Dishonored 2 is arguably our most anticipated gaming sequel this year. The first game’s mix of Thief and mad magic powers proved intensely satisfying and now things look great for the next game due out November 11th. With things looking bright for the developer we sat down with Arkane’s Christophe Carrier, Level Design Director on Dishonored 2, to tell us about himself, the studio, the game, and not playing the Thief reboot.
GameWatcher: Okay, if you could introduce yourself!
Christophe Carrier: I’m Christophe Carrier and I’m Level Design Director at Arkane. I’ve worked on Arx Fatalis, Dark Messiah, Dishonored, Dishonored 2 and a bunch of projects that got cancelled! [we laugh]
GameWatcher: What’s happened in the world of Dishonored since the first game?
Christophe Carrier: It’s fifteen years later. Emily Kaldwin has grown up, Corvo is older, the Plague is gone, and that oppressive layer that was such a part of the first game is no longer there. Well, there is some. In Karnaca [where the second game is set] the ruler the Duke of Serkonos is not a good leader. He doesn’t care about his people, he lets the guards do whatever they want. It’s not a system of oppression like in the first game, but the guards will still shoot people if they feel like it.
And regarding the story it’s a tale of betrayal and revenge, of course!
GameWatcher: So is Karnaca very different from Dunwall?
Christophe Carrier: Yes. Karnaca is less dark, more colourful, and a warmer climate. There’s a mix of architectures there. The visual identity still runs with what we did in Dunwall though so people can see the game and recognise it as Dishonored. Karnaca is different but it has the same flavour.
GameWatcher: Of course you’ve introduced a second playable character this time. How does Emily play compare to Corvo?
Christophe Carrier: I would say Emily’s a little more stealth-orientated, but that’s arguable. She does have powers that would be more useful to stealth players, but you can still play her as violently as you want. For example if you have the ‘Domino’ power which can link enemies together and make them suffer the same fate. You can sleep dart one and they all go to sleep or you can kill one and they all die. With ‘Mesmerize’ you can make guards be mesmerized by an object and you can sneak by them or kill them all. The powers are all useful to both game styles.
GameWatcher: So it’s still totally possible to ghost no-kill anyone?
Christophe Carrier: Of course, and you can ghost with no power use too.
GameWatcher: How do you personally prefer to play Dishonored?
Christophe Carrier: I’ll probably do mostly stealth with no powers except Blink. I love the “no powers” thing because I love games like Thief where stealth was the focus. We all love Thief at Arkane. This is what I like about Dishonored, you can play as a powerful killer or you can kill no one and enjoy it either way. Some of the non-lethal “assassinations” are sometimes just as harsh as death!
GameWatcher: Is it difficult to design these levels knowing that players have access to such a wide range of play styles?
Christophe Carrier: YES! [we laugh] But we get used to it. As we begun Dishonored it was almost panic inducing, with all these powers that can be combined together. There were things we were discovering during development that we didn’t realize it was possible to do! We caught some but not all the possible combinations. Some were coming back as bugs or crashes but instead of cutting them out we thought they’d be cool if we could make them work without causing problems. In general we try to allow the player to do whatever they wanted to do. If it’s not possible to do something we won’t entice the player to do it, and if it’s fun we’ll try to make it possible.
GameWatcher: How wide open are the levels this time compared to the first game?
Christophe Carrier: It’s still not open world as such. The levels are generally a lot bigger and have less loading, for example in the first Dishonored there could be loading screens when entering buildings but now you can go in all the buildings without any loading. The missions are bigger, there’s more verticality so you can actually go on roofs this time, and the game in general should be much longer.
GameWatcher: When designing do you like to cram in as much detail as possible, like little secrets all over the place?
Christophe Carrier: I wouldn’t call them “secrets” as such. We try to put in as much story as we can. We love games like Bioshock where the story’s not told to the player and they instead can find notes or visually experience the story. You can find a room where something happened and the player will create their own story about it, then later they might find some notes that add more detail to that story. They’re not hidden, but you have to pay attention and explore. People who will try to beat the game and go straight to the waypoint markers might not find this kind of thing.
GameWatcher: Is it hard to make the game feel like a real place as well as a gameplay arena?
Christophe Carrier: Yes, for sure. It’s a war between level architecture design and art. At Arkane we have these two departments, “Level Architects” and “Level Designers”, and they work together very closely. They literally sit next to each other. The architects make the world beautiful and as realistic as possible, and not look to game-y or artificial. The designers’ job is to make the level fun to play. Having them work so closely together allows us to have fun gameplay but with credible locations and objects too. In the past designers might pull the game in crazy directions and architects might make things too pretty. You can’t transform a crazy building into something credible, and something super realistic might not be great to play in. There has to be a balance, and I think that’s what we’ve achieved in Dishonored.
