Arkane Dishonored 2 - Emily and Corvo's Serkonan Vacation

[Siel]

Some info we already know as well as exclusive ones from Gameinformer :

• Dishonored 2 takes place 15 years after the finale of the original game.

• The game starts with a day in the life of Empress Emily Kaldwin, a character that Arkane was intent on exploring more after the first game. "By the end of Dishonored, Emily was a very interesting character to us," Colantonio says. "She was the only thing good in the world actually worth saving. She was also a reflection of Corvo's actions, and some players figured out that she was Corvo's daughter."

• After another otherworldy usurper seizes the throne, Emily is driven out of Dunwall and becomes an outlaw. After a dramatic sequence players are then given the choice to continue to play as Emily or Corvo Attano, the hero from the first game.

• The game takes place in Karnaca, the capital city of Serkonos, which is known as the jewel of the south. Fans will remember that this Empire of the Isles country is also the birthplace of Corvo. The region is known for its warm weather, beachfronts, and spicy cuisine.

• Like Dunwall before it, Karnaca is in the midst of an epidemic. You may have seen the blood flies in the trailer. Like the plague rats in Dishonored, these can be a natural hazard. This species lays insects in corpses and hatches out of them. If they get into a certain distance of their lifespan they become harmless like a dung beetle, but if there are too many of them at one point in adolescence they become hostile. The more bodies you heap, better chance these hostile outbreaks happen. This can be used to harass guards.

• Each character plays through the same series of missions, but each has different perspectives on the world. By playing through the campaign with both characters you will learn different things. There is no swapping between characters; once you choose one you stick with it until a second playthrough.

• Emily and Corvo each have unique powers granted to them by The Outsider.

• Emily's powers include Far Reach (which allows her reach out and pull herself to another building like a grapple), Shadow Walk, and Mesmerize. She is also capable of crafting bone charms, and there are more than 400,000 combinations in the game.

• Corvo retains familiar powers like Devouring Swarm, Bend Time, Possession, and Blink.

• For Dishonored 2, Arkane is taking a new approach to upgrades. The last game offered upgrades that strengthened your powers. Dishonored 2 has powers, but from there it offers a bunch of skill trees that allow you to upgrade in asymmetrical ways. For instance, you could upgrade Far Reach to yank guys to you and assassinate them mid-air, grab objects with it, or pull objects.

• All powers have extensions like Daud's Blink that let you use powers in different ways

• Arkane believes this new approach to upgrades offers a lot of replayability. You could go really deep with three specific powers in one playthrough, then switch it up for another.

• If you've seen videos like this on the web, you know that talented gamers have found ingenious ways to string together powers to become unstoppable killing machines. Arkane says it's preserving the systems that allow for experimentation with the special abilities. "When we put an element in the game, we don't put it in the game and attach it to something," Smith says. "We make it general purpose work so you can attach it anywhere. The worst thing in the world would be if Blink had attach points. That would be the dumbest idea because it means you can only go if we want you to go. Of course it's better for the level designers, the producers, and the tech guys that think it's safer [if we took that approach]. For us, we say it is a power and it has a range. It's a squashed sphere, and you can shoot at a spot or empty air or a mantle climb icon or jump in midair and do it and the point is it's recombinant because it's general purpose.

• What you see in the announce trailer you can do in the game. This particular mission is called the Clockwork Mansion. Here you must kill the grand inventor of Serkonos or find another way to eliminate him in his moving house.

• Arkane isn't going into details yet, but it says that its technology base has dramatically improved. "You know how last time we had really strong art direction and okay technology? Now we have really strong art direction and really strong rendering tech," Smith says.

• For Dishonored 2, Arkane has enhanced the A.I. in a couple of ways. First off, guard search patterns have been revamped. In the first game they would follow bread crumbs but there were opportunities to trick them. Now they search for real. Several A.I. characters will get together and split up the territory to canvas the entire space. They will not recheck a spot another soldier has already investigated.

• The A.I also have increased situational awareness. For instance, if two grunts realize they are with an officer who has a ranged weapon, they understand that he should hang back and they should move forward.

