I'll start .. who's the Elven girl appearing on the box art?
I thought it may be Raven but apparently its not??

Google: 'arcanum box' to see what I'm referring to.

Feel free to add in whatever question or trivias you want to put in!

In 2001 there actually were publishers who haven't felt that boxart requires showing protagonist. I know, today it sounds like blapshemy, but those were the times.

Might be awkward to show the antagonist.

Oddly enough some of my favourite box art features antagonists. Bioshock and Dark Souls for instance.

I meant that as a comment specific to Arcanum. :)

Err why? We get several mentions of the evil one right in Virgil's opening dialogue and at the shrine. Plus he shows up midway through the main quest, perhaps just as you start thinking it's all a load of rubbish.

As for the elf lady, someone on T-A said he remembers some lady posting on Sierra forums ages ago claiming she worked at Sierra and the elf on the cover was based on her. There aren't any pics for comparison. Actually, the mage, the techie and the elf lady can all stand in for the protagonist (there was an orc on the early version, too). And in an RPG with chargen it's much, much better than a catch-all tin can or a default dude.

Sorry, didn't really think that through.

Posted at 3am, that's my excuse.

Um, maybe because of the ending....

SPOILER

....where the "evil one" isn't actually the antagonist? It's the Kerghan, not Arronax, behind everything.

I still fail to see the problem. The face of evil for most of the game is "red hood dude" (mysterious apparition), not "glam rocker dude". While not really evil, Red Hood Dude certainly qualifies as antagonist, and putting him on the cover is neither a spoiler nor a red herring.

I suppose you're right. One does meet him halfway into the game, more or less, if nothing else.

Antagonists make good cover art, too. F.E.A.R. has a fairly iconic cover.

That's quite possible actually. I know a couple of the portraits you can chose/are on characters are based on the staff at Troika at the time (as well some based on famous people). So it is conceivable that they would have used someone as the model for the box art as well.

I thought MackieStingray meant the actual antagonist (Kerghan), not the red herring (Arronax). I only wrote 'spoiler' because it's an important plot twist.

I don't give a flying f*** about what's on the cover. Main antagonists show up on covers all the time. I realize only now I was defending a point no one was making.

Eh, not entirely. I did mean the proper antagonist, but he posed as Arronax fairly effectively in mid-game encounters.
I will say in this regard there's a risk of the cover art being even more boring and generic than it already is if we made the villain on the cover an anonymous figure in a red and gold hood.

Mysterious figure in red hood has been done for this boxart below, albeit there is a 4 years timespan between them..
It does attract curiosity but the Arcanum box is still way better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayal_in_Antara