Arkane's Philosophy For Dishonored: Say Yes To The Player

Dishonored

For the record, Dishonored isn't a sandbox open-world RPG like The Elder Scrolls, even if it looks a little like Bethesda's award-winning franchise.

But even though the new effort from Arkane Studios features a linear progression through a scripted story, the developers have gone very much out of their way to deliver a ton of freedom. And as executive producer Julien Roby told AusGamers, they've tried to "push the game very far in terms of player choices." Of course, this wasn't exactly an easy process:

"This is definitely a very hard goal to reach, but we knew that from day one – this was the kind of game we wanted to make. So we forged all our production around that. We’ve worked super hard to make sure each of the game missions will deliver the same kind of depth and options people have seen from the hands-on sessions so far."

Basically, they didn't want to restrict the player within this linear adventure. Arkane's philosophy was to give everyone a chance to utilize their own unique play style, and that requires plenty of options. And of course, it encourages creativity. Added Roby:

Every single decision we’ve made on the project was based around some simple but big ideas: 'Say Yes to the Player' and ‘Let the Player express His Creativity and Playstyle’ We’ve spent ton of time on playtesting the game with external people to make sure the game [is] working fine and [is] well balanced around those goals."

There's no doubt that Dishonored is one of the most promising games of 2012 and indeed, of the entire generation. It hits on October 9 and that isn't far off, so get ready...

Related Game(s): Dishonored

Tags: dishonored, arkane studios, dishonored gameplay, dishonored game

9/23/2012 9:24:37 PM Ben Dutka

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