Dishonored screens show more masks, a freaky looking canine
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Dishonored
από game over » 27 Αύγ 2012, 14:58
Dishonored interview: who do you want to be today?
Based in Lyon, France, Arkane doesn’t have a sprawling work history, but previous releases Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and Arx Fatalis share many traits with Dishonored. At the top of the pile is freedom – freedom to explore, experiment and to express yourself in ways many games say you can’t.
Before speaking with Colantonio we had a chance to play Dishonored’s Lady Boyle mission. The stage embodies the level of freedom Arkane wants to empower players with throughout the game.
So let’s hear from Raf Colantonio, a man who wants Dishonored to ask, ‘Who do you want to be today?’
VG247: Dishonored is a new IP, and that can be a difficult thing to sell can’t it?
Raf Colantonio: Yeah totally. We’re still very excited, but that feeling is unverified because the game is not out yet. It’s almost ready, people love the game so far and hopefully feel that it’s as good as we think it is.
You feel confident in it and Bethesda clearly feels confident in it. Let’s go back to the start though: How strongly did you have to pitch the concept of Dishonored to Bethesda before you started working together?
It was a little bit of a fairy tale because back then Bethesda actually approached us. They had a very precise idea in that they wanted a game similar to what Arkane had done in the past, but done for them. They wanted it to be an assassin game that was also something new.
From there they let us do whatever we wanted and we said, ‘shit yeah, that’s awesome, why haven’t we hooked up before? [laughs].
Arkane does have a lot of great talent though, including Half-Life 2 concept artist Viktor Antonov. How did that pairing come about?
We were working with Valve – even during Dark Messiah – and we had their engine, the Source engine. That’s when we first met Viktor Antonov and we worked on a few creative things over time. He wanted to move back to France, so working with us was sort of a natural move.
Together you have created a strong setting in Dunwall. Why did you decide to focus on the city’s class divide as a core theme?
There is a contrast between the rich and the poor in a context of the plague, disease and oppression under a dictator. So everybody is afraid, and so in the Lady Boyle mission you played earlier, there is a sombre mood, but at the same time it’s meant to be a party.
The atmosphere is very weird – kind of like cynical and sad in a way – and that’s kind of representative of the full game.
Even though there is a class divide, it also feels like a human story. It’s not good versus evil, or as black and white as that. Some of the rich people at the party, you actually felt sorry for. They’re not bad people, they just happen to have more money
Well, some of them are bad people, but the story is that you were the bodyguard of the empress who has become framed for her murder. You are wrongly accused and then sent to jail. The one who did that is the Lord Regent who is the ruler of the country.
The lord has some ties with the aristocrats who are throwing this party, so when you go there, not all of them are bad. The one that you need to kill – Lady Boyle – is actually the mistress of the Lord Regent.
The twist at the end of the Lady Boyle mission – which we won’t spoil – is morally very grey and leaves you feeling a little conflicted. Was that a clear aim, rather than just going for two obvious moral paths?
We’re obsessed with simulation, choice and player’s emotions. I think that nothing is really black and white in the real world, and when you play games it’s a way to travel into a different world and be a different person. You can experience things that you can’t in every day life and so on.
For us, the more immersive we can make it, or the closer you can get to another place where you feel like you’re there – that’s important for us. That’s why we do things that present greys of morality rather than saying, ‘Hey, just go there and shoot everybody.’
That’s another topic altogether isn’t it? – that so many games do approach morality as a straight, two sided issue. Dishonored gives much more freedom than that, even in gameplay and the way you approach Corvo’s objectives. Is that freedom lacking in the industry?
For me as a gamer yes [laughs]. I don’t know, I mean like, I think a lot of people at Arkane do love games that liberate and let you explore and experiment with systems. That’s better than moving down a line and just shooting things that are coming at you.
But that’s OK, and I understand why the industry does that in a way. It’s so hard to make games, and people want to invest their dollars in the things that are the most impactful, and put all of their dollars in special effects – it’s a circus – that’s why people do it.
I understand that, but from a gamer’s perspective it sucks, but it’s cool because sometimes you want to play something like that and just sit there. But at the same time I don’t want to only do that, you know?
Gaming is a powerful medium and you can see that in Dishonored’s artistry and sense of place. If you consider a game to be a blank canvas, do you feel the corridor approach is a waste of that potential?
Yeah I mean we don’t necessarily try to give a message so much, but I definitely want to engage the player’s emotion and let them express themselves. It’s more about the player than us really, and I think players recognise that. I’ve heard a few players say that of our previous game, like ‘to me it felt real, like a place with identification. A very real place.’
That was a really nice feeling that they said that, because it wasn’t a corridor where everything feels fake and you never look behind or explore, or you just keep on moving forward and everyone’s faking it. Those games are a show, you know, but occasionally I like that.
Dishonored does have a sense of place though, like the big environments of our day – City 17 Rapture, and so on. That must have been a difficult feeling to establish. Was the world always the same as it exists now.
No, it was very iterative. The infrastructure and the initial map of the world was done very quickly, and then one the map was done they cut it up so they knew that mission two is here, mission three is there.
Viktor Antonov and the art director were methodical about these things and very structured. But yeah it took forever – mostly the style during pre-production – but even as the game was being made we kept on adding and adding and refining. So yeah, it’s been a long and complex process.
The character Corvo is interesting as well because he has minimal dialogue. Why was that approach important to you in a game where so many people talk?
You know, we could have gone either way. I think in the past we went a different way but this time we wanted to explore how it would be for the player and the character to be one, and removing as much of his personality as possible was the direction we chose.
Even though he doesn’t have a voice, to what extent will we see Corvo develop through the story?
It’s really about what you do – if you want to play lethally or non-lethally, how you use your powers and how you use your equipment. So it’s really more about you, and whenever there is dialogue he says things that are slightly tonal, but it’s very light so there’s a lot of space to project yourself on him.
Non-lethally is important as there’s not a lot of stealth games out there at the moment, especially not as open as this. Is this a genre you’d like to see return in force, and why do you feel it has fallen by the wayside in recent years?
The funny thing is that we do consider that Dishonored is a stealth game because stealth is very important, but it’s not enforced. You could totally play without stealth and that’s important to us because it’s not like you play a mission, and then as soon as you get discovered you fail the mission.
For us the stealth element should be in every game as part of the simulation. If you play like Far Cry 3 or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. you know – any game that gives a sense of simulation – I think stealth should be in their systems.
And that is absolutely your choice, to be stealthy or to be aggressive. Why was this vital to Dishonored’s gameplay?
It all goes back to player expression, morality and to give the player a chance to use their own play style. Replayability is party of it too, and so I think that’s important because a lot of people like to be good when you give them the choice.
Look at the games that don’t give you a choice, the ones that ask you to just kill everyone in a variety of ways. But when you look at the games that give you choice, the fact that there is a possibility not to kill makes killing that little bit more impactful in this case, because you have made the choice to kill. Death has more weight.
So those deaths aren’t necessary
They aren’t necessary, yeah. So if you look at this approach in both ways, whatever you do has a little ore weight.
What player incentives are there for taking a completely passive approach throughout Dishonored?
There are a few things, like the obvious achievement. But there is also the fact that if you don’t kill anyone, or keep kills low, the ending of the game will be brighter.
Can you tell us how many endings there?
There are three main endings and variations of them based on your performance, as this was to reflect the personal choice of the player.
Let’s go back to Dishonored as a new IP. You don’t start something this ambitious and grand without seeing future potential in it. Without prying into the possibility of a Dishonored sequel, what other broad areas of development would you like to explore in future?
Personally I am very happy with the reaction we are getting right now, and if you look at all of the games we have worked on, they are always on the same axis of RPG and FPS. I want to stay somewhere in that area.
Personally I would like to explore more of the RPG side, back to the start of Arkane Studios, but this mix of RPG and FPS is really what I like.
