Dishonored - Preview @ Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Pondering Dishonored with Raf Colantonio is a preview at Rock, Paper, Shotgun with input from Arkane's co-lead. Topics covered include some corrections to first impressions (not really "Thief with a knife"), whether the character is overpowered, designing the powers and more:

Fresh from my experiences with infiltrating the aristocratic household, and having played with some of the possibilities, I suggested to Colantonio that for him as a designer, there must be deep rewards inherent in watching players learn and master the systems he imagined: “Yes. For us the satisfaction is to see players do things that we have never seen before. We are still seeing that now. In fact I just saw something like that a few moments ago out there [in the GamesCom press booth where journalists are playing the game] and I was like “okay, wow.”" He continued: “This was one of the objectives of the project: to engage player creativity, to allow them to develop their own play style. When we see that happening for real, it feels really good.”
The consequence of this overall approach is that Dishonored is not as predictable as so many other games seems to be, and this seems to extend to the fiction and the level design. I felt that one of the more stinging criticisms of Dishonored cyberpunk cousin, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, was that the level design was too contrived, too predictable: there was always an alternate route through air ducts, behind those boxes. Was this something that Arkane worried about? “Yes, totally,” says Colantonio. “I mean we didn’t want to be too formulaic, we want to make sure that we broke the pattern. We’ve shown three different demos so far, and each one of these has a very different feel. They’re not the same kind of mission, sometimes it’s an abduction, sometimes you don’t know who the target is.” And you can see this in the environments that the team are creating: while each one is a small, self-contained videogame level, there are secrets, and there are asides. Things that might happen, or could be ignored. Colantonio stresses again: “We want to break up the patterns.”

More information.

Well worth reading, even if you're not interested in the game itself. Check this out:

But also something older, too, more classically videogamey: secrets for their own sake. Hidden caches, sliding doors, characters that don’t have to be talked to in order to push the story along. It’s a beautiful thing.

I love stuff like this. I don't recall any games doing this recently, and not that many ever, for that matter.

To be released on the same day as X-Com in North America. That's unfortunate.

This is clearly the kind of experience that's best when not knowing a lot about it beforehand. So, I'm staying FAR away from these previews.

Originally Posted by screeg
I love stuff like this. I don't recall any games doing this recently, and not that many ever, for that matter.

I agree. One of the greatest moments in playing Commander Keen was to find out that it actually had secret tunnels !
And sometimes you didn't even know where they led to !

Well, I've read it through. and I must agree . In this "Age Of shooters", this game is an uncertainty. But wasn't that Skyrim as well in a way ?

Dishonored arrives october 9th in North America and October 12th in Europe.

I'll never understand why there has to be such a gap. Vice versa as well.

And another thing that just came to my mind : "They have made/used the theme of revenge as an excuse to give the player a reason to kill people within this game. Once again."

The one thing that led Thief stand out of other games was NOT to kill people … And I think that no-ne has tried it ever since.

If I didn't know that there was a non-violent (well, more or less) path planned for Dishonoured as well, then it'd say : "And Dishonoured fails to recall this piece of gameplay as well."

What would be Hitman requiring to do escort misions ? People must survive or the level is failed ?