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Dishonored review: A whale of a tale
Dishonored is something special. It's a self-contained first brick in what is sure to become a larger universe; a stealth action game that lets you play as a creeping assassin, or abandon that notion and go through it as a first-person shooter with mystical powers. Don't want to kill anybody? That's a perfectly executable idea. There are so many options that revisiting the full story more than once for various outcomes is part of the experience.You are Corvo Attano, royal protector to the unmarried Empress Jessamine Kaldwin and her daughter Emily. It is immediately apparent that extreme care and effort went into the setting of Dunwall, a fantastical city overrun by a rat-spread plague, but it's not like the city of Rapture was to BioShock. BioShock fully explores the story of Rapture, it is the story of Rapture. Dishonored, on the other hand, is not the story of Dunwall – it is merely set there.There are many elements emphasized regarding life in Dunwall, but hardly any of them are explored in this specific story. It creates a bit of dissonance over time, since set pieces and locales you'd swear should be included are not. This is all to say that Dishonored is the specific story of Corvo Attano and his reaction to the conspiracy against Empress Kaldwin.%Gallery-167794%
Dishonored interactive trailer goes down the path to revenge, contains light spoilers
Through the use of internet magic, Arkane Studios lets us sample a mission from Dishonored ahead of its October 9 launch. Just be warned: this is an actual mission from the game, with light spoilers.
Dishonored's complete 'The Tales from Dunwall'
Dishonored concluded its three-part webisode series The Tales from Dunwall today. We thought it would be nice to put them all in one place for you. The vignettes cover the backstory leading into Dishonored's revenge tale.
Dishonored's lore explained in new 'The Tales from Dunwall' shorts
Dishonored kicks off a three-part webisode series entitled The Tale from Dunwall today. The first episode, "The Awakening", tells the rise and end of Esmond Roseburrow, the man who discovered the energy source that makes Dunwall's whale oil-punk universe possible.
Dishonored sea shanty 'The Drunken Whaler' available for free, remix contest announced
Bethesda recently started offering a free mp3 download of "The Drunken Whaler," the creepy tune heard during Dishonored's E3 trailer, seen above. A collaboration between COPILOT Strategic Music + Sound and Bethesda Softworks, the song set a cold tone for a murderous video of the game back in June.Bethesda also kicked off a remix contest for "The Drunken Whaler," which will net the top ten winners a t-shirt, poster, and copy of Dishonored. Fans have until September 28 to get their dubstep remixes in for a chance to win.
Latest Dishonored diary uses possession as inertia damper
Dishonored is as much about how one kills as it is about who one kills. Creativity must exist in any job, particularly in the assassin's line of work. Building off the "creative kills" we've seen before, this latest diary adds a few more ideas to the ol' supernatural murder book.
Dishonored: Rat Assassin scurries to iPad
Dishonored: Rat Assassin now lets you skewer New York-size rodents on iPad. Having hit iPhone and iPod Touch a couple weeks ago, the game places you in the role of a Fruit Ninja who has decided it's time to upgrade to something with more flesh and more fleas.Doesn't anybody remember the good ol' days when all you needed was a man with a pipe?
Go deeper! Dishonored's second dev diary discusses more design
We've gotten used to developer diaries being more marketing hype than actually discussing design ideas, but that's not the case in this Dishonored clip. Going deeper than last time, the team responsible for fleshing out the game world discuss industrial design and morphology of Dunwall's stylized citizens.Okay, so the last few minutes of this 10-minute video gets into the "look what stars we got to do voices" territory, but by then a solid seven minutes of information have gone by. Dishonored is one month from launch, with an October 9 North American release date.%Gallery-161677%
Dishonored developer diary discusses design
It wouldn't be a potential hit Bethesda-published game if Dishonored didn't start by breaking out of a prison situation. The first developer diary for October's supernatural assassin simulator focuses on Arkane Studios' concepts for the art and world design of the game.For those who can't read, there's a fair amount of French in the video, so we hope you paid attention in class. Then again, that warning served no purpose if you can't read. Dishonored begins the hunt October 9 and 12 in North America and Europe, respectively.%Gallery-161677%
Learning how to creep in Dishonored
Creeping up on your enemies and offing them is a crucial part of Arkane's Dishonored. Protip: Don't walk in through the front door.
Dishonored's Harvey Smith on the risk of letting players break your game
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."%Gallery-161677%
Premeditated murder in Dishonored
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.
Dishonored's chaos, morality and potentially over-powered hero
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."
A game of murder in Arkane's Dishonored
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.%Gallery-161677%
Dishonored's voice cast full of honored Hollywood talent
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.
Choose your daring escape in latest Dishonored trailer
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 weapons in your hands. Take a look at just a few in the latest trailer, above.
Dishonored's dishonorable sneaking looks like devilishly good fun
In between arguments about the current value of whale oil and somehow gaining superpowers, Dishonored's main character finds time to carefully sneak into brothels for murderous acts. Or he simply guns everyone down. Hey, it's your choice.
Dishonored PC 'has its own different interface'
Good news for PC players looking forward to Dishonored, as the multiplatform game will have a separate interface on PC. "Our background is very PC for sure," Arkane Studios designer Raphaël Colantonio told PC Gamer. While Dishonored will be gracing consoles, he assured fans that, "yes, the PC has its own different interface."We don't yet know exactly how the interface will differ from its console counterparts, but its mere existence should be a relief to PC players.
Dishonored pre-order bonuses continue dishonorable tradition of splitting up content
The marketing team at Bethesda Softworks cooked up a pre-order plan to go along with Dishonored that's perfectly fitting for the game's title, it seems. Like so many pre-order schemes these days, the Dishonored bonuses are varied across several retailers, making it impossible to purchase the game without a sense that you're missing something (well, unless you buy four different copies of the game, all with pre-order bonuses attached).Should you choose to participate in this arcane chicanery, might we suggest not snagging Target's bonus? While GameStop, Best Buy, Amazon, and Walmart each get their own "downloadable upgrade pack" for one of the game's playable characters, Target simply gets a Dishonored "smart phone decal." Not exactly what we'd call the best convincer. Also, the Best Buy one comes with a "Whale Oil USB Lamp," so, ya know, kinda the obvious choice.Take a look at all the options just below the break.%Gallery-156746%
Dishonored trailer offers first look at gameplay
The first gameplay trailer for the upcoming Arkane Studios-developed title Dishonored has been revealed, courtesy of GTTV.It's hard to describe all of the condensed action found within the footage, but it's easy to parse one fact: if this is what they've been planning over the years, we can finally forgive Arkane for not following up its criminally underrated Arx Fatalis.Dishonored hits the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 on October 9.