Similar to first-person RPGs like Elder Scrolls?
Yeah Elder Scrolls, I really like that game and the team at Bethesda. I don’t play many games in a year, but I know that whenever there is a Bethesda game that comes out, I’m going to enjoy it.
Based in Lyon, France, Arkane doesn’t have a sprawling work history, but previous releases Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and Arx Fatalis share many traits with Dishonored. At the top of the pile is freedom – freedom to explore, experiment and to express yourself in ways many games say you can’t.
Before speaking with Colantonio we had a chance to play Dishonored’s Lady Boyle mission. The stage embodies the level of freedom Arkane wants to empower players with throughout the game.
So let’s hear from Raf Colantonio, a man who wants Dishonored to ask, ‘Who do you want to be today?’
VG247: Dishonored is a new IP, and that can be a difficult thing to sell can’t it?
Raf Colantonio: Yeah totally. We’re still very excited, but that feeling is unverified because the game is not out yet. It’s almost ready, people love the game so far and hopefully feel that it’s as good as we think it is.
You feel confident in it and Bethesda clearly feels confident in it. Let’s go back to the start though: How strongly did you have to pitch the concept of Dishonored to Bethesda before you started working together?
It was a little bit of a fairy tale because back then Bethesda actually approached us. They had a very precise idea in that they wanted a game similar to what Arkane had done in the past, but done for them. They wanted it to be an assassin game that was also something new.
From there they let us do whatever we wanted and we said, ‘shit yeah, that’s awesome, why haven’t we hooked up before? [laughs].
Arkane does have a lot of great talent though, including Half-Life 2 concept artist Viktor Antonov. How did that pairing come about?
We were working with Valve – even during Dark Messiah – and we had their engine, the Source engine. That’s when we first met Viktor Antonov and we worked on a few creative things over time. He wanted to move back to France, so working with us was sort of a natural move.
Together you have created a strong setting in Dunwall. Why did you decide to focus on the city’s class divide as a core theme?
There is a contrast between the rich and the poor in a context of the plague, disease and oppression under a dictator. So everybody is afraid, and so in the Lady Boyle mission you played earlier, there is a sombre mood, but at the same time it’s meant to be a party.
The atmosphere is very weird – kind of like cynical and sad in a way – and that’s kind of representative of the full game.
Even though there is a class divide, it also feels like a human story. It’s not good versus evil, or as black and white as that. Some of the rich people at the party, you actually felt sorry for. They’re not bad people, they just happen to have more money
Well, some of them are bad people, but the story is that you were the bodyguard of the empress who has become framed for her murder. You are wrongly accused and then sent to jail. The one who did that is the Lord Regent who is the ruler of the country.
The lord has some ties with the aristocrats who are throwing this party, so when you go there, not all of them are bad. The one that you need to kill – Lady Boyle – is actually the mistress of the Lord Regent.
The twist at the end of the Lady Boyle mission – which we won’t spoil – is morally very grey and leaves you feeling a little conflicted. Was that a clear aim, rather than just going for two obvious moral paths?
We’re obsessed with simulation, choice and player’s emotions. I think that nothing is really black and white in the real world, and when you play games it’s a way to travel into a different world and be a different person. You can experience things that you can’t in every day life and so on.
For us, the more immersive we can make it, or the closer you can get to another place where you feel like you’re there – that’s important for us. That’s why we do things that present greys of morality rather than saying, ‘Hey, just go there and shoot everybody.’
That’s another topic altogether isn’t it? – that so many games do approach morality as a straight, two sided issue. Dishonored gives much more freedom than that, even in gameplay and the way you approach Corvo’s objectives. Is that freedom lacking in the industry?
For me as a gamer yes [laughs]. I don’t know, I mean like, I think a lot of people at Arkane do love games that liberate and let you explore and experiment with systems. That’s better than moving down a line and just shooting things that are coming at you.
But that’s OK, and I understand why the industry does that in a way. It’s so hard to make games, and people want to invest their dollars in the things that are the most impactful, and put all of their dollars in special effects – it’s a circus – that’s why people do it.
I understand that, but from a gamer’s perspective it sucks, but it’s cool because sometimes you want to play something like that and just sit there. But at the same time I don’t want to only do that, you know?
Gaming is a powerful medium and you can see that in Dishonored’s artistry and sense of place. If you consider a game to be a blank canvas, do you feel the corridor approach is a waste of that potential?
Yeah I mean we don’t necessarily try to give a message so much, but I definitely want to engage the player’s emotion and let them express themselves. It’s more about the player than us really, and I think players recognise that. I’ve heard a few players say that of our previous game, like ‘to me it felt real, like a place with identification. A very real place.’
That was a really nice feeling that they said that, because it wasn’t a corridor where everything feels fake and you never look behind or explore, or you just keep on moving forward and everyone’s faking it. Those games are a show, you know, but occasionally I like that.
Dishonored does have a sense of place though, like the big environments of our day – City 17 Rapture, and so on. That must have been a difficult feeling to establish. Was the world always the same as it exists now.
No, it was very iterative. The infrastructure and the initial map of the world was done very quickly, and then one the map was done they cut it up so they knew that mission two is here, mission three is there.
Viktor Antonov and the art director were methodical about these things and very structured. But yeah it took forever – mostly the style during pre-production – but even as the game was being made we kept on adding and adding and refining. So yeah, it’s been a long and complex process.
The character Corvo is interesting as well because he has minimal dialogue. Why was that approach important to you in a game where so many people talk?
You know, we could have gone either way. I think in the past we went a different way but this time we wanted to explore how it would be for the player and the character to be one, and removing as much of his personality as possible was the direction we chose.
Even though he doesn’t have a voice, to what extent will we see Corvo develop through the story?
It’s really about what you do – if you want to play lethally or non-lethally, how you use your powers and how you use your equipment. So it’s really more about you, and whenever there is dialogue he says things that are slightly tonal, but it’s very light so there’s a lot of space to project yourself on him.
Non-lethally is important as there’s not a lot of stealth games out there at the moment, especially not as open as this. Is this a genre you’d like to see return in force, and why do you feel it has fallen by the wayside in recent years?
The funny thing is that we do consider that Dishonored is a stealth game because stealth is very important, but it’s not enforced. You could totally play without stealth and that’s important to us because it’s not like you play a mission, and then as soon as you get discovered you fail the mission.
For us the stealth element should be in every game as part of the simulation. If you play like Far Cry 3 or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. you know – any game that gives a sense of simulation – I think stealth should be in their systems.
And that is absolutely your choice, to be stealthy or to be aggressive. Why was this vital to Dishonored’s gameplay?
It all goes back to player expression, morality and to give the player a chance to use their own play style. Replayability is party of it too, and so I think that’s important because a lot of people like to be good when you give them the choice.
Look at the games that don’t give you a choice, the ones that ask you to just kill everyone in a variety of ways. But when you look at the games that give you choice, the fact that there is a possibility not to kill makes killing that little bit more impactful in this case, because you have made the choice to kill. Death has more weight.
So those deaths aren’t necessary
They aren’t necessary, yeah. So if you look at this approach in both ways, whatever you do has a little ore weight.
What player incentives are there for taking a completely passive approach throughout Dishonored?
There are a few things, like the obvious achievement. But there is also the fact that if you don’t kill anyone, or keep kills low, the ending of the game will be brighter.
Can you tell us how many endings there?
There are three main endings and variations of them based on your performance, as this was to reflect the personal choice of the player.
Let’s go back to Dishonored as a new IP. You don’t start something this ambitious and grand without seeing future potential in it. Without prying into the possibility of a Dishonored sequel, what other broad areas of development would you like to explore in future?
Personally I am very happy with the reaction we are getting right now, and if you look at all of the games we have worked on, they are always on the same axis of RPG and FPS. I want to stay somewhere in that area.
