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Creeping up on your enemies and brutally murdering them is a crucial part of Arkane's Dishonored. The latest trailer demonstrates how to do your best silent assassins impression. Spoilers: Don't walk in the front door.

I know there’s an entire army of your screwing up your eyes and refusing to look at another jot of Dishonored coverage until it arrives in October, but for those not yet convinced there’s still more to be seen. The latest game footage trailer (below) lays out a chunk of stealth business, which is something trailers seem to ignore when they are dealing with stealth games. Not so here, as you can observe from this. And that bit with the candle at 0.58 is really neat. I had not seen that before.

Yesterday we published my chat with the game’s co-lead, Raf Colantonio. So have a read of that. If you want. No one’s forcing you. Not yet, anyway.(more…)

#dishonored The plague-infested streets and alleys of Dishonored's industrial city of Dunwall are rather dark and shadowy, but without proper use of stealth techniques one might as well be stomping through them on mechanical legs. More »

Taking the stealthy approach in Arkane Studios promising game.

Lesson One: The Cone of Vision and You

#dishonored I have never played Dishonored. The entirety of my exposure to it has been articles posted on Kotaku. I it places an emphasis on stealth, which I generally avoid. I also know that, should I play it, I will be treated to magnificent sights such as this one, and that's more than enough to get me to creep silently across a rooftop. Creepy masks not your cup of tea? Don't worry, there's more. More »

At last week’s German mega-convention, GamesCom, I sat down for the second time to play Dishonored. This game of stealth, magic, and assassination will be one of the handful of truly important games in 2012, and whether or not it is entirely a success, its release and development will have been an important event in game design history. Read on for more thoughts on why that is, as well as words from the game’s co-lead, Arkane creative boss Raf Colantonio, who I spoke to after my most recent session at the controls of super-assassin Corvo Atano.

Spoilers will be kept to a minimum.(more…)

Outside of PlayStation’s own announcements, the indisputable big-buzz game of Gamescom 2012 was Dishonored, the upcoming PS3 first-person stealth adventure from Bethesda. With relatively low-key showings in Cologne from many of the other major third party publishers, Dishonored really got its chance to shine last week and it duly dazzled all comers.

For the uninitiated, the game puts you in the shoes of wronged assassin Corvo Atano who is framed for the murder of an Empress – his former lover. You’ll be sneaking around a dark, atmospheric steampunk world, combining supernatural powers and a range of weaponry to avenge her death and unmask those who’ve conspired against you.

To be clear, when we say stealth we don’t mean the signposted sneaking of, say, recent Splinter Cell titles. The AI here is unforgivingly old school – more redolent of the likes of Thief. And that should come as no surprise – co-creator Harvey Smith worked on that series, as well as the original Deus Ex and BioShock precursor System Shock. We caught up with him back stage at Gamescom to learn more about his latest project.

PlayStation.Blog: What are Dishonored’s core gameplay building blocks?
Harvey Smith, Co-Creative Director, Dishonored: It’s a matter of falling back on values. We generally like the first person perspective – to give you that ‘you are there’ thing. We like RPG upgrade systems. We like analog AI, so enemies are not necessarily aware of you or unaware of you – they’re uncertain. They may have heard you, but they’re not sure, so they go and investigate. Surfing the edge of awareness, basically. We love highly mobile games; we don’t like games where you’re heavy and stuck on the ground and you have big weapons and you can’t get on top of buildings as they’re just props. We really want you to be able to flit up there like a flea.

PSB: The stealth mechanics seem really challenging compared to more recent examples of the genre…
HS: We decided to go with ‘view cone’ based stealth. Enemies have a view cone. Their peripheral vision is weaker and they don’t see as well up high – it’s squashed so you can hide in the rafters. The deal is that if you’re in front of their view cone they see you, no matter what the lighting levels. Even if I turned out the lights right now, I’d still be able to see you, right? So we decided to go with something realistic.

The truth is that we tried all of the models you can think of. We tried the ‘pool of shadow’ model, but modern players would say the AI looks bad if I’m in a shadow and an enemy walks right by me. That looks dumb. They want a more reactive system. And that makes it a little more hardcore. To sneak, you really have to stay behind cover, lean out behind walls. It requires you to really know where an enemy is looking and avoid that range.

PSB: You claim that it’s possible to finish the game without killing a single person. How challenging is that going to be compared to going in guns drawn?
HS: 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 targets. 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 a bathhouse – 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.

