Arkane Dishonored 2 - Emily and Corvo's Serkonan Vacation

[Infinitron]

He's not talking about lighting, he's talking about the addition of more non-lethal abilities.

 

[tormund]

since you're here do shadows work the same way as in D1 or do you guys plan on making it more thief-ish?

Question he was answering to, it is specifically asking about role of shadows.

 

[Infinitron]

since you're here do shadows work the same way as in D1 or do you guys plan on making it more thief-ish?

Question he was answering to, it is specifically asking about role of shadows.

Yes, but to me it seems like his second tweet means to say "But besides that, we're also doing X which stealth fans will like"

 

[LESS T_T]

Heh, I thought he was referring to difficulty options.

Like these ones:

 

[racofer]

"customizing play"

The Souls games do not give a fuck about customizing difficulty. You either design it hard, or you pull a Valve and bloat enemies HP while crippling your own.

Artificial difficulty settings, like the ones in every game (par strategy ones, where the AI gets smarter), are the sign of the failed game design underneath.

 

[Vibalist]

It works in Hitman.

 

[BobtheTree]

Yea, giving the player more options and ways to play your game usually seems like a good thing to me, not a sign of poor game design.

 

[Zombra]

NO. Every game must take all its design cues from Dark Souls. lol.

 

[Garrettt]

 

[orcinator]

Yea, giving the player more options and ways to play your game usually seems like a good thing to me, not a sign of poor game design.

"Lots of options" usually means "you can just do whatever and still win with no effort required since we balanced the game around the weakest available options" as was the case in the first Dishonored.

I'm sure Dishonored 2 will the same since we can't have our pre-pubescent audience get mad and return the game if they choose to say "fuck you" to the outsider.

 

[xxxCatholicKillahxxx]

Dishonored 2 25% off on Green Man Gaming until the 15th of this month.

Edit. A proper link.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

http://www.gamereactor.eu/news/4387...rkane+to+push+the+boundaries+in+every+corner/

We caught up with art director Sébastien Mitton to learn more about Dishonored 2 and the work that goes into creating the visuals of the universe Arkane have created.

"To me the biggest challenge was to make the city maps really dense, really credible, that was the biggest challenge," says Mitton of creating Dishonored. "To make it feel like a real city you can explore everything. And Dishonored 2 now, each level is thrice, four times bigger than in Dishonored 1 so it was the biggest challenge ever in my life."



How did the new Void engine help in this regard?

"When you use an engine that already exists on the market you hit some limitations," says Mitton. "With this engine based on Id Tech 6 we've rewritten quite everything that's 70% of the engine. And it allows us to push the boundaries in every corner."

Later on Mitton expanded on some of the benefits.

"We have more civilians, we have markets, we have tons of stuff happening," says Mitton who said that technical constraints as well as the theme of the plague made for a more sparsely populated Dishonored 1. "They live their own [lives], you just go there and discover, and they're surprised by you, or not, it depends on how you look."

Dishonored 2 will launch on PC, PS4, and Xbox One on November 11.

 

[vortex]

I take Vulcan will be integrated at launch. It would be sweet.

 

[shub]

fuck overly customizable difficulty. i don't even like when games to the "this is story mode" and "this is the autistically hard mode", like the witcher 3. easy, normal, hard, or nothing, and if the game is well made then it won't become an unsolveable problem down the line that requires you to restart the game. 1,000 difficulty options might make it comfier and uncomfier better than easy normal and hard can, but imo it sacrifices some identity, vision and confidence that i'd much rather see.

 

[LESS T_T]

https://bethesda.net/#en/events/game/dishonored-2-the-evolution-of-emily-and-corvo/2016/07/28/164

Dishonored 2 – The Evolution of Emily & Corvo

He was the Royal Protector, framed for the assassination of the Empress Jessamine Kaldwin, unjustly imprisoned, and sentenced to death. Barely escaping on the day of his execution, Corvo Attano is marked by the otherworldly Outsider, granted supernatural powers and becomes an assassin. Desperate to protect Jessamine’s daughter Emily and return her to the throne, Corvo soon sets out to avenge the Empress’ death.