• Dishonored 2 has a modified high/low chaos system that offers more granular, direct consequences.

• Some people said Dishonored wasn't hard enough, so Arkane is scaling the game to offer more of a challenge to these players.

• Both the Lyon and Austin and studios are collaborating on the game.

• Arkane says there is one new game mode that it plans to share details on at a later date.

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/d.../21/21-things-we-know-about-dishonored-2.aspx

 

[Darth Roxor]

Will the guards look up this time, though?

 

[baturinsky]

Will the guards look up this time, though?

Look at the picture above. They don't see anything above ground level because of the visors on their helmets.

 

[Vibalist]

• If you've seen videos like this on the web, you know that talented gamers have found ingenious ways to string together powers to become unstoppable killing machines. Arkane says it's preserving the systems that allow for experimentation with the special abilities. "When we put an element in the game, we don't put it in the game and attach it to something," Smith says. "We make it general purpose work so you can attach it anywhere. The worst thing in the world would be if Blink had attach points. That would be the dumbest idea because it means you can only go if we want you to go. Of course it's better for the level designers, the producers, and the tech guys that think it's safer [if we took that approach]. For us, we say it is a power and it has a range. It's a squashed sphere, and you can shoot at a spot or empty air or a mantle climb icon or jump in midair and do it and the point is it's recombinant because it's general purpose.

 

[DeepOcean]

• If you've seen videos like this on the web, you know that talented gamers have found ingenious ways to string together powers to become unstoppable killing machines. Arkane says it's preserving the systems that allow for experimentation with the special abilities. "When we put an element in the game, we don't put it in the game and attach it to something," Smith says. "We make it general purpose work so you can attach it anywhere. The worst thing in the world would be if Blink had attach points. That would be the dumbest idea because it means you can only go if we want you to go. Of course it's better for the level designers, the producers, and the tech guys that think it's safer [if we took that approach]. For us, we say it is a power and it has a range. It's a squashed sphere, and you can shoot at a spot or empty air or a mantle climb icon or jump in midair and do it and the point is it's recombinant because it's general purpose.

Hey, Harvey, you should teach this to your colleagues at Eidos Montreal and Ubisoft because they surely as hell are still trying to figure out how to make games.

 

[Rahdulan]

I'm glad to see they still have the correct mindset. And I love a good jab when it's long overdue.

 

[Roguey]

She was the only thing good in the world actually worth saving

What paternalistic nonsense is this?

 

[Drakron]

Will the guards look up this time, though?

Do you look up?

Here is the thing, since we climbed down the trees we stop looking up or down since movement for humans as a species is entirely in a flat plane, we are more likely to look down due to being were our feet are, up stop being relevant a very long time ago.

People will look up only when sound and light directs our attention towards it, this isnt a flaw of the AI unless you want a AI that doesnt behave like a human being would, at that point you might as well give then X-Ray vision and unlimited detection range, for me the biggest problem with the AI is you cannot fool it as you would a human being, people are lazy and would unlikely to investigate a sound like AI in games do when its a "natural sound", that is if they hear footsteps in a area they know there are other people moving around they would likely not go "whats that sound?" and investigate, they would not give a shit because humans are a very visual creature now, unless its a out of place sound we arent expecting its unlikely we would even register.

Guards in games are easily beaten only because not they arent good but rather because they are too mechanical and predictable, people learn to exploit the AI and a game with Uberguards would not be either realistic or fun because you faggots would complain about something, I rather have guards that would actually react as human beings that bullshit AI because "challenge".

 

[waywardOne]

I just made a gin and lemonade. You should chill out, too.

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

The worst thing in the world would be if Blink had attach points. That would be the dumbest idea because it means you can only go if we want you to go.

Harvey's such a goddamn bro.

• Dishonored 2 has a modified high/low chaos system that offers more granular, direct consequences.

Hopefully they make the reactivity to chaos less of a good vs evil slider. A lot of the actual choices you made in the game had some really interesting moral dilemmas to them (e.g. many of the nonlethal "assassinations" were wayyyy darker and arguably eviler than just straight up killing the person), but all the reactivity to those choices is that low chaos=sunshine and roses, high chaos=you evil bastard.