Personally I would like to explore more of the RPG side, back to the start of Arkane Studios, but this mix of RPG and FPS is really what I like.
Similar to first-person RPGs like Elder Scrolls?
Yeah Elder Scrolls, I really like that game and the team at Bethesda. I don’t play many games in a year, but I know that whenever there is a Bethesda game that comes out, I’m going to enjoy it.
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game over - Δημοσιευσεις : 1789
από Shepard » 28 Αύγ 2012, 18:34
Bethesda’s Pete Hines: on Dishonored, bugs and apples
Pete Hines, Bethesda’s VP of PR and marketing, speaks to VG247 about squishing bugs, pushing the boundaries of in-game freedom and the publisher’s current hot property, Dishonored.
When I meet with Pete Hines on the last trade day of gamescom, he looks a relaxed and happy man. It’s not difficult to guess why: “Dishonored” has frequently been amongst the most popular answers to the oft asked “highlights of the show?” question, which trade visitors have been posing to one another all week between appointments.
There’s a buzz surrounding Dishonored, which has been fed by the opportunity for members of the press to sit with the first-person stealth title for a full hour without being harried by well-meaning PRs. It seems that when it comes to Dishonored, there’s no need for anyone to ensure that we’re “playing it right” because, on current evidence, it’s very difficult to play it “wrong”.
“So, it’s not Skyrim in so far as going wherever you want and doing whatever you want, but it does have a similar thing where you’re in the demo room and you’re looking around the room and seeing 13 or 14 people approaching the same problem in different ways and just embracing that part of the game,” Hines explains.
“The other thing is that people are excited that someone is doing something different this holiday season and doing something that isn’t part of an existing franchise. That’s not to say that games that are part of a franchise are doing nothing to innovate, but obviously when you’re doing new IP you’re starting from scratch and so it’s an additional benefit to Dishonored to be doing something different; to be a breath of fresh air.”
Breaths of fresh air are surprisingly common at gamescom 2012, making it an altogether gusty show. There’s the expected number of solid and steady sequels and games developed for existing IPs, of course – Bethesda itself is showing off both The Elder Scrolls Online and Doom 3 BFG Edition – but there’s also a bountiful supply of titles based on new properties. Titles such as Dishonored, that will likely spawn their own sequels a short way into the next generation.
Being able to fulfil the role of both publisher and developer puts Bethesda in good stead for the next hardware round. It’s able to leverage huge, existing IPs like Fallout and Elder Scrolls as well as branching out with new properties in partnership with studios both inside and out of its parent company, ZeniMax Media. It’s a role that Hines feels works because Bethesda is realistic about which cap it should be wearing and when.
“I think we’re pretty up front with whomever we work with,” Hines says. “We do want to be involved and they welcome that because they understand that we come from a developer background and there are things that we can bring to bear in terms of usability, functionality, pacing and all of those different things; that we can bring some expertise and insight.
“Ultimately, though, we believe strongly that it’s the people that are making the game that still have to make the game; it’s not like we say, ‘Why don’t you sit in that room and we’ll sit here and shout ideas at you while you implement them all?’ I think that’s how developer-publisher relationships go bad: they think they know how to make the game and are telling the people that are actually making the game what to do.
“With Dishonored, we’ve done a lot of stuff with those guys with internal play-testing and having those guys show the game to other studios for them to provide feedback. All of this is with an eye to saying, ‘Look, we’re just trying to fine tune the things that you’re already doing and point out things that are perhaps not quite as clear as they could be.’
“It’s something that’s useful for developers who have an inkling that something may be a problem but aren’t really sure how big a problem something is: having other people that make games try it out can give a great deal of insight on whether something needs to be changed or not.”
Impassioned gamers
As well as providing feedback, Bethesda is no stranger to receiving it. Primarily this feedback comes from its community, a legion of impassioned gamers who make no bones about telling the developer-cum-publisher what they‘re head over heels in love with (such as the freedom that can be experienced in Bethesda’s ambitious, open-world RPGs) and that which gives them the heebie-jeebies (like the bugs that can be experienced in Bethesda’s ambitious, open-world RPGs).
Hines acknowledges that, sometimes, things happen that shouldn’t and bugs that really should be foreseen and squished, escape undetected: such as the GPU driver incompatibility issues that afflicted the PC version of id Software’s FPS, Rage. However, on other occasions, Hines feels that it’s simply not practical – or even possible – for the team to adopt the Pokémon mentality of catch ‘em all.
“With something like Skyrim there are literally an infinite number of permutations,” Hines ventures. “Or if it’s not literally then it might as well be in terms of the ability to test every possible permutation of every single thing. We do the best we can to try to kick out all the things but there are inevitably going to be things that pop out.
“With Dishonored, it’s not trying to be the scope of Skyrim and is more of a hub and spoke set-up but within that mission there are lots of different ways that you can go through. The funny thing on Dishonored is that we have been looking at bug reports with a view of, ‘Well, is that really a bug or is that just an unintended consequence that we didn’t plan for?’
“So, is it something that’s odd or funny but within the game it’s actually OK and if so we’re just going to leave it alone. That comes from the fact that you can just do so much crazy stuff that we didn’t necessarily plan for, but that still works within the framework of the game.
“Certainly, when you give players freedom they want to explore the boundaries of that freedom, to find out how much they’ve been afforded. I think that’s why games like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout have done very well because the audience does appreciate that freedom, because not every game gives that to them. Sometimes that might involve the player saying, ‘I’m going to set up a thousand apples at the top of this hill and let them roll down, just because I can.’”
It’s this freedom that fans of Bethesda respond to and why a great deal of people are excited by the recurring rumour that Bethesda has acquired the development rights to GSC Game World’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Unsurprisingly, despite his current chirpy mood, Hines is not playing ball when I ask if he can clarify Bethesda’s position on this succulent claim, merely repeating the expected line that the company does not comment on rumours and speculation.
With time running out, I try another tack: in light of the level of interest in the rumour expressed by the press and gaming public, if Bethesda hasn’t acquired the rights to S.T.A.L.K.E.R., would it consider it a missed opportunity?
“I would say that rumour and speculation have rarely, if ever, piqued our interest in doing or not doing something. We have a pretty good idea of where we want to go and what we want to do.”
So, that’s a maybe, then?
PS3, PC and 360 owners can expect Dishonored in October and Doom 3 BFG Edition in November. PC and Mac owners can expect The Elder Scrolls Online next year.
Pete Hines, Bethesda’s VP of PR and marketing, speaks to VG247 about squishing bugs, pushing the boundaries of in-game freedom and the publisher’s current hot property, Dishonored.
When I meet with Pete Hines on the last trade day of gamescom, he looks a relaxed and happy man. It’s not difficult to guess why: “Dishonored” has frequently been amongst the most popular answers to the oft asked “highlights of the show?” question, which trade visitors have been posing to one another all week between appointments.
There’s a buzz surrounding Dishonored, which has been fed by the opportunity for members of the press to sit with the first-person stealth title for a full hour without being harried by well-meaning PRs. It seems that when it comes to Dishonored, there’s no need for anyone to ensure that we’re “playing it right” because, on current evidence, it’s very difficult to play it “wrong”.
“So, it’s not Skyrim in so far as going wherever you want and doing whatever you want, but it does have a similar thing where you’re in the demo room and you’re looking around the room and seeing 13 or 14 people approaching the same problem in different ways and just embracing that part of the game,” Hines explains.
“The other thing is that people are excited that someone is doing something different this holiday season and doing something that isn’t part of an existing franchise. That’s not to say that games that are part of a franchise are doing nothing to innovate, but obviously when you’re doing new IP you’re starting from scratch and so it’s an additional benefit to Dishonored to be doing something different; to be a breath of fresh air.”
