Dishonored

Bethesda’s next game is a first-person stealth/action adventure, and we’ve got the first look at it in our upcoming August issue. There are dozens of reasons why you should care about this weird-looking game you've never heard of. A few of the most important ones are after the jump.

Arkane Studios and founder Raf Colantonio have made memorable games in the past (Arx Fatalis, Dark Messiah of Might & Magic) that ultimately suffered from a lack of publisher support. Bethesda Softworks believes in their vision and is giving them all the time, money, and development help (regular meetings with guys like The Elder Scrolls' Todd Howard don't make your game worse) they need. Harvey Smith, one of the main minds behind the first two Deus Ex games and a legendary veteran of game development, shares the vision and is on board as Dishonored's co-creative director along with Colantonio. Viktor Antonov designed Half-Life 2's iconic City 17 and is lending his talents to Dishonored's world. This is a perfect storm for creating a game that shatters the mold that first-person action games have built for themselves in the mainstream.

We've seen the game running, and now we share Colantonio and Smith's vision too. Dishonored is the antithesis of a edge-of-your-seat roller-coaster ride. It's a game about assassination where you don't have to kill anyone. It's a game about infiltration where you can set up traps and slaughter the entire garrison of an aristocrat's mansion rather than sneak in. It's a game about brutal violence where you can slip in and out of a fortified barracks with nobody ever knowing you were there. It's a game about morality and player choice where the world you create is based on your actions, not navigating conversation trees.

Dishonored is a game we can't wait to tell you more about.

On top of a world-exclusive look at a brand-new franchise, August is our E3 issue. We stormed the concrete crucible of the Los Angeles Convention Center and returned with previews of our top 50 games of the show, plus analysis of the major press conferences and new hardware.

As always, we have a solid month of exclusive online content lined up to complement the extensive feature in our print magazine. Come on back on Monday for your first taste of what it means to be Dishonored.

Until then, check out the gorgeous high-res cover from Arkane Studios and Viktor Antonov:

Wrapping your brain around a new Halo or Mass Effect is easy enough. Understanding a new franchise like Dishonored is a little harder, and our cryptic cover probably didn’t help much. Read on to get a sense of what this stealth/action adventure from Arkane and Bethesda is about – and to see the first screenshot of the game.

(click the pic to enlarge the screenshot to full resolution)

Who are you?
Players take on the role of Corvo, the Empress’ legendary bodyguard. As the game starts, Corvo is falsely imprisoned for her murder. What the corrupt Lord Regent behind the coup didn’t realize is that Corvo is legendary for a reason. He’s not only a skilled combatant accomplished in the art of not being seen, but Corvo has a suite of supernatural powers that combine with his natural talents and unusual gadgets to make him one of the most lethal men in the known world.

Why should you care?
Even if you haven’t played them, you’ve undoubtedly heard of Thief and Deus Ex. One of the main minds behind those two games, Harvey Smith, is the co-creative director of Dishonored along with Raf Colantonio, the founder of developer Arkane Studios. The two share a vision of a game that gives players the power to be creative with their skills and tactics, and invites them to come up with interesting solutions to the obstacles in front of them. Arkane is known for its immersive first-person gaming (Arx Fatalis, Dark Messiah of Might & Magic), and the power of a talent-driven publisher in Bethesda (The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fallout 3) behind the team is promising.

How are they going to do that?
Dishonored has several major elements that combine to create its unique gameplay: mobility, powers & gadgets, environment, and AI. The trick is that a single power doesn’t just do damage or heal you. You can combine them organically to create interesting effects. Stop time and knock a bunch of stuff off a table in one direction then book it in another, so the guards search for you in the wrong place. Summon a swarm of rats to attack one guard, but possess one of the rats and escape in the chaos. Every problem has as many solutions as you want it to.

What’s the catch?
It’s an assassination game that reacts to how violent you are. An unusual “chaos” system tracks how much collateral damage you cause, and the game world changes as a result of your actions. Unlike a light/dark side meter, though, it’s a behind-the-scenes element that affects story decisions without punishing the player or pushing them to play one way or another.

When can I learn more?
Soon! You can get ten pages worth of details in the print magazine, and we’ll be dropping new online content, from video interviews to an interactive map of Dishonored’s world, throughout the month. We asked a lot of questions, and Smith and Colantonio had a lot to say. For starters, on Wednesday we’ll share a video that breaks down why you should be interested in the team at Arkane even if you haven’t played any of their previous games.

Dishonored tells the story of one man's quest for revenge in an otherworldly industrialized city. While touch-points recall elements of our real world, Dishonored is actually set in a startling and dangerous land quite different from our own.

Though the game is primarily set within the boundaries of a single city, the folks at Arkane Studios feel that there needs to be a depth and authenticity to the game world that can only be provided by creating a complete fiction beyond the borders of that city.

Our interactive map shows the breadth of that vision, detailing elements of the surrounding world from geography and science to religion and industry. Click on the image below to begin your exploration.