GameWatcher: So it’s like a constant battle between the two?
Christophe Carrier: Yes, a friendly battle! They learn from each other as well. At the end of the day they’re not fighting anymore, they agree and will ask each other’s opinions. It’s a collaboration rather than a fight really.
GameWatcher: No arguments between the two?
Christophe Carrier: Yeah, sometimes! But it’s part of the job, right?
GameWatcher: Have you been influenced by the Dishonored YouTube speed runners at all?
Christophe Carrier: Of course! It’s not really playing the game to be honest, but it’s certainly showcasing what you can do with the gameplay mechanics. To us it’s really cool and it taught us that we could do much more in the game than we thought was possible. We brought some of them to Lyon in France [where Arkane is based] to test the game early on. We were amazed by what these guys could do. We wanted to “bullet proof” our mechanics with their help so they could tell us if they were as fun as in the first game and what we could improve. They gave us a lot of good feedback.
GameWatcher: With all the new powers Emily and Corvo have how will the game counter them?
Christophe Carrier: Well the regular guards won’t be able to counter them. There will be other enemies that have powers, like the Witches, and they’ll be able to counter you and attack back with their own. I don’t want to spoil anything else! There will be an entire level where you can’t use your powers and are after a time travel artifact. This is the only power in the level – by using it you can disappear from sight and as it’s a machine it doesn’t use Mana. There are a few time travel related puzzles here and there too. You can even alter the past to change the present, and doing this at one point can basically change the entire level. It’s the same but different!
GameWatcher: Whose idea was it to hire Stephen Russell [the voice of Garrett in the first three Thief games, the series with the biggest influence on Dishonored] as Corvo?
Christophe Carrier: As I said, we’re all big fans of Thief! We’ve worked with Stephen previously on Arx Fatalis and we loved what he did on Thief of course. We think he has a great voice. It was kind of a nostalgia thing too! There are loads of people who have a great voice but Stephen means a lot to us as well.
GameWatcher: Did you play the Thief reboot?
Christophe Carrier: No, I didn’t. The main ones I played were the first two games.
GameWatcher: How has Arkane itself changed since the first Dishonored?
Christophe Carrier: It has become bigger certainly, since we’ve tripled the number of people working for us. We’ve had to face all the difficulties any company faces when it grows. As long as we keep our focus and our values, and we have people to teach any newcomers. When people start to work for us we put them in a room and we teach them what Arkane is, what we love, etc. so that they know we have certain values. I’ve been with Arkane since the beginning and this is what makes us different. We stick with making the games we want to make. I would not like to work in a company where make games I wouldn’t want to play.
It’s difficult to be a big company. The processes are different, there are more producers questioning how things work, iterating is more difficult. It’s like driving a small boat compared to a big ship, you have to better anticipate when you want it to turn. You can’t click your fingers in a big company and decide that everyone is working on one thing, you have to schedule it and clear it with other people. I think we’ve still managed to keep our identity though.
GameWatcher: Has Bethesda been supportive as a publisher?
Christophe Carrier: Yeah! When we sold Arkane to Bethesda if we didn’t feel that they would be a valuable partner we never would have done so. We had previous offers and experience with other publishers, but Bethesda was a developer first. We share the same game design values and so we were confident enough to join them. We’d rather go under and stop making games than sell our soul. We’re a passionate developer, we don’t make games only to earn a living, we make games because we like making them. I think we’ve found the same passion in Bethesda, and they understand what we do. This is rare, really. A lot of publishers ask you to do things but Bethesda don’t, they understood what we were doing and they liked it. I’m not being all “PR” saying that, I really think that. They would never tell us to do things we didn’t want to do, and they were very supportive of Dishonored. I don’t regret selling to them, we have a sane and healthy relationship.
GameWatcher: Good to hear!
Christophe Carrier: This is not something every developer will say, I assure you!
GameWatcher: To wrap up, is Dishonored 2 still on course for this year?
Christophe Carrier: November 11th, yes. Just a few weeks now!
GameWatcher: Indeed! Right, thanks for speaking with us!
Christophe Carrier: Thank you!
Thanks again to Christophe for talking with me about Dishonored 2, and I wish I’d played the preview level called the ‘Clockwork Mansion’ beforehand because I definitely would’ve asked a few questions about how they achieved such a bizarre design! A reminder again that Dishonored 2 is out November 11th, and yes – that’s this year. We can’t wait.
