflective spreads as seen below for the PlayStation jewel case covers, which is a really nice touch. It makes sense for a book called the Graphic Archives to have extra effort put into the presentation and the print quality is also very good. This was also made with the help of Studio Build, alumni of The Designers Republic, who worked on the graphic design in the WipEout games.
Content
The chapters are split into years, which guide you through the series. The pages largely come under 4 categories; text, graphic design, screenshots or art. There’s no set way for me in which a book should do things, though most books mix these things on each page, but if it feels right, then great and I feel like it works here with this separation.
The text is what you are hit with first in each chapter and these pages are a written history of the studio and series development, including interviews from the development team. It covers a huge amount, including the studios creation, designing the logos, the art, limitations, wins, losses, music and projects that didn’t make it. It really does dive into everything, making for an interesting read that I know many will appreciate.
These pages are very text heavy, with only smaller images included and that would usually be a negative for me, but they pull it off. With the higher page count, you’re not missing out on art and it breaks down what was happening in the time period each chapter is split into.
The next showcase you come across after the history is the graphic design, this is for things like logos, iconography, fonts and more. The book is heavy on this content and is the first in my collection like this. If you have played the games though, you will go through this book and realise how important it was to the series. Whether you realised consciously or subconsciously while playing the WipEout games, the focus here really does showcase this fact. I was always a fan of the designs, which were made with The Designers Republic and became iconic early on. It felt ahead of its time, making it the perfect series for a book like this.
These pages also include images of documents and notes from the developers in places too, little history pieces that preserve the communications behind the scenes and is a thoughtful inclusion.
Batches of pages feature screenshots too and having them come after the written history and art is a nice way to end each chapter.
This is how it is for a good chunk of the book, as the concept art didn’t play a huge factor early on, because as they mention in its text, the art was more for the marketing and magazines early on. But in the later part of the book, you get a great section of development artwork and concepts.
This is not a review of the art itself, but if you are a fan as I am, this is a great pay off at the end of the book. The print quality really shines here as the colours and details jump off the page. They also include art for ideas that were not released too, which is a highlight for me.
I called this a 3 piece combo meal because of how to separates its different aspects. This isn’t a straight ‘Art of’ book, with concepts and bits of texts on each page. There are 3 separate books in here, you could title them ‘The History of’, ‘The Art of’ and ‘The Graphic Design of’. It divides them up in that way, but having them all in one book creates a package you can only call a love letter to the series.
Credits
Not every image is credited with an artists name, but you get smaller text with some details of what the image is of and when it is from. It is very simple, but it works within the context of the book and how it separates images and text.
Use of Space
The use of space here is interesting. A lot of books leave empty space due to terribly thought-out layouts, but this one, like some others, has spaces by design. It could have had less pages if they combined text and images throughout, there’s certainly room to do that, but more so on the graphic design pages, it feels like the large prints with no distractions works. I personally have no problem with it in this case, it’s bold, clean and in keeping with the games graphic design, but additionally because of the last part of this review, price and value.
Value
More pages must mean more money right? If they kept text and art separate, creating additional pages, one would assume they are charging a higher price, but the good news doesn't stop at the content.
I always use Amazon for price checks, to keep it fair and consistent, though prices do change. The UK price was very reasonable when I got the book, which was £32, with a full retail price at £45. In the US it is $60 at full price, a couple dollars more than the UK after conversion, but no big change.
While it is not strictly an 'Art of' book, this does put it in that same price range despite the higher page count, so another win for WipEout Futurism: The Graphic Archives.
Verdict
Finally my verdict then, does the price along with the content make this worth adding to you collection?
You’ve probably already guessed that it does and for 2 reasons;
First, because the value is great. The insights, the graphic design and art in this book is put together with care, presented thoughtfully and priced very reasonably. It makes it an easy recommendation.
The second reason, though this is subjective, is because I’m the target audience. I played these games as a child on PlayStation, as an adult on PS4 and Vita and just in the last couple of years on PS5. I enjoy art, I like good design and I like a book. So I can say as someone this is made for, it stuck the landing. The only thing I would want from it is more, but you can only add so many pages and increase the price so much after all! I think the quantity and quality balance here works great and I hope more books like this get released.
For those interested in the book, you can order it here;
Tags;
Based On: #Wipeout Series: #Wipeout Publisher: #ThamesAndHudson #ReadOnlyMemory
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