A powerful protagonist, Corvo emerged as a heroic and beloved figure. But when it comes to the heartof the original Dishonored, Emily Kaldwin arguably filled that role. A mere child in Dishonored, Emily was a mirror of the player’s actions. Corvo’s choices not only had a profound effect on the world around him, but on Emily herself, who would adorn the walls of her hideaway with art that reflected her mood. “We got contacted by so many players who told us that they literally changed the way they played after they came back from a particularly violent mission and saw that Emily had posted up these disturbed drawings in black crayon,” says Arkane’s Co-creative Director Harvey Smith.

Set 15 years after the events of the first game, Dishonored 2 marks not just the return of Corvo Attano but Emily Kaldwin as well. And, once again, the game begins with Jessamine, with Corvo and Emily paying tribute to the former Empress in the opening sequence. “Jessamine’s assassination casts a shadow over both games,” Smith notes. This time, however, the adult Emily is a fully playable character. “It’s ambitious to bring two protagonists to the game and let the player choose between them,” Smith says, “but we’re really excited that we did.”

It’s one thing to be excited. It’s another thing to actually turn a non-playable character into one of the game’s two protagonists, figuring out not just how she’s evolved since she was a child, but also how this young Empress could provide a different gameplay experience than the grizzled, world-weary Protector.

Dunwall, Empress… Assassin
From the very beginning of Dishonored 2’s development, Emily was a focal point for Arkane. According to Smith, the team was “obsessed” with figuring out who Emily would be 15 years later in the game’s timeline. What would she be like on the throne? What would she be like without her mother? How would she turn out after being raised by the Royal Protector?

“When we approach a character like Emily, we need to know her history, her attitude, even her hobbies,” Smith says. “But at a meta level as a game developer, we need to know what her pillars are. And so for Emily we arrived at: Dunwall, Empress, Assassin.”

Unlike Corvo, who originally hails from Serkonos (the capital of which is Karnaca, the primary setting for Dishonored 2), Emily was born and raised in Dunwall – a product of the city’s UK-inspired culture. But Emily is no commoner. “Except for this one tragic moment during the rat plague in the first Dishonored, Emily’s had a pretty good upbringing,” Smith says. She’s had the very best tutors. She wears the very best clothes. She’s protected (and, perhaps, sheltered) like none other in Dunwall. In short, she has lived the privileged life of an Empress. However, Emily was not only raised by Corvo but trained by him as well. “Corvo assumed that some day Emily’s enemies would come for her with knives out,” Smith says. “So she has the potential in Dishonored 2 to become an assassin.”

Powerful Differences
These three pillars are reflected in Emily’s demeanor, her powers – even her clothes. “Emily doesn’t wear rags,” Smith says. “She wears an asymmetrical-cut jacket with gold embroidery befitting someone who grew up in a palace. She has taste and she has the finest tailors working for her.” Even Emily’s weapons reflect her status as an Empress. “When she’s carrying a pistol or a crossbow, they need to look like they were made by the finest craftsmen in the Empire of the Isles,” Smith says.

Even Emily’s powers – which are all-new and completely different from Corvo’s – reflect her character. “In a way you can say the Outsider marks people according to their personalities,” says Lead Designer Dinga Bakaba. “She’s an Empress. She’s younger. She has a different personality. So her powers reflect that. She has a lot of powers that allow her to subdue the will of others.” A perfect example is Mesmerize, which calls forth an entity from the Void that enthralls Emily’s foes, allowing her to either efficiently eliminate them or simply waltz past them untouched. Another example: Domino, which links people together so they’re affected with one action. Befitting an Empress, “Emily is pretty good at crowd control,” Bakaba says.

Meanwhile, all of Corvo’s original powers return from the original game, but they’ve been extended and enhanced. “You now have upgrades you can acquire, and you have a power tree,” says Bakaba. “I think players will have an interesting experience playing the game once with Emily and once with Corvo, because different powers mean different solutions to problems and a different experience.”

Voices Carry
The team at Arkane spent a lot of time thinking about the evolution of Corvo as well. A decade and a half later, Corvo is now the Royal Spymaster as well as the Royal Protector – the first person in the Empire’s history to unite these two titles. But perhaps the biggest change to Corvo’s character is the addition of a voice. In the first game Corvo was a silent protagonist. Now, he speaks.

“I’m super excited about our choice for Corvo,” Smith says. “We were lucky to get Stephen Russell, who was the voice of Garrett in the first Thief. It’s 15 years later, and he’s going out to protect Emily one more time. Stephen just nailed it.”