Breaths of fresh air are surprisingly common at gamescom 2012, making it an altogether gusty show. There’s the expected number of solid and steady sequels and games developed for existing IPs, of course – Bethesda itself is showing off both The Elder Scrolls Online and Doom 3 BFG Edition – but there’s also a bountiful supply of titles based on new properties. Titles such as Dishonored, that will likely spawn their own sequels a short way into the next generation.
Being able to fulfil the role of both publisher and developer puts Bethesda in good stead for the next hardware round. It’s able to leverage huge, existing IPs like Fallout and Elder Scrolls as well as branching out with new properties in partnership with studios both inside and out of its parent company, ZeniMax Media. It’s a role that Hines feels works because Bethesda is realistic about which cap it should be wearing and when.
“I think we’re pretty up front with whomever we work with,” Hines says. “We do want to be involved and they welcome that because they understand that we come from a developer background and there are things that we can bring to bear in terms of usability, functionality, pacing and all of those different things; that we can bring some expertise and insight.
“Ultimately, though, we believe strongly that it’s the people that are making the game that still have to make the game; it’s not like we say, ‘Why don’t you sit in that room and we’ll sit here and shout ideas at you while you implement them all?’ I think that’s how developer-publisher relationships go bad: they think they know how to make the game and are telling the people that are actually making the game what to do.
“With Dishonored, we’ve done a lot of stuff with those guys with internal play-testing and having those guys show the game to other studios for them to provide feedback. All of this is with an eye to saying, ‘Look, we’re just trying to fine tune the things that you’re already doing and point out things that are perhaps not quite as clear as they could be.’
“It’s something that’s useful for developers who have an inkling that something may be a problem but aren’t really sure how big a problem something is: having other people that make games try it out can give a great deal of insight on whether something needs to be changed or not.”
Impassioned gamers
As well as providing feedback, Bethesda is no stranger to receiving it. Primarily this feedback comes from its community, a legion of impassioned gamers who make no bones about telling the developer-cum-publisher what they‘re head over heels in love with (such as the freedom that can be experienced in Bethesda’s ambitious, open-world RPGs) and that which gives them the heebie-jeebies (like the bugs that can be experienced in Bethesda’s ambitious, open-world RPGs).
Hines acknowledges that, sometimes, things happen that shouldn’t and bugs that really should be foreseen and squished, escape undetected: such as the GPU driver incompatibility issues that afflicted the PC version of id Software’s FPS, Rage. However, on other occasions, Hines feels that it’s simply not practical – or even possible – for the team to adopt the Pokémon mentality of catch ‘em all.
“With something like Skyrim there are literally an infinite number of permutations,” Hines ventures. “Or if it’s not literally then it might as well be in terms of the ability to test every possible permutation of every single thing. We do the best we can to try to kick out all the things but there are inevitably going to be things that pop out.
“With Dishonored, it’s not trying to be the scope of Skyrim and is more of a hub and spoke set-up but within that mission there are lots of different ways that you can go through. The funny thing on Dishonored is that we have been looking at bug reports with a view of, ‘Well, is that really a bug or is that just an unintended consequence that we didn’t plan for?’
“So, is it something that’s odd or funny but within the game it’s actually OK and if so we’re just going to leave it alone. That comes from the fact that you can just do so much crazy stuff that we didn’t necessarily plan for, but that still works within the framework of the game.
“Certainly, when you give players freedom they want to explore the boundaries of that freedom, to find out how much they’ve been afforded. I think that’s why games like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout have done very well because the audience does appreciate that freedom, because not every game gives that to them. Sometimes that might involve the player saying, ‘I’m going to set up a thousand apples at the top of this hill and let them roll down, just because I can.’”
It’s this freedom that fans of Bethesda respond to and why a great deal of people are excited by the recurring rumour that Bethesda has acquired the development rights to GSC Game World’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Unsurprisingly, despite his current chirpy mood, Hines is not playing ball when I ask if he can clarify Bethesda’s position on this succulent claim, merely repeating the expected line that the company does not comment on rumours and speculation.
With time running out, I try another tack: in light of the level of interest in the rumour expressed by the press and gaming public, if Bethesda hasn’t acquired the rights to S.T.A.L.K.E.R., would it consider it a missed opportunity?
“I would say that rumour and speculation have rarely, if ever, piqued our interest in doing or not doing something. We have a pretty good idea of where we want to go and what we want to do.”
So, that’s a maybe, then?
PS3, PC and 360 owners can expect Dishonored in October and Doom 3 BFG Edition in November. PC and Mac owners can expect The Elder Scrolls Online next year.
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Shepard - Moderator
- Δημοσιευσεις : 6860
από game over » 28 Αύγ 2012, 23:02
Dishonored | “Why Stealth Fans Need It!” – What We Know So Far
Stealth fans are being well fed in late 2012. Blockbuster hits such as Hitman: Absolution and Assassin’s Creed III are sure to knock people off their feet, but one game stands above the rest as an incredibly faithful addition to the stealth action genre, whilst simultaneously being one of the most creative and personal experiences you’ll play all year.
Dishonored is a first person action game developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda. It’s not long until release time, and Dishonored has gained a mass of interest due to its diversity and huge scope in player choice. With a wide palette of powers, solutions and techniques at your disposal, Dishonored is shaping up to be a game dictated heavily by the player’s own initiative. If a guns blazing approach tickles your fancy, Dishonored accommodates, and if you enjoy a more silent approach, this game seeks to fit the bill handsomely.
But Dishonored goes deeper than that. You take on the role of Corvo—a bodyguard to the Empress in the city of Dunwall—and after she is killed and you are framed for the murder, Corvo has other ambitions in mind. His goal is vengeance on all of those responsible, and though a revenge story is nothing new, what your revenge entails is very much up to you. This doesn’t mean that your choices are limited to pre-made dialogue trees, but that your own actions within the gameplay will dictate just how bloodthirsty you want Corvo to be (or not). Of course, there will be moments where more direct choices take the stage, choosing whether or not to do a particular side quest may lend you favor in the future, but Dishonored is looking to have an in-built narrative that grows organically with the player throughout the experience. You’ll move from one target to the next, playing as the ultimate, supernatural assassin.
A shadowy figure known as The Outsider grants Corvo a wealth of supernatural abilities and this will be the appeal to most gamers. Powers range from teleportation, speed boosts and healing, but other abilities such as possession, time bend and devouring swarm give Dishonored its own identity. These powers can all be combined one after the other, allowing you to create some truly unique scenarios. Maybe you’ll stop time as an enemy shoots at you, take possession of his body and turn him around to face his own execution, or perhaps you’d like to set a swarm of rats on your foes, it’s all up to you and how you wish to approach the situation.
This level of diversity is shared amongst your enemies also. Standard guards will be easy to slip by, while more specialty enemies such as your primary targets, or the “Overseer Musician”, will require more creative tactics. Speaking with the EU PlayStation Blog, Harvey Smith (Co-Creative Director) had this to say:
“It’s pretty easy to avoid killing a standard guard. You just throw a bottle and when he goes to investigate you sneak by. But it gets much harder for the key target. For example, there’s a mission where you get sent to kill two brothers who are corrupt members of parliaments. You can go straight ahead and kill them – they’re in the bath house – or you can do a side quest for a crime lord. If you do the right things for him he will have them captured, their tongues cut out, their heads shaved and then put to work in their own mines where nobody will know it’s them. It’s poetic justice. It’s dark, but not as dark as killing them. The two approaches are hard in different ways. The game gets very reactive if you just go in guns blazing – it fights back. But, on the other hand, stealth demands patience.”
Stealth fans are being well fed in late 2012. Blockbuster hits such as Hitman: Absolution and Assassin’s Creed III are sure to knock people off their feet, but one game stands above the rest as an incredibly faithful addition to the stealth action genre, whilst simultaneously being one of the most creative and personal experiences you’ll play all year.
