Interview: Why Dishonored is the thinking man's FPS

[Blacksite]

Dishonored is a new first-person game from Arkane Studios. It's set in a gloomy, atmospheric steampunk world, and sees you using supernatural abilities to assassinate targets. We talked to Ricardo Bare from Arkane about how the game's complex systems and creative gameplay will work.

What's your goal with Dishonored?

We want to put a lot of control and creativity in the player's hands. Those are the games we like to play, so they're the games we want to make. We have guys on the team who worked on Deus Ex, Arx Fatalis, and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, which have those same important values, and we want to bring them into Dishonored.



Games like Deus Ex and BioShock are more than just shooters because they allow you to be creative using different tools. How does Dishonored fit into this sub-genre of first-person games?

You have to have a world that is rich with interactivity, and that is very coherent. Then you have to give the player a good set of tools to allow for deep gameplay. The player has to come into a situation, look at it, make a plan, and say "This is how I'm going to do it." The rules have to operate in a predictable way. These moments can be sublime. Something you're proud of because you thought of it and implemented it, and it worked within the game's systems. That's what we want you to feel.

There are a lot of systems in the game that smart players can use to their advantage. Can you give us any examples of this that you've experienced during development?

We have lots of powers, gadgets, and spaces, so there's a lot for the player to do. The first time we saw someone jump off of a huge building and possess someone right before they hit the ground, we were like 'that is awesome'. No one had thought of that before. Or the first time someone used double jump and the blink ability to totally bypass a security system, we were like 'there went 30 minutes of gameplay in like 2 minutes', but the player doing that is gonna feel proud they did it, so we don't wanna shut that exploit down. We want the player to be able to express themselves through the gameplay.



We loved the part where we possessed a fish. Was possession always a planned feature from the start?

Possession has always been a part of the game, but we started with people. But it eventually grew, and we decided that everything should be possessable. The programmers were like, "Uh, are you sure about that?", and it's been a challenge to get it all working, but we think we've done a good job.

In games you're sometimes offered the chance to either be stealthy, or gun your way through enemies. A lot of the time you feel bottle-necked and forced into either one. How are you balancing this choice in Dishonored?

There's a lot of stealth in the game. You can play stealthy, but if you mess it up, we don't consider it a fail. When you get caught and the guards are alerted, that's just another game state that's fun. It's not that we're now punishing you; it's just giving you another type of gameplay to have fun with. Some players will elect to just say 'well, I got busted so I'm gonna murder everyone', but others will want to figure out how to escape.

If a player gets busted, they can throw down a rat swarm, which will crawl all over the guards. Then they can possess one of their own rats that they've just summoned and scurry away. So that's a good way for the stealthy guy to get back into a stealth state if that's what he wants to do. We're trying to make sure that it's viable and super fun to play both ways. It comes down to taste. You play the way you want to play, and that's gonna influence how you tackle your objectives.

You were originally sharing a release slot with BioShock Infinite, but now that's been delayed. Is that a relief?

Oh yeah, that was awesome news. We know a lot of the guys working on that game, and we wish them the best of luck, but the holiday season is super crowded, so any time one of the big guys drops out, it makes things a little easier for us.



The art style is beautiful, but not 'obvious' in a commercial sense. Why did you go in this direction?

It's definitely not photorealistic. Our art team put a lot of work into giving the visuals a painterly look, and I think it's one of the things that makes Dishonored stand out.

There were a lot of sequels at E3 this year, and a lot of people are getting a feeling of fatigue with all the military and sci-fi shooters. The reaction to Watch Dogs proved people were thirsty for new IPs, of which Dishonored is one. How are you selling the game to people?

First of all, this is a game about a supernatural assassin that puts tons of options, tools, and powers in the player's hands to use creatively. Secondly, it takes place in a really unique world, which we have spent over three years creating from scratch. We've put lots of blood and lots of work into it, and we really hope everyone else loves it as much as we do.

Source

It sounds like a fun game.

[SchaffinOSX]

I'm starting to warm up to this game. What I really want to see, though, is some consecutive gameplay. We've seen a lot of bits and pieces, but that's about it.

[itachi73378]

Why is it called an "FPS" when its not a shooter?!

[Fenix]

I'm starting to warm up to this game. What I really want to see, though, is some consecutive gameplay. We've seen a lot of bits and pieces, but that's about it.

Same, I'm really liking what I see but its its really hard to judge when you get a few second gameplay clip then it jumps to a completely different one.

[HellsJester]

I'm starting to warm up to this game. What I really want to see, though, is some consecutive gameplay. We've seen a lot of bits and pieces, but that's about it.

Same, I'm really liking what I see but its its really hard to judge when you get a few second gameplay clip then it jumps to a completely different one.

This help?