The addition of voices allows the player to experience Dishonored 2’s story in different ways depending on whom they chose to play. While Emily (voiced by actress Erica Luttrell) and Corvo go through the same missions and meet many of the same characters, they each have their own unique viewpoints and emotional responses. For Corvo, the trip from Dunwall to Karnaca is a homecoming of sorts. “You can literally visit his home neighborhood when you play Dishonored 2,” Smith says. For Emily, the journey to Karnaca is a different experience. “At the beginning of Dishonored 2 she loses everything and she’s on the run,” he says. “This is also Emily’s first exposure to the way the rest of the world lives. They both have their own perspectives, and that was something important for us to get right.”

 

[AwesomeButton]

The argument about whether or not Thief and Dishonored can be compared got me thinking, and here are my two cents.

I believe the most defining feature of Thief's gameplay is the feeling of vulnerability that accompanies the player all the time. You just know you are too weak to stand much of a chance unless you get a jump on the enemy. But even while you were attacking from the shadows, the feeling of vulnerability was with you - will you manage to get close enough without being heared, or in the case of using the bow - will you be able to aim will enough to drop the enemy with one arrow. And here is where the genius of LG is revealed - even if you would save before every attempt, the feeling of risk would always be there, because until you release the mouse button you don't know if you've succeeded or not, and even more - you were most vulnerable just before attacking.

It's this feeling of being vulnerable as a fighter, the necessity to rely on planning and overcome the enemies on an informational level, that Dishonored does away with and it does away with it by making it "optional". Sneaking is optional, true, but I don't think this enriches the gameplay, because a side effect of adding a "violent style" of gameplay removes the feeling of vulnerability and risk that was bringing immersion (in the non-retard sense of the word) in Thief.

In Thief you had 6 speeds of movement - walking, running and "creeping", which could all be modified by the crouch toggle, and by the elevation of the surface - you would move slower or not at all when trying to climb ledges. Does any of this exist in Dishonored? You could say yes, to some extent, but it's been simplified, in order to make the controls easier, with the end goal of making Corvo feel more lethal if compared to Garrett.

In Thief you could lean in three directions - there was forward leaning, in addition to left and right, and in some cases this could make a non-lethal disabling of an enemy possible. The whole process of dropping an enemy was much more difficult due to the controls, compared to Dishonored. In Thief you actually had to raise the weapon, sneak up to the enemy from behind and release the attack. In Dishonored you just click the mouse and you're done. Or conversely, you click and hold in order to incapacitate an enemy. But the sneaking element is largely gone. I believe the complexity added to the gameplay and to that feeling of vulnerability, and that this was a good thing, not something that needed to be streamlined. When I come to think of it, I think the closest Thief comes to Dishonored is in Thief III. I forced myself to go through the first 5 or so missions, though it was still buggy as hell, and not that good to begin with.

All this complexity of the controls, plus the gadgets (lockpicks, zooming, specialized arrows) combined to give the player the impression that he is executing very high-level master thief moves while playing, and this would come to offset the feeling of vulnerabilty. The player would learn with time that he is a better sneaker than a fighter in this game. Dishonored in contrast, gives you godlike abilities and the player is left with the impression that every enemy is at his mercy. Notice how times have changed - the supernatural elements of gameplay were there to inhibit you in Thief - the magic light sources, the undead and monsters that spooked and irritated you. In Dishonored you are the one in control of the supernatural elements most of the time and they serve you as weapons.

So, in conclusion, I think this branching out and trying to offer two diametrically opposed play styles is what turns Dishonored into "a master of none" and prevents it from invoking the same emotions in a player that Thief does. Sure, Dishonored is not a bad game per se, I made two incomplete playthroughs of a pirated version before buying a steam copy (in the first case my savegame became corrupt, in the second some other game came along and I moved on from Dishonored). It's just too easy if you judge it as a "first person sneaker" which it, understandably under those circumstances, claims it is not. But if you don't judge it as a first person sneaker, what is left in gameplay terms - a first person Assassin's Creed with built-in cheats?

 

[LESS T_T]

https://bethesda.net/#en/events/game/dishonored-2-at-quakecon-corvo-high-chaos-demo/2016/08/04/173

Dishonored 2 at QuakeCon – Corvo High Chaos Demo
Fifteen years later and Corvo’s still on point.