Dishonored is a first person action game developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda. It’s not long until release time, and Dishonored has gained a mass of interest due to its diversity and huge scope in player choice. With a wide palette of powers, solutions and techniques at your disposal, Dishonored is shaping up to be a game dictated heavily by the player’s own initiative. If a guns blazing approach tickles your fancy, Dishonored accommodates, and if you enjoy a more silent approach, this game seeks to fit the bill handsomely.
But Dishonored goes deeper than that. You take on the role of Corvo—a bodyguard to the Empress in the city of Dunwall—and after she is killed and you are framed for the murder, Corvo has other ambitions in mind. His goal is vengeance on all of those responsible, and though a revenge story is nothing new, what your revenge entails is very much up to you. This doesn’t mean that your choices are limited to pre-made dialogue trees, but that your own actions within the gameplay will dictate just how bloodthirsty you want Corvo to be (or not). Of course, there will be moments where more direct choices take the stage, choosing whether or not to do a particular side quest may lend you favor in the future, but Dishonored is looking to have an in-built narrative that grows organically with the player throughout the experience. You’ll move from one target to the next, playing as the ultimate, supernatural assassin.
diswindblast 1024x576 Dishonored | Why Stealth Fans Need It! What We Know So Far
Conjure up the wind blast and force your way through!
A shadowy figure known as The Outsider grants Corvo a wealth of supernatural abilities and this will be the appeal to most gamers. Powers range from teleportation, speed boosts and healing, but other abilities such as possession, time bend and devouring swarm give Dishonored its own identity. These powers can all be combined one after the other, allowing you to create some truly unique scenarios. Maybe you’ll stop time as an enemy shoots at you, take possession of his body and turn him around to face his own execution, or perhaps you’d like to set a swarm of rats on your foes, it’s all up to you and how you wish to approach the situation.
This level of diversity is shared amongst your enemies also. Standard guards will be easy to slip by, while more specialty enemies such as your primary targets, or the “Overseer Musician”, will require more creative tactics. Speaking with the EU PlayStation Blog, Harvey Smith (Co-Creative Director) had this to say:
“It’s pretty easy to avoid killing a standard guard. You just throw a bottle and when he goes to investigate you sneak by. But it gets much harder for the key target. For example, there’s a mission where you get sent to kill two brothers who are corrupt members of parliaments. You can go straight ahead and kill them – they’re in the bath house – or you can do a side quest for a crime lord. If you do the right things for him he will have them captured, their tongues cut out, their heads shaved and then put to work in their own mines where nobody will know it’s them. It’s poetic justice. It’s dark, but not as dark as killing them. The two approaches are hard in different ways. The game gets very reactive if you just go in guns blazing – it fights back. But, on the other hand, stealth demands patience.”
Your powers aren’t just for kills, either. They’ll come in handy as you attempt to traverse and explore the multiple pathways within your missions. While Dishonored may look to be an open-world game, it is infact a linear adventure. This linear route allows for a more focused gameplay experience and it certainly won’t hold back any of the game’s scope. As you can tell from the images and video in this article, Dishonored’s scope is quite astonishing despite its lack of a true open world. The presentation is top notch, and Half Life 2 fans will be happy to know that art director, Victor Antonov (designer of City 17), had a hand in crafting Dishonored’s 1850’s London influenced, steampunk environments.
The huge levels offer a lot of eye candy, and there are a multitude of solutions and pathways available to you for any given objective. But these options aren’t born from pre-made scripting, they’re born from simulation. Similar to that of an Elder Scrolls RPG, Dishonored has a living, breathing environment within its levels. NPCs appear to behave very realistically, and there’s a strong sense that this world existed long before the player ever picked up the controller. It is within this simulation that your powers and creativity will come to life. You’ll be able to manipulate and affect the world realistically, and this is where Dishonored’s diversity is forged. You’re not limited by the developer’s imagination—as is so often the case with a lot of games. Many games boast a wealth of scenarios, but these options are limited by how much time and how many ideas could be implemented into the game during development. Thanks to Dishonored’s system of simulation, you have much more room to play.
If powers aren’t your style and you’d like to take a more traditional route, Dishonored will keep the hardcore happy. The core stealth system—detailed in this video—is based on a system of occlusion, line of sight and sound. Rather than a light and shadow based model, Dishonored’s stealth mechanics are driven by a more realistic system. If you’re hidden behind a wall, or out of range of your enemy’s vision, you’ll continue to go unnoticed. Additionally, if you skulk around the environments keeping noise to a minimum, the guards won’t recognize your presence—allowing you to take them out silently, be it lethal or non-lethal. Gamer’s looking for more accurate feedback regarding the enemy’s senses will be happy to know that Dishonored’s “Dark Vision” will show you the vision cone of each enemy in the room using a real-time 3D display. If you’d rather not use this feature, you’re welcome to, and this goes for any of the in-game feedback presented to you via the game’s HUD.
Dishonored is highly anticipated and it’s not hard to see why. An incredibly reactive gaming experience featuring sneaking, stabbing, shooting and detective work, all wrapped up in fantastic art and a high level of technical fidelity, Dishonored is going to be a day-one buy for many stealth action fans. Be sure to check out our review on Dishonored in the coming months!
Dishonored is due for release on October 12th throughout Europe, October 11th for Australia and Spain, and in the US on October 9th!
Stealth fans are being well fed in late 2012. Blockbuster hits such as Hitman: Absolution and Assassin’s Creed III are sure to knock people off their feet, but one game stands above the rest as an incredibly faithful addition to the stealth action genre, whilst simultaneously being one of the most creative and personal experiences you’ll play all year.
Dishonored is a first person action game developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda. It’s not long until release time, and Dishonored has gained a mass of interest due to its diversity and huge scope in player choice. With a wide palette of powers, solutions and techniques at your disposal, Dishonored is shaping up to be a game dictated heavily by the player’s own initiative. If a guns blazing approach tickles your fancy, Dishonored accommodates, and if you enjoy a more silent approach, this game seeks to fit the bill handsomely.
But Dishonored goes deeper than that. You take on the role of Corvo—a bodyguard to the Empress in the city of Dunwall—and after she is killed and you are framed for the murder, Corvo has other ambitions in mind. His goal is vengeance on all of those responsible, and though a revenge story is nothing new, what your revenge entails is very much up to you. This doesn’t mean that your choices are limited to pre-made dialogue trees, but that your own actions within the gameplay will dictate just how bloodthirsty you want Corvo to be (or not). Of course, there will be moments where more direct choices take the stage, choosing whether or not to do a particular side quest may lend you favor in the future, but Dishonored is looking to have an in-built narrative that grows organically with the player throughout the experience. You’ll move from one target to the next, playing as the ultimate, supernatural assassin.
A shadowy figure known as The Outsider grants Corvo a wealth of supernatural abilities and this will be the appeal to most gamers. Powers range from teleportation, speed boosts and healing, but other abilities such as possession, time bend and devouring swarm give Dishonored its own identity. These powers can all be combined one after the other, allowing you to create some truly unique scenarios. Maybe you’ll stop time as an enemy shoots at you, take possession of his body and turn him around to face his own execution, or perhaps you’d like to set a swarm of rats on your foes, it’s all up to you and how you wish to approach the situation.
This level of diversity is shared amongst your enemies also. Standard guards will be easy to slip by, while more specialty enemies such as your primary targets, or the “Overseer Musician”, will require more creative tactics. Speaking with the EU PlayStation Blog, Harvey Smith (Co-Creative Director) had this to say:
“It’s pretty easy to avoid killing a standard guard. You just throw a bottle and when he goes to investigate you sneak by. But it gets much harder for the key target. For example, there’s a mission where you get sent to kill two brothers who are corrupt members of parliaments. You can go straight ahead and kill them – they’re in the bath house – or you can do a side quest for a crime lord. If you do the right things for him he will have them captured, their tongues cut out, their heads shaved and then put to work in their own mines where nobody will know it’s them. It’s poetic justice. It’s dark, but not as dark as killing them. The two approaches are hard in different ways. The game gets very reactive if you just go in guns blazing – it fights back. But, on the other hand, stealth demands patience.”