PSB: Many older gamers will be really excited to hear about a return to these sorts of values, but do you think younger gamers, who’ve never played Thief or the original Deus Ex, will get it?
HS: I have a great deal of faith in those people. When we release a game like this kids sometimes come to us and say ‘this game blew my mind; I didn’t know games could do this; I only played very linear games before’. That’s what we like to hear. I actually have more faith in the 13-year-olds as they’re playing things like Day Z or Dwarf Fortress or Eve Online. They’re hungry for highly interactive, non-dogmatic experiences, I think.

Dishonored creeps onto PS3 October 9th in North America. Look out for more coverage here on the Blog in the coming weeks!

#dishonored A little while ago at QuakeCon, Tim Poon had a go at a new level in Bethesda's much-anticipated sneaking/killing game Dishonored. Back from Gamescom. the fine folks at VG 24/7 have posted this video in which Dishonored co-creative director Raf Colantonio walks players through that level, in which they must identify the right "Lady Boyle" out of a few possible suspects and then, of course… kill her. More »

There are a lot of choices available to players in Dishonored. At every player's disposal is an impressive array of weapons, gadgets and abilities, each offering a different way to tackle a given situation. Take the simple assassination mission I played at Gamescom, which just so happened to be the same mission we detailed earlier this month at QuakeCon. Tasked with infiltrating a posh party at a lavish mansion, freelancer Britton Peele chose to walk right through the front door. Me, I possessed a fish, swam into the sewers and worked my way into the mansion via the cellar. That's only two of many possible choices.

Allowing players that much freedom - the freedom to potentially break the game - must be a nightmare for quality assurance, I tell Arkane Studios' co-creative director Harvey Smith. "It's not just a nightmare for QA," he says, "it's a nightmare for us as well."

#dishonored Bethesda have today released the specs for the PC version of Dishonored, a game that tortures me on a weekly basis because, you know, I keep typing "Dishonoured". More »

Dishonored's "creative kills" footage features explosive rat swarms, temporal manipulation, and fun with electrical polarity. This stuff is even crazier than the "daring escapes" we'd seen before.

Following on from the “Daring Escapes” trailer, Dishonored shows off more game-footage with “Creative Kills”.(more…)

#dishonored The malleability of the combat system in Dishonored is one of the things that has me most lookingf forward to the upcoming alternate-reality adventure from Arkane Studios The trailer above shows how you can mix and match abilities and gadgets to pull off sneaky, surprising kills. Can't wait until October. More »

Taking out targets by combining abilities in Arkane Studios stealth action game.

Many elements of Dishonored - from its original setting and art style to the protagonist's arsenal of special powers - have made the game subject to a great deal of attention. But with great power comes a great fear: Will the game lack any sort of challenge? Where is the difficulty in being stealthy if you can teleport behind guards and stop time in order to get away?

"It was a hard paradox for us to get right in the game design," co-creative director Raphael Colantonio told Joystiq during QuakeCon 2012, "because we wanted to give you very strong powers, to make you really a badass, but at the same time we didn't want the game to be too easy. So it took awhile to get it right, and some of it is just obvious tuning. Every power has a duration, cost of mana, and some other tunable properties ... So even if your power is incredibly strong, you can mitigate it by saying 'Well, it only lasts three seconds.'"

Ricardo Bare, one of the leads behind Dishonored, echoed that sentiment. "We're always in a discussion about where the line is. Should we move it back a little bit toward constraining the player, or should we go ahead and let the player do this? And as much as possible we try to say 'yes' to the player and enable the cool combinations and powers that they put together."

What I learned from playing Arkane Studios' anxiously awaited Dishonored is that playing it like a standard action game isn't the best course of action. You may succeed, but you're more likely to fail or stumble disappointingly to the end of a mission - a far cry from those playing with patience and a plan.

The QuakeCon 2012 demo I played was from about halfway through Dishonored's campaign, a section taking place during a dinner party murder mystery. You are the murderer, tasked with assassinating a woman named Lady Boyle during a masquerade party taking place at her estate.

The catch is that there are three women who go by the name "Lady Boyle," and you're not sure which one is your target. All are masked and wearing different colored dresses. Which Lady Boyle you are sent to kill is randomized every time you play, so unless you plan on killing all three women, you're going to have to do some detective work.