Dishonored 2 features a new playable character – the young Empress, Emily Kaldwin – but it also marks the return of the first game’s hero: the Royal Protector-turned-assassin Corvo Attano. At E3 2016, Arkane Co-creative Director Harvey Smith delivered the world-premiere of Dishonored 2 gameplay, which featured Emily Kaldwin along with her all-new powers. At this year’s QuakeCon, Smith showed off new gameplay behind closed doors – this time with Corvo in the spotlight. And from what he revealed, it’s clear that Corvo’s out for blood, playing for keeps.

Here are some highlights from the Dishonored 2 QuakeCon demo.

Powers Revisited
While Corvo’s original powers are back, they’ve all been extended and enhanced. A high-chaos jaunt through the Dust District revealed just how brutal combat continues to be – but now with new tools at Corvo’s disposal.

And it all starts with Blink – Corvo’s signature traversal power. Our first glimpse of Blink shows us exactly what we expect to see: Corvo teleports from the ground to a balcony and ducks into a sealed building; Corvo instantly transports himself from a second-story window to some exposed ductwork across an alleyway. But Blink isn’t just for movement anymore. Twice we saw Corvo use his signature power in newly aggressive ways: blinking into a foe and immediately stabbing him in the neck, and later using it to slam into an enemy, shoving him back with deadly force. Corvo’s Blink also includes the “stop time and redirect” improvement from the Dishonored DLC The Knife of Dunwall (often called “Daud’s Blink” by the community and YouTubers), giving him more flexibility in traversal and stealth.

Likewise, Bend Time has been upgraded to allow for powerful new uses. Early in the demo, we see Corvo using this power like he did in the original Dishonored, slowing time to face off against a Nest Keeper (a creepy new bad guy who fusses over Bloodfly nests). While time is at a near-standstill, Corvo literally shoots both arms off the Nest Keeper with his pistol, then pulls out his crossbow to fire an Incendiary Bolt at a nearby nest. When time returns to normal, the disarmed Nest Keeper briefly writhes in agony, the nest bursts into flames… then the Keeper’s body rips in half at the torso, releasing a fresh swarm of Bloodflies. Corvo then escapes the dangerous infestation, transferring himself into a Bloodfly with Possession. (While we didn’t see it in action, we also know that Corvo can now upgrade Possession so he can transfer from one host to another.)

Bend Time can also be upgraded so Corvo can not only fully stop time (like in the original game) but also slowly advance time in order to set up a sequence of events. Late in the demo, Corvo is carrying the incapacitated Howler leader Paolo, his target in this mission. From a balcony above the street, he spots a hostile Howler gang member. Stopping time, Corvo tosses Paolo into the air, where he hovers in suspension while Corvo leaps down to deliver death from above to the Howler. Corvo then advances time just enough so Paolo’s body moves into reach, then grabs his target in mid-air before continuing on his way.

We also saw Bend Time used to strategically clear a courtyard of foes, with Corvo peppering the crowd with Sleep Darts and an Incendiary Bolt before cleaning up the remaining enemies in real time.

Windblast also makes a return as a highly effective way to blast back enemies. And, of course, Corvo still has all his combat moves and tools, including a Spring Razor that he used to eviscerate a couple of Howlers. Corvo’s sword and pistol also came in handy as he sliced, stabbed and shot his way through several other members of the gang in the proverbial blink of an eye. While the focus was on Corvo’s deadly new moves, he also has an arsenal of new nonlethal attacks, including combat choke, nonlethal drop attack and more – perfect for the player who prefers a quieter journey through Karnaca.

Go Your Own Way
While Smith returned to the Dust District level that he debuted at E3 2016, we saw a completely different way to tackle the mission. And we’re not just talking about the choice of playing as Corvo instead of Emily.

Dishonored 2 will deliver the signature elements of Dishonored mission design: multiple ways to find and eliminate a target; the ability to tackle any obstacle using non-lethal stealth, deadly combat, or any combination of the two. But this time, each of the missions has an additional thematic layer. In the case of the Dust District, Corvo has a choice of targets: Either Vice Overseer Byrne, the local leader of a militant religious faction (and the target that Emily pursued in the E3 demo), or the head of the Howler gang, Paolo. At QuakeCon, Corvo chose to chase down Paolo, and in the process revealed new areas both outside of and within hostile Howler territory.