Stealth fans are being well fed in late 2012. Blockbuster hits such as Hitman: Absolution and Assassin’s Creed III are sure to knock people off their feet, but one game stands above the rest as an incredibly faithful addition to the stealth action genre, whilst simultaneously being one of the most creative and personal experiences you’ll play all year.
Dishonored is a first person action game developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda. It’s not long until release time, and Dishonored has gained a mass of interest due to its diversity and huge scope in player choice. With a wide palette of powers, solutions and techniques at your disposal, Dishonored is shaping up to be a game dictated heavily by the player’s own initiative. If a guns blazing approach tickles your fancy, Dishonored accommodates, and if you enjoy a more silent approach, this game seeks to fit the bill handsomely.
But Dishonored goes deeper than that. You take on the role of Corvo—a bodyguard to the Empress in the city of Dunwall—and after she is killed and you are framed for the murder, Corvo has other ambitions in mind. His goal is vengeance on all of those responsible, and though a revenge story is nothing new, what your revenge entails is very much up to you. This doesn’t mean that your choices are limited to pre-made dialogue trees, but that your own actions within the gameplay will dictate just how bloodthirsty you want Corvo to be (or not). Of course, there will be moments where more direct choices take the stage, choosing whether or not to do a particular side quest may lend you favor in the future, but Dishonored is looking to have an in-built narrative that grows organically with the player throughout the experience. You’ll move from one target to the next, playing as the ultimate, supernatural assassin.
diswindblast 1024x576 Dishonored | Why Stealth Fans Need It! What We Know So Far
Conjure up the wind blast and force your way through!
A shadowy figure known as The Outsider grants Corvo a wealth of supernatural abilities and this will be the appeal to most gamers. Powers range from teleportation, speed boosts and healing, but other abilities such as possession, time bend and devouring swarm give Dishonored its own identity. These powers can all be combined one after the other, allowing you to create some truly unique scenarios. Maybe you’ll stop time as an enemy shoots at you, take possession of his body and turn him around to face his own execution, or perhaps you’d like to set a swarm of rats on your foes, it’s all up to you and how you wish to approach the situation.
This level of diversity is shared amongst your enemies also. Standard guards will be easy to slip by, while more specialty enemies such as your primary targets, or the “Overseer Musician”, will require more creative tactics. Speaking with the EU PlayStation Blog, Harvey Smith (Co-Creative Director) had this to say:
“It’s pretty easy to avoid killing a standard guard. You just throw a bottle and when he goes to investigate you sneak by. But it gets much harder for the key target. For example, there’s a mission where you get sent to kill two brothers who are corrupt members of parliaments. You can go straight ahead and kill them – they’re in the bath house – or you can do a side quest for a crime lord. If you do the right things for him he will have them captured, their tongues cut out, their heads shaved and then put to work in their own mines where nobody will know it’s them. It’s poetic justice. It’s dark, but not as dark as killing them. The two approaches are hard in different ways. The game gets very reactive if you just go in guns blazing – it fights back. But, on the other hand, stealth demands patience.”
Your powers aren’t just for kills, either. They’ll come in handy as you attempt to traverse and explore the multiple pathways within your missions. While Dishonored may look to be an open-world game, it is infact a linear adventure. This linear route allows for a more focused gameplay experience and it certainly won’t hold back any of the game’s scope. As you can tell from the images and video in this article, Dishonored’s scope is quite astonishing despite its lack of a true open world. The presentation is top notch, and Half Life 2 fans will be happy to know that art director, Victor Antonov (designer of City 17), had a hand in crafting Dishonored’s 1850’s London influenced, steampunk environments.
The huge levels offer a lot of eye candy, and there are a multitude of solutions and pathways available to you for any given objective. But these options aren’t born from pre-made scripting, they’re born from simulation. Similar to that of an Elder Scrolls RPG, Dishonored has a living, breathing environment within its levels. NPCs appear to behave very realistically, and there’s a strong sense that this world existed long before the player ever picked up the controller. It is within this simulation that your powers and creativity will come to life. You’ll be able to manipulate and affect the world realistically, and this is where Dishonored’s diversity is forged. You’re not limited by the developer’s imagination—as is so often the case with a lot of games. Many games boast a wealth of scenarios, but these options are limited by how much time and how many ideas could be implemented into the game during development. Thanks to Dishonored’s system of simulation, you have much more room to play.
If powers aren’t your style and you’d like to take a more traditional route, Dishonored will keep the hardcore happy. The core stealth system—detailed in this video—is based on a system of occlusion, line of sight and sound. Rather than a light and shadow based model, Dishonored’s stealth mechanics are driven by a more realistic system. If you’re hidden behind a wall, or out of range of your enemy’s vision, you’ll continue to go unnoticed. Additionally, if you skulk around the environments keeping noise to a minimum, the guards won’t recognize your presence—allowing you to take them out silently, be it lethal or non-lethal. Gamer’s looking for more accurate feedback regarding the enemy’s senses will be happy to know that Dishonored’s “Dark Vision” will show you the vision cone of each enemy in the room using a real-time 3D display. If you’d rather not use this feature, you’re welcome to, and this goes for any of the in-game feedback presented to you via the game’s HUD.
Dishonored is highly anticipated and it’s not hard to see why. An incredibly reactive gaming experience featuring sneaking, stabbing, shooting and detective work, all wrapped up in fantastic art and a high level of technical fidelity, Dishonored is going to be a day-one buy for many stealth action fans. Be sure to check out our review on Dishonored in the coming months!
Dishonored is due for release on October 12th throughout Europe, October 11th for Australia and Spain, and in the US on October 9th!
-
game over - Δημοσιευσεις : 1789
από game over » 30 Αύγ 2012, 13:40
Dishonored: No Marines, No Elves, No Bank Heists
Arkane's Harvey Smith on launching new IP, the rejection of cinematic action, and why Minecraft
Another gameplay demo, another group of happy journalists. The crowded halls of Gamescom aren't always full of smiling faces, but there are always a few pockets of unbridled enthusiasm. This year, Arkane Studios' Dishonored is the game drawing the most goodwill, and I'm sitting in the very best spot to judge its impact: outside the demo room, watching the critics wearily walk-in and then excitedly leave, revitalised by the promise of what Arkane has created.
What that means for its sales is hard to judge. Launching an original and challenging IP so late in the console cycle tends to terrify the very publishers with the resources to make it happen, and Dishonored's deep simulation gameplay is a comfortable step to the side of mainstream tastes. Frankly, it's a hard sell for the increasingly conservative AAA market, but the wave of admiration following E3 and now Gamescom indicates that Arkane and its publisher, Bethesda, have made the right calls - much to co-director Harvey Smith's delight, and relief.
"I remember working at companies where people would tell me that role-playing games don't sell," Smith says, as bright and talkative as one can reasonably expect from someone preparing for a full day of back-to-back interviews. "I once had an executive tell me that first-person games don't sell. It can fly in the face of reality.
"By contrast, look at companies that believe in the creative vision of the people running the project, and you end up with a Fallout 3 or a Skyrim - incredibly deep, incredibly wide, nerdy in a way, but also incredibly popular."
Smith is a true veteran, with experience of both the highs and lows of the games industry. Justifiably admired for his work as lead designer of Deus Ex at Ion Storm Austin, Smith's subsequent career didn't reached those heights again. Deus Ex: Invisible War drew a mixed response from the series' devoted followers, and his three-year tenure as creative director of Midway Austin bore only the compromised shooter Blacksite: Area 51. For someone with such clear ideas about game design, Smith has often struggled to express them.