#preview Improvisation is a word normally associated with jazz and comedy. You are presented with a situation, it changes, and you adapt. You start out with a key and a tempo or an audience suggestion and a scene but you end up with something different by the end through key changes, an unexpected turn of phrase, or that one guy in your improv class who keeps going back to a joke about sugar sandwiches. More »

It won’t be long before I’m the only member of RPS who hasn’t played Dishonored, which is surely due to some form of dire cosmic plot against me. I’m not going to spend the next few months tugging at Alec’s sleeve and asking, over and over again, “but how good was it?” or calling Jim in the wee small hours of the morning and asking, “will it satisfy my every desire?”. Instead of gathering every last remaining scrap of knowledge that falls from their brain-pans, I’ve decided to impose a media blackout on myself. I’ll be the one who goes in knowing the least and that’ll make the experience all the sweeter. But then I remembered that it’s my job to look at every picture and video of every game. Here are some new screens.

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An impressive voice cast for Dishonored has been reveale

Bethesda spent a lot of money on the voice cast for Dishonored - like, Susan Sarandon money. Her first video game role will be "Granny Rags," an "intriguing old blind woman now deranged after years of street life." We're sure an actress of Sarandon's caliber will be able to deliver on that "intriguing" character trait.

Other talent revealed today includes Brad Dourif, who's appeared in literally every movie and television show ever produced; Carrie Fisher, who plays the voice of ubiquitous government propaganda; John Slattery (aka Roger Sterling from Mad Men) who plays a smarmy rich guy - actually the specific role is "Admiral Havelock," but we're calling it right now; Chloe Grace Moretz as the kidnapped daughter of the Empress; and Lena Headey as her guardian. Michael Madsen, who you probably don't remember from his performance in the first Yakuza game, appears in Dishonored as an assassin.

Of all these names, we're most surprised with Fisher, mostly because she's not the Star Wars star we're used to seeing in games.

#dishonored Hit Girl from Kick Ass. Roger Sterling from Mad Men. Louise from Thelma and Louise. Princess frikkin' Leia. More »

Blimey, this is a cast and a half. Let’s just plunge right in: Susan Sarandon will be playing, er, “Granny Rags”, while the extraordinary Brad Dourif makes mouth noises for inventor Piero, creator of that scary mask worn by the game’s protagonist, Corvo. Slightly more bizarrely, Bethesda inform us that Carrie Fisher “can be heard broadcasting government propaganda over loudspeakers throughout the city of Dunwall, where the game is set.”

Then there’s John “Mad Men” Slattery as Admiral Havelock, and Michael “All Those Movies” Madsen as Daud, a mysterious assassin. Also: Chloë Grace Moretz from Kick-Ass playing “young Lady Emily”, while the incalculably lovely Lena Headey joins the cast as Calista, Emily’s caretaker.

Also the chap who does the score for Dexter, Daniel Licht, is doing the music.

We had thought Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed III six separate releases was confusing. The plans for the game everyone at RPS is most excited to play this year, Dishonored, now makes that move look positively bland. In a display of eye-rolling pre-order bonus alchemy, Bethesda have announced a divisive and flat-out bizarre set of retailer-dependent exclusives. It takes the form of a handy guide for publishers to see exactly how they shouldn’t promote a game, as you can see below.

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You don't HAVE to go the route that involves slicing this dude's head off. But, I mean, of course you're going to anyway. Right?

How will you get away from the bobby-esque policemen who patrol Arkane's Dishonored? As it turns out, you've got a whole bevy of options at the ready, beyond the two fatal weapons in your hands. Take a look at just a few in the latest trailer, above.

#watchthis The guards are bearing down on you in October's Dishonored. What will you do? More »

We’ve already begun to talk at length about the variety of options that Dishonored will present us with, and the trailers have begun to back up that analysis. The latest one, which you can see below, shows off this with a clever choose-your-own path thing, demonstrating how the short range teleportation, possession, and time-bending powers come into play when getting out of unpleasant circumstances.

Go take a look.(more…)

In "Daring Escapes" discover three possible escape routes utilizing supernatural abilities available to Corvo: Blink, Bend Time, and Possession.

#watchthis Dishonored has all the trappings of a major motion picture: intrigue, assassinations, redemption, cool masks… rats... you know, the usual. As it turns out, it's possible to create a trailer for an imagined film adaptation from bits and bobs lifted from other films. More »