The most striking location might be the Crone’s Hand Saloon, a portion of which has been condemned due to a Bloodfly infestation. Nest Keepers, who roam around protecting and maintaining the Bloodfly nests, can be formidable enemies once agitated. While the game showed of a high-chaos approach – slicing through the insects and killing the Nest Keepers – we also saw that Corvo could Blink past nests without disturbing the flies… which will certainly come in handy for those who prefer sneaking over stabbing.

Urban Chaos
Also on display in the QuakeCon demo: more of the game’s new setting, including some intriguing interiors. Once again, the verticality of Karnaca was readily apparent, with towering buildings closing in on all sides. But beyond the dizzying heights, the buildings themselves had a much warmer, more southernly feel. Even in the condemned areas of the Crone’s Hand Saloon, the wrought iron bannisters and plantation-style doors stood out. And when Corvo confronted Paolo inside an open courtyard, the warmer ambiance was striking, with clay-tile rooftops, interior facing balconies and lush vegetation climbing up the columns and cascading down from the ornate railings.

It’s just a small taste of the new setting of the game, but it’s a window into an exciting new playground for Corvo’s enhanced powers – and Arkane’s bold vision for Dishonored 2.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/d...rchive/2016/08/04/the-brutality-of-corvo.aspx

Dishonored 2
The Brutality Of Corvo
QuakeCon 2016

by Andrew Reiner on August 04, 2016 at 06:44 PM
3,183 Views

2

A few months ago, Game Informer's June cover story took a deep (and violent) dive into Dishonored 2, a stealth-action game that allows players to reunite with Corvo Attano, the star of the first Dishonored, or play for the first time as Emily Kaldwin, who was only 10 in the first game, but is now 25. We detailed the differences between Corvo and Emily's powers, and the ways players can use them slip into the shadows undetected or bring death on their enemies. At this year's QuakeCon expo, Pete Hines, Bethesda's VP of PR and marketing, gave people in attendance an exclusive look at a clearly agitated Corvo in action. The demo was supposed to be narrated by Arkane Studios' Harvey Smith, who serves as the game's co-director, but Hines jokingly made fun of Smith, saying he forgot to set his alarm correctly and missed his flight.

The demo begins peacefully, with a woman on a boat called the Dreadful Wale, relaxing and smoking a pipe. As the camera pans around her to show off the hunting vessel, we see a whale pop out of the water for a brief second. The tranquility and relaxing sounds of waves collapsing doesn't last long, however. We are soon reacquainted with Corvo, who is clearly on an urgent mission. He uses his Blink power to teleport to an open, second-story window. Blinks again to move to a different direction. His sword sways dangerously in front of him. He wastes no time getting it red by placing it into the neck of an unaware man. He again uses Blink to teleport behind his prey. The death is violent, but quick.

Corvo tosses the newly made corpse to the ground, and in a flash uses Bend Time to slow his surroundings and stop another person in his tracks, this one is aware of his presence. Two pistol shots blow the man's arms clean off, but the threat isn't over: The man apparently keeps unusual pets: bloodlfies. A fire bolt into the hive seems to do the trick, but the man Corvo just killed had one last trick up his sleeve. His body writhes on the ground and explodes, turning into a swarm of bloodflies. They attack, but can't feed off Corvo quickly enough, because he uses his Possession ability to jump into one of their tiny bodies and escapes through the window.

Corvo's mission is to secure or kill Paolo, the leader of a gang called the Howlers. From the eagle-eyed vantage point of a rooftop overlooking a courtyard, Corvo sees Paolo relaxing with friends. Two people play music as another two slow dance together nearby. Paolo is seated in a chair, soaking in the festivities. Corvo fires sleeping darts into the music players and a fire dart at the dancers, creating a deadly ruckus. Paolo rises and draws a sword. The two duel for a brief second, but Paolo is no match for Corvo. He falls over dead...or does he. His body explodes into a swarm of rats and escapes.

Corvo gives chance and corners Paolo again, using a Force-like push ability to knock back his foe and simultaneously shatter a pane of glass. Corvo knocks Paolo out and tosses him over his shoulder. He now needs to escape, and he does it with style. Standing on a balcony, Corvo tosses Paolo's body as high into the air as he can, then drops to the street to execute a Howler gang member. As he retracts the knife from the Howler's neck, Corvo turns, looks up, and catches Corvo's body. It was a violent circus trick that looked awesome, and drew applause from the people at QuakeCon.