With Sebastien Mitton serving as the art director and Viktor Antonov plotting the course as visual design director, Dishonored is taking bold artistic steps to ensure that the city of Dunwall and its inhabitants will leave a lasting impression on players. Everything from the vehicles to the animals are being built from scratch under the watchful eye of fifteen-year industry veteran Viktor Antonov. Watch the video to learn the process of bringing the world of Dishonored to life and how Viktor's past as an industrial designer has helped shape the look of the game.

Find out how many ways you can approach a single encounter in our interactive narrative game based on Arkane's new project.

One of the most surprising and exciting things about Dishonored is the focus on simulation and choice that pervades nearly every element of the game. Any given situation can be approached from a number of different directions. Outright force, mobility, stealth, supernatural powers, gear, trickery, distraction, and more options are presented to the player. Every option can dramatically alter the outcome.

During our visit to Arkane Studios, we had the opportunity to see several early glimpses of the game in action. While a longer gameplay story demo offered an extended look at the game, we were also shown a shorter test area of the game used by the team to try out new ideas.

The encounter – a large room filled with guards – could be tackled from dozens of angles. We asked the developers to show us the short demo encounter repeatedly, and we ended up watching over 30 unique approaches to the battle – some of which skipped the battle altogether.

We've synthesized our time with the demo into a short narrative game. While the scenes in the story are pieced together from the many playthoughs we witnessed, every individual event or choice described is a real option already implemented into the early version of the game. In actuality, we've eliminated a number of the choices for the sake of brevity.

Click on the link below to choose your path through Dishonored. When you're done, simply choose another path to see the demo from a new perspective. Have fun!

With the concept of a morality system becoming more and more commonplace in gaming, Game Informer's Adam Biessener sat down with Dishonored's co-creative directors Raf Colantonio and Harvey Smith to get a better understanding of the team's approach. The conversation flows from the specifics of Dishonored's chaos system to their thoughts about what works and doesn't work in the implementation of morality systems in other games. The video below is the first half of the conversation, click here to see the second half. Enjoy.

Continuing the discussion from part one, which focused on the morality system of Dishonored, Game Informer's Adam Biessener talks with co-creative directors Harvey Smith and Raf Colantonio about their emphasis on player choice. They discuss the power of player feedback in games and how Arx Fatalis was forever changed with the addition of a troll's birthday. Watch the video to better understand the world of choice within Dishonored.

Stealth games aren't easy to pitch. Harvey Smith and Raf Colantonio have spent decades studying and crafting a specific type of game, but they have also spent decades trying to convince publishers that there is an audience for immersive first-person games with RPG elements. The two co-creative directors for Dishonored speak with Game Informer's Adam Biessener about the relationship between developers and publishers, what the acquisition of Arkane Studios by ZeniMax has meant for the spirit of the studio, and why it never hurts to receive creative advice from Bethesda's Todd Howard.

The co-creative directors of Arkane Studios' upcoming stealth/assassin game Dishonored, Harvey Smith and Raf Colantonio, were kind enough to join us on the Game Informer Show this week to answer the community's questions about the game. Listen in to get firsthand explanations about Dishonored's weapons, its enigmatic protagonist, and what it's like to work with Bethesda.

Make sure to pay attention at the 37-minute mark to get an interesting tidbit that even we hadn't heard before.

Mr. Knocks wrote:Dayumn! I'm gonna check this, few things I don't recall reading.

STRANGEgenius wrote:holy mother of god. this is just looks fucking amazing.

iSmackBabies666 wrote:

STRANGEgenius wrote:holy mother of god. this is just looks fucking amazing.

Agreed!

iSmackBabies666 wrote:Same for me, man. I'm trying not to over-hype myself for this, but it's hard not too.

Mr. Knocks wrote:New avy.

Mr. Knocks wrote:NO WAI!! Lol.

Fuck I wanna see this game in action tho. Damn.

STRANGEgenius wrote:

Mr. Knocks wrote:NO WAI!! Lol.

Fuck I wanna see this game in action tho. Damn.

that avy is sexy.

Mr. Knocks wrote:

STRANGEgenius wrote:

Mr. Knocks wrote:NO WAI!! Lol.

Fuck I wanna see this game in action tho. Damn.

that avy is sexy.

I know, son. I know. I think I might make a sig for this game, but I already have a bitchin' sig..

Mr. Knocks wrote:NO WAI!! Lol.

Fuck I wanna see this game in action tho. Damn.

Bethesda Softworks and developer Arkane Studios have released a small handful of screens for Dishonored that show off the dire situation within Dunwall. The city is overrun by a plague and both a coup and assassination of the Empress also contribute to the grim environs of the capital. The new screens in the gallery below both show off the city's environments as well as combat and stealth aspects. Dishonored's gameplay lets players combine different powers and gadgets to provide plenty of options to overcome adversity. For more on the game, take a look at the Hub for our cover story .

41OMaXiMuS wrote:Ok you have my attention.... I want to see this game in action tho.

Lube wrote:Very nice! The images remind me of BioShock Infinite for some weird reason, I dunno. I'm sure this'll be good.

Lube wrote:Very nice! The images remind me of BioShock Infinite for some weird reason, I dunno. I'm sure this'll be good.