 

[Drakron]

I just made a gin and lemonade. You should chill out, too.

No.

 

[Metro]

If I were a guard I'd probably take to looking up if a couple of ninjas were rampaging through the cities dropping down on people from above. Anyway, Derpshonored 2 and then 3 and then 4, etc. prevent an Arx Fatalis 2. Shame.

 

[sexbad?]

I hope we can tuck away the sword this time. It was a little bit overly in my face for a pacifist playthough.

IIRC, you tuck it away by holding the use key.

 

[baturinsky]

If I were a guard I'd probably take to looking up if a couple of ninjas were rampaging through the cities dropping down on people from above. Anyway, Derpshonored 2 and then 3 and then 4, etc. prevent an Arx Fatalis 2. Shame.

Considering that those ninjas are professionals that usually only kill rich kids and attentive guards, I'd NOT look up.

 

[Roguey]

A lot of the actual choices you made in the game had some really interesting moral dilemmas to them (e.g. many of the nonlethal "assassinations" were wayyyy darker and arguably eviler than just straight up killing the person), but all the reactivity to those choices is that low chaos=sunshine and roses, high chaos=you evil bastard.

Chaos wasn't so much about the main characters you killed or "spared" it was about how many people-who-were-just-doing-their-jobs you killed (leading to stretched resources, an increase of the rat population etc). You could have a high chaos playthrough where you non-lethally subdue your main targets, alternately a low chaos playthrough where you only kill them.

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

A lot of the actual choices you made in the game had some really interesting moral dilemmas to them (e.g. many of the nonlethal "assassinations" were wayyyy darker and arguably eviler than just straight up killing the person), but all the reactivity to those choices is that low chaos=sunshine and roses, high chaos=you evil bastard.

Chaos wasn't so much about the main characters you killed or "spared" it was about how many people-who-were-just-doing-their-jobs you killed (leading to stretched resources, an increase of the rat population etc). You could have a high chaos playthrough where you non-lethally subdue your main targets, alternately a low chaos playthrough where you only kill them.

True but your decisions during the assassinations did contribute to chaos.

Anyways, I always thought it was dumb that the game essentially penalizes you for killing guards, because it encourages a save/reload heavy gameplay style instead of the most fun way of playing Dishonored: nonlethal as long as you aren't detected and then lethal to get out of sticky situations.

 

[Siel]

Harvey Smith new interview :

http://metro.co.uk/2015/06/23/disho...-people-are-tired-of-being-hand-held-5260958/

Also some intriguing stuff in new article from IGN :

Harvey Smith have revealed new details about how Dishonored 2 will differentiate between Emily and Corvo, and what changes fans of the original should expect.

Speaking to IGN during E3 2015, the duo explained you won't be switching between the two characters as missions go on, but will instead face a choice near the start of the game that'll be permanent.

"The way we’re doing it this time is you play Emily for about 20 or 30 minutes at the beginning of the game, then there’s this very dramatic moment where you can choose which one to continue with, either Emily or Corvo," Smith explained. "Then for the rest of the game you’re locked into that choice. But it’s the same series of missions whether you choose or the other, they just have different perspectives and commentary on it.
“
There’s this very dramatic moment where you can choose which one to continue with, either Emily or Corvo.

"They do have completely different powers, however. In the announce trailer you see Emily using a power called 'Far Reach'. She doesn’t have Blink, she has Far Reach, and it can be upgraded mechanically in different ways than Blink can be. You also see her using Shadow Walk at the end, and that’s a power Corvo won’t have either."

The duo also explained player feedback has played a major part in the development of the sequel. One of the biggest complaints about the original was that the game was too easy, so now a wealth of options have been added to make it tougher. For example, if you're feeling masochistic, you'll be able to toggle a setting that dictates how visible you are when leaning around things. Those who want an accessible game so they can explore the world can have that by remaining invisible when leaning, while those who want a challenge can make it so guards will spot them if they look long enough.

