Lots of people bought PC games during the Steam Autumn Sale this weekend, and lots of those games were Dishonored.
In our continuing mission to celebrate the 19 year old Doom in the wake of the release of Doom 3: BFG Edition, we've looked at the Making of Doom and the Making of Wolfenstein 3D. We turn now to the developers whose lives and careers were touched by Id's FPS masterpiece. We’ve asked some of the most celebrated names in the games industry for their memories of playing the original Doom. And we’d love to hear from you. When did you first play Doom. And what did you think?
Seeing the fuss kicked up surrounding Deus Ex: Human Revolution's boss fights must have gladdened Harvey Smith's heart, not because he's one to revel in schadenfreude - he may be for all we know, but he's not said words to that effect - but because Arkane Studios had decided to ditch the boss fight trope that's been embedded in games for eons.
I think it’s fair to say that Dishonored is one of the most keenly-anticipated video games in a long time, perhaps ever. Stepping into the well-worn shoes of a brutal and downright terrifying assassin named Corvo, a former bodyguard framed for murder, your task is to make your way through the city of Dunwall, exacting your vengeance by disposing of your targets through whatever means you deem necessary. It’s something of a marriage of Bioshock, Thief and Deus Ex, or perhaps better described as a beautiful baby born of all three of these parents...Our Spotlight units plug content our journalists have made, that our advertisers want to promote. Sometimes the promotion is paid for, but the content they go to is always independent with no client oversight or approval.
At times during this, the last Dishonored dev diary scheduled before its release into the wild, even the cameraman seems swept up by Arkane’s player-driven-gaming rhetoric. He jettisons framing conventions, instead crouching in the shadows behind the heads of Smith, Colantonio, Antonov and co. Film from any direction, or not at all. See parts of Harvey Smith’s skull the designer never intended.
The Dishonored devs have been speaking to GI.biz about videogames. Their videogames versus everybody else's videogames, to be more precise. To be even more precise: the way their games work in direct contrast to the Hollywood-minded, cinematic popcorn blockbusters that dominate the charts and rake in mountains of publisher-influencing cash. It's a superb read, I suggest you go read it, that re-affirms an impression I've had of Dishonored since it was first shown: that it looks, feels and moves like a 90s PC game in a way so few games today do - because the team behind it are making the game they want to play.
Dishonored co-mastermind Harvey Smith has been talking about the reservations of games publishers - something he’s had so much first-hand experience with it’s spilling through his fingers - and has cited Minecraft as a point of defiance, “one of the most popular experience in the world today" despite its perceived unmarketability.