"We're not just game developers," Smith says, referring to Arkane's Raphael Colantonio, co-director of Dishonored. "We're very specialised in this one type of game, and we've become accustomed to the hardcore people loving it and nobody else paying attention. Dishonored is different, somehow. Deus Ex, for me and the guys that worked in it, was like that. Bioshock was like that for Irrational. It's very gratifying.
"I think you could say that, as developers, we've become a little more sophisticated at staying true to what we want to do, but also communicating to consumers what's special about that. Dishonored's setting, the city of Dunwall, is this alt-Victorian, alt-industrial revolution thing, and there are ways to showcase it that make it appealing. Another thing that helps is we're working with the best art team ever, and the whole game looks like a moving painting. I don't have anything to do with that - that's all Sebastian [Mitton, art director], and all Viktor Antonov [visual design director]."
Indeed, Viktor Antonov's decision to join Dishonored was a minor milestone in creating discussion around the project. While at Valve, Antonov oversaw the creation of Half-Life 2's brilliant City 17, and his arrival at Arkane seemed to offer visual expertise to counterbalance to Smith and Colantonio's laser focus on gameplay systems and level design. Arkane, he recently said, approached development like, "jazz, jamming or rock 'n' roll, where it's small, it's intense, and it's about making revolutions in the media."
Ultimately, Smith believes that the culture Antonov describes is the driving force behind the interest Dishonored has created. In the context of late-cycle console development, when Army of Two: The Devil's Carttel is considered a safer bet than a new idea, standing out can be a far wiser strategy than fitting in.
"You could attribute it to gamer fatigue. How many games have been released now where you're a soldier, or a space marine, or you're surrounded by elves and wizards, or you're robbing a bank in L.A.? I'm still an optimist, and I still have a great time playing games, but the truth is I play two AAA games a year, I probably really enjoy two indie games a year, maybe a couple of mobile games a year, because most stuff is just variations on things we've seen before. If you've been around a while you've seen it over and over and over."
Smith claims that 99 per cent of the industry's output on any given year doesn't hold his interest, from console and PC all the way to indie and mobile games. But a handful of times in each year "something special" emerges: a Skyrim, a Bioshock or a Far Cry 2, games that empower the player and reward experimentation. With Dishonored, Arkane is making a clear play to be 2012's "something special," a game that Smith would happily play even if his name weren't on the back of the box.
"We think about the player experience we want and we go for that - not a cinematic experience, but an interactive experience," he says. "[If] you're following a trail of breadcrumbs left by the designer it's the same experience every time, and two different people will have exactly the same experience. The goal is cinematic action, which is a terrible goal for games. Really, if you're making a game the goal should be improvisation.
"There are many ways to be successful. You could go out and aim for a very mainstream story, make it look like a Hollywood adventure movie, have the best dialogue and voice-acting ever, and the smoothest animations ever, and put this likeable American male in a variety of epic situations - hanging from a train, or whatever - and you can capture an audience that way and be very successful. I mean, I didn't like that particular game, but all of my friends did.
"On the other hand, you can be completely rock 'n' roll about it and say, 'Fuck it, we're gonna do everything different from everyone else. We're driven by this one impulse creatively.' You can be successful, or fail, either of those ways. At a certain point, I came to mistrust formulas, because I've seen so many examples of people failing or succeeding by following a certain blueprint.
"I haven't always been successful with the types of games I want to make...but Bethesda has had great success with following the creative vision of teams. It's the right combination at the right time. It could have turned out every differently."
Experiences like Dishonored, which are built on player agency and emergent gameplay, are notoriously difficult to showcase for the media and the public. The number of available options and complicating factors eliminate the possibility of a clean vertical slice, leaving it to developers like Arkane to pithily convey the broad potential without confusing the audience. It can easily go wrong, and, according to Smith, very often does.
Smith encountered the problem on Deus Ex and its sequel, and Colantonio struggled against it on Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah of Might & Magic. If you're dealing with Rock Paper Shotgun it's clear that the journalist is willing, even eager, to imagine the possibilities, but that isn't true of every publication, and strong word-of-mouth is vital to a game like Dishonored finding success.
"If you show a sequence where somebody is on a motorcycle flying 90mph down the highway, and explosions are going off and helicopters are shooting at them, most of that will be non-interactive. There's not much you can do but keep going down this narrow, linear path, but people respond to that... It gets to your lizard brain."
When discussing their position in relation to the bulk of the industry, designers of Smith's sensibility run the constant risk of sounding like zealots, condemning all games that don't conform to their rigid standards. That, Smith assures me, is not the case here; there's nothing wrong with a good rollercoaster ride, and the industry producing a greater diversity of product will ultimately benefit everyone. But for a few years after the turn of the millennium the "dogmatic" approach of the publishers seemed to favour the cinematic to the exclusion of everything else, and particularly the demanding, reactive games that Smith wanted to make.
Today, things are different: EVE Online is the most emergent MMO on the market, and the only one apart from World of Warcraft to create a thriving subscription business; Minecraft went from indie success to a multi-million, multi-platform behemoth without any assistance from publishers; And Day Z, an obscure mod for an obscure game from a lone developer, became one of the most discussed games in the world.
"My friend Clint Hocking, who worked on Far Cry 2, was worried at a point that we were going to market with these games that are highly interactive, and other people were going to market with games that are highly scripted and cinematic, and wouldn't it be terrible if the scripted games always won out?" Smith says.
"Wouldn't that evolutionarily take the business in a direction that was less healthy... There might be a point of no return.
"But some of the most popular experiences in the world today are multiplayer death-match modes where every entity in the world is a human making decisions. Or Minecraft, where every square foot of the world is interactive. I've watched kids play Minecraft, and I believe Minecraft is The Beatles to the current generation of kids. They don't want the scripted cinematic experience; they want to tear the universe apart block-by-block.
"It turns out that all of those turn-of-the-millennium executives in videogames were wrong."
Arkane's Harvey Smith on launching new IP, the rejection of cinematic action, and why Minecraft
Another gameplay demo, another group of happy journalists. The crowded halls of Gamescom aren't always full of smiling faces, but there are always a few pockets of unbridled enthusiasm. This year, Arkane Studios' Dishonored is the game drawing the most goodwill, and I'm sitting in the very best spot to judge its impact: outside the demo room, watching the critics wearily walk-in and then excitedly leave, revitalised by the promise of what Arkane has created.
What that means for its sales is hard to judge. Launching an original and challenging IP so late in the console cycle tends to terrify the very publishers with the resources to make it happen, and Dishonored's deep simulation gameplay is a comfortable step to the side of mainstream tastes. Frankly, it's a hard sell for the increasingly conservative AAA market, but the wave of admiration following E3 and now Gamescom indicates that Arkane and its publisher, Bethesda, have made the right calls - much to co-director Harvey Smith's delight, and relief.
"I remember working at companies where people would tell me that role-playing games don't sell," Smith says, as bright and talkative as one can reasonably expect from someone preparing for a full day of back-to-back interviews. "I once had an executive tell me that first-person games don't sell. It can fly in the face of reality.
"By contrast, look at companies that believe in the creative vision of the people running the project, and you end up with a Fallout 3 or a Skyrim - incredibly deep, incredibly wide, nerdy in a way, but also incredibly popular."
Smith is a true veteran, with experience of both the highs and lows of the games industry. Justifiably admired for his work as lead designer of Deus Ex at Ion Storm Austin, Smith's subsequent career didn't reached those heights again. Deus Ex: Invisible War drew a mixed response from the series' devoted followers, and his three-year tenure as creative director of Midway Austin bore only the compromised shooter Blacksite: Area 51. For someone with such clear ideas about game design, Smith has often struggled to express them.