Another big addition was teased, though Colantonio was rather coy about it. He said in addition to the lethal and non-lethal playthroughs present in the first game, there's to be a third path. When this is combined with the fact you can choose between Corvo or Emily and more pathways through the world than ever before, both he and Smith believe there's a strong case for players wanting to go through the game again and push themselves with a new route, character and difficulty.
As for those fearing Corvo may be taking a backseat in this version of the game, Smith emphasised that wasn't necessarily the case, and his skills have received a fresh lick of paint to boot.

"I feel like Dishonored 1 was Corvo’s story - in Dishonored 2, you can play Corvo, and we love Corvo – we’ve deepened and extended all of his powers. We’ve revisited all of his powers from the first game and added new upgrades and things. So he has his classic powers, but they’re upgraded and extended.

"But it does feel like there’s an excitement around Emily. It’s 15 years later and I think what Raf was talking about was after you finish Dishonored, you wonder how this girl will grow up. She was a 10-year-old, her mother was killed, she was from a position of privilege but then went through a tragedy and was raised by Corvo so what would she be like as a 25-year-old? We were really excited about seeing her story play out as the resolution of what happened to her mother, the assassination of this Empress."

 

[baturinsky]

Will it be again walled-in levels, or open world?

 

[Siel]

Will it be again walled-in levels, or open world?

Walled-in. Thank god.

 

[Alfons]

I wonder if they're actually going to do something about the retarded swordplay or will it be a first person goomba stomping simulator again.

 

[DeepOcean]

Thank God it won't be open world shit.

 

[Siel]

New article from GamesRadar about making Dishonored. Doesn't really concern the sequel but since it seems to share the same philosophy :

http://www.gamesradar.com/making-dishonored/

“We thought, ‘Well, we’re screwed. Now Bethesda’s not going to want to work with us,’” Smith says. “And they surprised us by saying, ‘No, we wanted to work with you guys because you’re you guys! You can pitch something original, or we have this old ninja game concept that no one has ever developed.’ It was classic feudal Japan: sorcerous powers and weapons and poison darts, and someone had killed your master and you were a ninja seeking revenge.

“We pitched a counter proposal. We came back with, ‘What if it was London and 1666, the last year of the plague, the year of the Great Fire?’ And, to our surprise, they said, ‘That sounds just as cool, and you sound more passionate about it. Go, go, go!’”

Bethesda is as good at pitching games as they are at writing them.

the studio realised it wasn’t enough to birth a world if, as playtesting suggested, it was a chore to traverse. The solution – a local teleportation power called Blink

Fucking playtesters.

 

[baturinsky]

Some more Dishonored 1 badassery

 

[ZagorTeNej]

HR devs should take note, that's how you fucking design a level instead of having a route A (vent), B (strength aug) and C (EMP immunity aug).

You allow room for player creativity and emergent gameplay. You don't design a level around the tools that are at player's disposal, you design an interesting location and the player uses said tools to tackle it as he sees fit.

Of course the video also shows Corvo being overpowered as hell, it needs more guards (and better AI), more ways for enemy to counter Corvo's powers (such as overseers music boxes) etc. but when it comes to level design, it's hilarious how much Harvey Smith and Co leave the competition in the dust.

 

[Infinitron]

HR devs should take note, that's how you fucking design a level instead of having a route A (vent), B (strength aug) and C (EMP immunity aug).

You allow room for player creativity and emergent gameplay. You don't design a level around the tools that are at player's disposal, you design an interesting location and the player uses said tools to tackle it as he sees fit.

Of course the video also shows Corvo being overpowered as hell, it needs more guards (and better AI), more ways for enemy to counter Corvo's powers (such as overseers music boxes) etc. but when it comes to level design, it's hilarious how much Harvey Smith and Co leave the competition in the dust.

Dishonored does have the OBVIOUS PIPES and mouse holes lining corridors, though. I think people give DX:HR too much of a hard time about this. With yellow outlines around every vent, everything becomes much more obvious than it was in the original Deus Ex, even though both games had vents criss-crossing levels.

In general though, Dishonored HAS to do things differently because unusually for a game of this genre, it has almost no reliance on physics manipulation. Physics becomes largely redundant when you can just teleport anywhere, so the level designers had to do other things instead of giving you different paths with different physical obstacles to bypass with your tools.