Hand-Drawn Pre-Owned God of War Cover Is as Beautiful as It Is Informative

When people sell a used game to a local used game merchant, sometimes they can only supply the cartridge or disc for whatever reason. When that happens, the merchant must whip up a cover of their own.

Sometimes the orphaned game is outfitted with a plain cover that offers the bare basics in text only: A game name, the system it works on, and a price. And sometimes the game receives a custom cover that divulges the nature of the game within—as we see with this cover for a used copy of God of War.

This cover (which is made from a repurposed Disney Wii game cover) isn't only beautiful, it's also a triumph of game marketing. It identifies the game's most important characters (Kratos and The Boy™), and the PlayStation logo scribbled in the corner gives it that necessary touch that lets you know it's a PlayStation 4 exclusive. There's even a back-of-the-box quote that I admit surpasses anything we wrote about the game: "It's the new one everyone likes a lot."

Santa Monica Studio was impressed with the craftsmanship of the custom box art and offered to send the proud new owner an original copy of the game. It's a very nice gesture, even if the box art for the real deal seems drab now that the bar's been raised sky-high.

By the way, our God of War guide tells you everything you need to know about conquering the game. Tutorials on drawing custom box art are pending.