"We're not just game developers," Smith says, referring to Arkane's Raphael Colantonio, co-director of Dishonored. "We're very specialised in this one type of game, and we've become accustomed to the hardcore people loving it and nobody else paying attention. Dishonored is different, somehow. Deus Ex, for me and the guys that worked in it, was like that. Bioshock was like that for Irrational. It's very gratifying.
"I think you could say that, as developers, we've become a little more sophisticated at staying true to what we want to do, but also communicating to consumers what's special about that. Dishonored's setting, the city of Dunwall, is this alt-Victorian, alt-industrial revolution thing, and there are ways to showcase it that make it appealing. Another thing that helps is we're working with the best art team ever, and the whole game looks like a moving painting. I don't have anything to do with that - that's all Sebastian [Mitton, art director], and all Viktor Antonov [visual design director]."
Indeed, Viktor Antonov's decision to join Dishonored was a minor milestone in creating discussion around the project. While at Valve, Antonov oversaw the creation of Half-Life 2's brilliant City 17, and his arrival at Arkane seemed to offer visual expertise to counterbalance to Smith and Colantonio's laser focus on gameplay systems and level design. Arkane, he recently said, approached development like, "jazz, jamming or rock 'n' roll, where it's small, it's intense, and it's about making revolutions in the media."
Ultimately, Smith believes that the culture Antonov describes is the driving force behind the interest Dishonored has created. In the context of late-cycle console development, when Army of Two: The Devil's Carttel is considered a safer bet than a new idea, standing out can be a far wiser strategy than fitting in.
"You could attribute it to gamer fatigue. How many games have been released now where you're a soldier, or a space marine, or you're surrounded by elves and wizards, or you're robbing a bank in L.A.? I'm still an optimist, and I still have a great time playing games, but the truth is I play two AAA games a year, I probably really enjoy two indie games a year, maybe a couple of mobile games a year, because most stuff is just variations on things we've seen before. If you've been around a while you've seen it over and over and over."
Smith claims that 99 per cent of the industry's output on any given year doesn't hold his interest, from console and PC all the way to indie and mobile games. But a handful of times in each year "something special" emerges: a Skyrim, a Bioshock or a Far Cry 2, games that empower the player and reward experimentation. With Dishonored, Arkane is making a clear play to be 2012's "something special," a game that Smith would happily play even if his name weren't on the back of the box.
"We think about the player experience we want and we go for that - not a cinematic experience, but an interactive experience," he says. "[If] you're following a trail of breadcrumbs left by the designer it's the same experience every time, and two different people will have exactly the same experience. The goal is cinematic action, which is a terrible goal for games. Really, if you're making a game the goal should be improvisation.
"There are many ways to be successful. You could go out and aim for a very mainstream story, make it look like a Hollywood adventure movie, have the best dialogue and voice-acting ever, and the smoothest animations ever, and put this likeable American male in a variety of epic situations - hanging from a train, or whatever - and you can capture an audience that way and be very successful. I mean, I didn't like that particular game, but all of my friends did.
"On the other hand, you can be completely rock 'n' roll about it and say, 'Fuck it, we're gonna do everything different from everyone else. We're driven by this one impulse creatively.' You can be successful, or fail, either of those ways. At a certain point, I came to mistrust formulas, because I've seen so many examples of people failing or succeeding by following a certain blueprint.
"I haven't always been successful with the types of games I want to make...but Bethesda has had great success with following the creative vision of teams. It's the right combination at the right time. It could have turned out every differently."
Experiences like Dishonored, which are built on player agency and emergent gameplay, are notoriously difficult to showcase for the media and the public. The number of available options and complicating factors eliminate the possibility of a clean vertical slice, leaving it to developers like Arkane to pithily convey the broad potential without confusing the audience. It can easily go wrong, and, according to Smith, very often does.
Smith encountered the problem on Deus Ex and its sequel, and Colantonio struggled against it on Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah of Might & Magic. If you're dealing with Rock Paper Shotgun it's clear that the journalist is willing, even eager, to imagine the possibilities, but that isn't true of every publication, and strong word-of-mouth is vital to a game like Dishonored finding success.
"If you show a sequence where somebody is on a motorcycle flying 90mph down the highway, and explosions are going off and helicopters are shooting at them, most of that will be non-interactive. There's not much you can do but keep going down this narrow, linear path, but people respond to that... It gets to your lizard brain."
When discussing their position in relation to the bulk of the industry, designers of Smith's sensibility run the constant risk of sounding like zealots, condemning all games that don't conform to their rigid standards. That, Smith assures me, is not the case here; there's nothing wrong with a good rollercoaster ride, and the industry producing a greater diversity of product will ultimately benefit everyone. But for a few years after the turn of the millennium the "dogmatic" approach of the publishers seemed to favour the cinematic to the exclusion of everything else, and particularly the demanding, reactive games that Smith wanted to make.
Today, things are different: EVE Online is the most emergent MMO on the market, and the only one apart from World of Warcraft to create a thriving subscription business; Minecraft went from indie success to a multi-million, multi-platform behemoth without any assistance from publishers; And Day Z, an obscure mod for an obscure game from a lone developer, became one of the most discussed games in the world.
"My friend Clint Hocking, who worked on Far Cry 2, was worried at a point that we were going to market with these games that are highly interactive, and other people were going to market with games that are highly scripted and cinematic, and wouldn't it be terrible if the scripted games always won out?" Smith says.
"Wouldn't that evolutionarily take the business in a direction that was less healthy... There might be a point of no return.
"But some of the most popular experiences in the world today are multiplayer death-match modes where every entity in the world is a human making decisions. Or Minecraft, where every square foot of the world is interactive. I've watched kids play Minecraft, and I believe Minecraft is The Beatles to the current generation of kids. They don't want the scripted cinematic experience; they want to tear the universe apart block-by-block.
"It turns out that all of those turn-of-the-millennium executives in videogames were wrong."
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game over - Δημοσιευσεις : 1789
από game over » 01 Σεπ 2012, 15:57
Dishonored Receives iOS Spin-Off
Bethesda Softworks today invites gamers to check out Dishonored Rat Assassin, a free new videogame that has been released for the iPhone and iPod touch. A separate experience from Dishonored, the first-person action videogame under development at Arkane Studios due out in October, Dishonored Rat Assassin will have you sharpening your assassination skills as you help rid Dunwall’s streets of rats, the source of the deadly sickness infecting the city’s citizens.
Players can use a number of supernatural abilities that will be featured in Dishonored to complete your task. Use Bend Time as well as Shadow and Adrenaline Kills as you slice, shoot and spring razor your wayElectronic Theatre Image through twelve fun, fast-paced challenges.
You can download Dishonored Rat Assassin for free for your iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4G, and iPod touch 4 on the Apple iTunes store at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dishonored-rat-assassin/id547109756?mt=8. Dishonored is set for release throughout Europe on 12th October 2012, on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, and Electronic Theatre will bring you a hands-on preview of the videogame very soon.
Bethesda Softworks today invites gamers to check out Dishonored Rat Assassin, a free new videogame that has been released for the iPhone and iPod touch. A separate experience from Dishonored, the first-person action videogame under development at Arkane Studios due out in October, Dishonored Rat Assassin will have you sharpening your assassination skills as you help rid Dunwall’s streets of rats, the source of the deadly sickness infecting the city’s citizens.
Players can use a number of supernatural abilities that will be featured in Dishonored to complete your task. Use Bend Time as well as Shadow and Adrenaline Kills as you slice, shoot and spring razor your wayElectronic Theatre Image through twelve fun, fast-paced challenges.
You can download Dishonored Rat Assassin for free for your iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4G, and iPod touch 4 on the Apple iTunes store at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dishonored-rat-assassin/id547109756?mt=8. Dishonored is set for release throughout Europe on 12th October 2012, on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, and Electronic Theatre will bring you a hands-on preview of the videogame very soon.
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game over - Δημοσιευσεις : 1789
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