Eurogamer Expo: Dishonored Dev Session

I never truly understood the level of detail in Dishonored’s open-world structure until I watched Dinga Bakaba.

Arkane’s Assistant Producer Bakaba jumps into a demo of the game, where your supernatural assassin is tasked with kidnapping a mad doctor, Sokolov. He will play the level twice, once stealthy, once balls-to-the-wall action. Not only does he have a host of superpowers at his disposal, but he can also combine these to great effect. Bakaba summons a swarm of rats before attaching a trip mine to one of them. These rats automatically attack nearby enemies, and in doing so, explode the trip mine.

This is genius, but it is just the beginning.

Dinga Bakaba is also a game designer for Arkane. Accompanied by Christophe Carrier, lead level designer, it’s clear that they share a love for old school gaming. The consistent theme throughout their Eurogamer Expo presentation for Dishonored is giving complete control and freedom to the player. They use the word “freedom” to describe everything within Dishonored, from the level design to the weapons and abilities at your disposal. To highlight Arkane’s ethos for Dishonored, a slide is shown portraying a level from Doom, something positively huge in scale and complexity, along with a mock level for modern shooters, a glorified corridor littered with cut-scenes.

The audiences chuckles at the image, and while Carrier quickly acknowledges he enjoys and respects modern games, he also discusses how every player has the same exact experience, something Dishonored greatly deviates from. “Not to say these games aren’t good,” he qualifies. “It’s just not what we’re doing. I enjoy these games for the wild moments that they bring, and the very strong experience that you live, but everybody is living the same experience. We don’t want that. We want the player to have as much freedom as possible.”

Bakaba showed us the different ways players can approach the demo. Having played the demo myself just before entering the developer session, and seeing others have a go, I realised that rarely was the same technique repeated. It’s not just which path you choose, but how you use the superpowers at your disposal.

During the all-out action playthrough, I witnessed one of the greatest moments I have ever seen in a videogame.

Bakaba runs into a bit of trouble with some armed guards, and quickly freezes time then offs them all except one with a crossbow. Time is resumed and the group of enemies collapse. The last remaining foe loads his pistol and fires, just as Bakaba freezes time again.

As the bullet leaves the guard’s gun, Bakaba takes control of the guard as time grinds to a halt. He walks him into the path of the bullet, before unfreezing time and watching the guard get killed by his own shot.

This is genius.

The possibilities in Dishonored are near endless, and there were so many great moments in Bakaba’s two playthroughs that to try and describe them to you would be a disservice to both the game and his skills. This series of interactive trailers shows what it’s really like. Be sure to watch in full-screen mode.

Seeing the game how its meant to be played, Dishonored has quickly become my underdog for Game of the Year. The only thing holding it back? As one eagle-eyed audience member noted, there’s a “u” in ‘Dishonoured’, but let’s not be picky.

Dishonored will be released on 12th October for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.