Dishonored 2 looks fun as hell, and the demo showed just how powerful Corvo has become since we last saw him. Dishonored 2 ships for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on November 11.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Screenshots:
http://www.shacknews.com/article/96...-screenshots-offer-more-character-to-the-game

 

[AwesomeButton]

The fact that they acknowledge playing without powers (including blink) as a valid style, and give you a lore-justified option to turn them off completely, gives me hope for the sequel.

 

[LESS T_T]

Harvey Smith interview: http://www.lostateminor.com/2016/08/12/dishonored-2/

It could have set in Morley, a fantasy Ireland:

“I was initially thinking of setting Dishonored 2 in the Morley region of our empire, but our art director, Sébastien Mitton, had a very strong vision for Karnaca. He asked ‘What if we look at the colour and textures of Cuba, Spain, Greece, Italy, and incorporate those? What if we draw inspiration from all of these vibrant sources to create Karnaca, this unique, alternate reality place?’ I saw just how strong Sébastien’s vision for Karnaca was, and agreed to run with it.”

Harvey's thought on VR support:

“Our company is full of VR fanatics. I worked on a VR game in 1994. I was a tester on System Shock 1 for 10 months, and we supported VR Systems like the VFX1 and the Cybermaxx. The Cybermaxx was like a brick that you strapped to your head as tight as you could – you literally tightened a little valve at the back and it was so heavy. The VFX1 looked like a bicycle helmet. They both had such terrible resolution on these little flickering monitors, but even back then you could see that VR was going to be so powerful one day.

After we released the first Dishonored game, one of our fans made a mod of the PC version for the Oculus Rift VR system. We set it up in the office and played it, and even though there were problems with the implementation, the feeling you got as you were standing on a ceramic tile rooftop, bending down to pick up a kingsparrow feather for the little gold that it gives you, and then looking down three stories below at a guard pacing the cobblestones … it was just amazing.

“Then you start fighting, and because we manipulate the camera a lot to make the gameplay feel visceral, the VR makes you motion sick instantly. So you have to solve a bunch of problems like that, where the player cannot handle particular actions in VR.

“It’s like the advent of the mouse being used in shooter games. Initially shooters were played only with the keyboard. Then it was joystick and keyboard. Then some game developers would try to utilise mouse but weren’t sure how, so they’d just let it move the elements of the UI around.

“Then there was this Bethesda game released called Terminator Future Shock, where players could experience true mouselook – wherever you moved the mouse, you looked. I remember the first time we played it we thought it was so cool. It felt weird at first, but it became the new standard instantly. I feel like we’re in the same period for VR – people are going to figure out answers to the problems very rapidly. We’d love to be a part of that, but we have nothing announced at this point. We’re thinking about it in the background.”

AI improvement:

“The way the AI searches for the player is a little more organic. If guards are searching an area, they look around and they clear an area to an extent that depends on their laziness.

“Imagine you’re a guard in a room with the floor covered in squares, and you look left to right – you’ve checked all the squares you can see. One of the other guards will see that you’ve cleared that area, and will search elsewhere. But in the area you’ve cleared there is a chair, and behind the chair there’s a number of squares that are out of view and therefore not checked. So the other guard might go over and clear those squares.

“Our AI will try to clear as much of an area as possible, but different types of guards also have differing levels of ‘laziness’, and lazier guards will do an imperfect search. An imperfect search is key to making a stealth game.”

 

[Somberlain]

Better AI is probably the most important improvement.

10/10 GOTY 2016 confirmed.

 

[LESS T_T]

And an interview from a tier 1 site: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/dishonored-2-designer-dives-deep-into-assassin-abi/1100-6442571/

Talk about ability trees, more nuanced chaos system and C&C.

GameSpot: I wanted to start by talking about your new protagonist, Emily Kaldwin--empress of the Isles and daughter of returning protagonist Corvo Attano. In a way, you could have simply added new abilities for Corvo, but instead you chose to introduce an entirely new character...

Smith: Those two decisions were separate, though. We knew we wanted to make Emily no matter what, and then we were like, "God, we really feel nostalgic about Corvo. Let's do both of them." At first, we were thinking, "Let's just throw all the powers into one big pool." Then it became more and more interesting to us to say, "No, the powers reflect their lives or their time in the world." Corvo has Rat Swarm because he got his powers during the Rat Plague. You can look at Emily: she's a ruler, so of course she has Mesmerize.

