It’s one of the ”principal beliefs” at Arkane that you ”shouldn’t protect the player too much”, but instead give them freedom. Dishonored embraces player choice.
”Dishonored is a game where you play this supernatural assassin in this very odd retro-future industrial world and the core stealth combat gameplay is complimented by all these powers that you have, and they layer together really well,” said co-director Harvey Smith.
”It is one of our principal beliefs that you shouldn’t protect the player too much from seeing something awkward. Instead, it’s better to empower the player to do these things in a general purpose kind of way. Not at the right moment or in a particular scripted encounter, and so we don’t pre-plan some of the things that are the most fun in our games.”
Harvey Smith is co-directing Dishonored with Raf Colantonio. Smith worked at Deus Ex’s Ion Storm studio and they count Looking Glass, Ultima Underworld and System Shock among their inspirations. They say having co-creative directors is better for the game.
RPG elements are on the rise in videogames not traditionally thought as ‘compatible’ - what does the Dishonored team think of that?
”Well we believe gamers are, over time, more used to playing games so they become more sophisticated and tastes evolve. It’s like if you are a food connoisseur, you like better and better food with more depth. So there’s no real surprise that games, or at least part of the games, the way they evolve is through more depth,” said Colantonio.
”So you see games like GTA and I think if they keep going this way they are going to be an RPG soon.” Arguably GTA: San Andreas exhibited more RPG like qualities than GTA IV as it let players determine their character’s weight, and had a lot more customisation.
”Hopefully people just keep on deepening the mechanics that are in those games. I think a synthesis is the ultimate experience for both of us,” added Smith.
Dishonored releases on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC at an undisclosed date.
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