So do the two characters share any supernatural powers, or are their ability sets entirely separate?

Corvo has exactly the same powers as last time but with all these upgrades--three to five upgrades for each power. Emily has all-new powers. Then we have enhancements, which are the passive powers--your jump distance or your agility. There are some interesting ones, like Shadow Kill, where people turn to ash when they die. Corvo and Emily share those.

Can you talk a bit more about how Corvo's new upgrades work? What kinds of upgrades can players expect?

In Dishonored, you took the power, and there was one upgrade for it. Usually, that upgrade was: It works for a little bit longer, or it works a little faster. This time, we really wanted to do something more interesting than that, so we took the power, we gave you a good basic package of the power, and then we said, "How many different ways can we upgrade it?" We tried not to have symmetrical trees. We don't care about, "Each [power] has three [upgrades]," or whatever. We say, "Whatever tree is under that power, based on what we can come up with, fine."

Corvo's Devouring Swarm in the first game, the upgrade was: The rats are more vicious, they destroy bodies faster, and they kill people faster. That was it--one power, one upgrade. Now you can do that, but you also have an upgrade that allows you to make two swarms. You can be attacking two different groups of people with rats. You can also upgrade it to have large swarms. You can upgrade it so that your swarms follow you, so when you take off running or Blinking across the ground, there's a trail of rats behind you, Pied Piper-style. That's a light dive into how we break up the upgrades.

Obviously, the game supports both lethal and non-lethal approaches. How did that impact these ability trees?

Not at all. Usually, their powers can be used lethally or non-lethally. One of the four or five critiques that people gave of the first game, even the people who loved it, was that they wanted more non-lethals. It was confusing, because people would say things like, "You gave us all the lethal powers, like Bend Time." We were like, "You can stop time and walk through the room, and nobody is ever aware that you were there." That power can be used lethally or non-lethally.

Most of the powers are still like that. You can Domino four guys together and sleep dart one of them, and you've only spent one sleep dart to take down four guys. Or you can set one on fire, and they all burn to death. It's up to you. We have added a lot more non-lethal [options], like a non-lethal drop attack--when you fall on people, you knock them out instead of stabbing them, if you want.

Can you expand on Emily's new powers at all? Did having to account for her new abilities change the way you designed certain areas or scenarios?

Just to give you a couple of examples: Let's say there are three super difficult guys to fight in one room, and then there's a servant cleaning a tray in the other room. I link these three super-difficult-to-fight guys with the servant [using Domino], and I just walk over to the servant, hit and choke him out. He can't even fight. He goes down instantly, and they go down. That's a good example of an emergent effect for Domino that we didn't anticipate, but people have started doing that.

I wanted to ask specifically about the time-travel mechanic we saw during the E3 demo...

That's a good point for clarification, because it's not one of the supernatural powers--it's a function of one of the missions. We took all the missions [and] said, "What if they had some epic theme, either fictionally or game mechanically?" Each one does something a little different. You've seen the Dust District, with randomized dust storms that affect visibility and stealth. You've seen the Clockwork Mansion, where the walls, floor, and ceiling of the house can be reconfigured with levers. Similarly, there's a mission called A Crack in the Slab, where time itself is broken.

When you get there, the Outsider says, "Your supernatural powers won't work here." Blink, Bend Time, Domino, Far Reach--none of that works. He offers you this timepiece, and it allows you to look from one time period to the other, three years apart. One is in the present, when the house is ruined--flooded, pipes broken, rats, furniture all stolen or broken--and one's three years in the past, when the house was very nice. Music playing, guards walking, and food out on the table.

You can look through the lenses of this timepiece, flip them up and look through them, and see the other time. Time is flowing in both equally. You can move back and forth, at will--like you're walking through the ruined house in the present and you need to get through this barred door, and you look at the past and the door is open, but there's a guard patrolling the area. You watch him through the lens, wait for his back to turn, transition, and move behind him. That's an example of dynamically using it to solve problems.

When you're designing scenarios or environments, are you designing with player creativity in mind? Are you trying to encourage players to be creative, or is their creativity simply a byproduct of having all these abilities?

It's a bit of both. We rely on the fact that it's systemic, and therefore, things can be put together in different ways. The systems themselves enable people to play creatively, but then sometimes we also tweak the encounter itself.

There's a scene where two guards are beating a guy up for not paying money, and they're pushing him closer and closer to a Wall of Light, which is a security device that turns you to ash if you touch it. You can just watch the scene, or you can go intervene and save the guy. You're given that instant to make the decision. If you have Possession, you can do one thing; if you have Bend Time, you can do another. You could just stop time and go turn off the Wall of Light. There are many different things you could do. That kind of improvisational moment is what we live for.

What is it about that type of moment that appeals to you?

I don't know. It's like Far Cry 2--my favorite of the Far Cry series--where you're constantly trying to sneak, but something's going wrong. And then in that split second, you have to dynamically react, fight-or-flight. It's really exciting. There's something thrilling about your plan going awry. In a tactical space, it all happens very fast, but we give you lots of tools to react and to change things.

Some players don't like that. What they like to do is: sneak into the room, hide under the table, watch everybody, plant a couple of electrical shock traps that stun people... They're very neat and tidy. The plan never goes awry for them. Those players are really gratified, too, by the ability to formulate a plan. If it goes wrong, then they're like, "What went wrong? This behaves according to rules. Let me back up and try to do it again." That's very gratifying, too, that we have players like that.

Right. In the original Dishonored, players could choose to go "high chaos" and murder everyone, or play "low chaos" and stay relatively stealthy. How will that carry into Dishonored 2? Will there be multiple endings again?

The endgames are much more nuanced than last time. They're not just a gate at the end, but they're rather branches along the way: who you supported and who you didn't support, and who you killed and who you didn't. It makes a series of permutations of the endgame. Put all those permutations together, and then put different voice-over with commentary on it, and you have very many different states.

Will we see the impact of high and low chaos styles manifest in more nuanced ways throughout the campaign at all?

We have more bodies--bloodflies lay their eggs in corpses, so the more corpses you leave, the more bloodflies there are. Entire apartment buildings you could have passed through and looted before are now filled with bloodflies. It becomes a very dangerous path. Dialogue changes; people around you get more cynical. Security goes up in high chaos as well.

Also, now, we have the player-character voices. They change, and that's a powerful tool. You can not only emote through the character, but you can also give clues. Emily goes, "Oh, that's the Clockwork Mansion," and even if you didn't realize that you'd reached the Clockwork Mansion, you're like, "Aha, that's the Clockwork Mansion!" You can also reflect chaos with it, so Emily gets more cynical as well.

So I'm guessing she grows more and more outwardly cynical with each person she kills?

We found that last time, people were deciding who to kill or not based on the Heart. They'd pull out the Heart, they'd point it at a guy, it would whisper some secrets about him, and if [players] thought he sounded like a dick, they killed him. In their minds, bad people contributed less to chaos. That wasn't actually mechanically true, but because they believed it was true, we said, "We need to make that true this time." We added a system where people in the world are either sympathetic, guilty, or murderous.

Killing people contributes to chaos; it destabilizes the world around you. But killing a sympathetic person is worse in terms of weighting than killing a murderous person. That's a concession we made to the more nuanced desire that players had. Also, it solved a problem, because players were like, "Oh, it just comes down to killing fewer than 20 percent of the people." Not anymore. The weighting is different character to character.

At the beginning of a given mission, we take all the characters in the world--the random guards and such--and we procedurally decide whether they're sympathetic, guilty, or murderous, so every time it's different.

Does this apply to assassination targets as well? Can players still choose to eliminate targets in story-driven ways?

It's a big part of the franchise, in my opinion. We came up with that idea halfway through Dishonored 1. It was a lot of work, but then we came up with these clever things [like] the Heretic's Brand for the religious leader--once you're marked with it, no one from the religion will even talk to you. We decided we have to do that for the new game. You can avoid all the guards, you can use sleep darts, you can choke them out, but for the assassination targets, everybody has a poetic justice non-lethal elimination.

 

[Tommy Wiseau]

I'm disappointed by the lack of Chloe Moretz.

 

[Parsifarka]

I'm disappointed by the lack of Chloe Moretz.

Why? She's totally wasted; long gone are her golden years. What disappoints me is someone saying that Far Cry 2 is better than the original. It doesn't matter what you think about Crytek's tech demo, FC2 is absolutely haram.