article from bethesda.net
by Jessica Finster
Appearing out of nowhere like The Outsider, Arkane surprised the masses at E3 with the announcement of Dishonored 2 and Dishonored Definitive Edition.
With Dishonored Definitive Edition sneaking up from out of the shadows and releasing this month, we caught up with the game’s co-creative directors, Raf Colantonio and Harvey Smith, to hear what Xbox One and PlayStation 4 fans can expect.
What have you been enjoying about the new generation of consoles?
For us, it’s all about the games. People at Arkane often gather in the kitchen and play Bloodborne over lunch. Everyone agrees that Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis System is really cool. And Alien: Isolation has some great moments. Plus that team obviously put a lot of effort into recreating the feel of the original Alien film!
It’s great to see edgier games like Sunset Overdrive or Nidhogg showing up, too. Neither of us has played it yet, but D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die sounds interesting. Oh, and Ori and the Blind Forest is gorgeous. Then – and we’re not just saying this – Fallout 4 is coming and we’re both super thrilled about being able to play the final version of the game soon.
On another note, we love the remastering that’s going on, because shelf life for good games is too short. A book, song or film can be enjoyed a century later, but a game is often hard to play after one hardware cycle. Why are you excited to introduce the Dishonored Definitive Edition to even more gamers?
We’re excited. Dishonored is a game we love very much. That can’t be overstated. It’s the fruition of our collaboration, and everyone on the team poured their hearts into it. Think about that just going away because of a hardware cycle transition… it would be sad.
So now a new group of people can play Dishonored, and it will continue on through this console cycle. The graphical enhancements bring this version up to the level that GOTY players get on a high-end PC.
And maybe one of the best things about the Dishonored Definitive Edition is that once we release Dishonored 2, players can play the two games back-to-back on the same systems, getting the full experience.
For fans going back to the original game, will they notice any hints alluding to Dishonored 2?
There are connections between the two games for certain. And the DLC for Dishonored – included in Definitive Edition – definitely makes allusions to Karnaca, the city where Dishonored 2 mostly takes place.
Players who get the Definitive Edition not only get Dishonored, visually enhanced for the new consoles, but also get all the patches and all the DLC we’ve released: Void Walker’s Arsenal, The Knife of Dunwall, Dunwall City Trials, and the Brigmore Witches. Three years removed from the release of Dishonored, do you look at the game differently from when you originally released it? If so, how?
Dishonored looks and plays better now than when we shipped due to all the enhancements. With some distance, I think we see the game as the byproduct of who we were at that time. What we were enthusiastic about. So it’s a time capsule that contains our love for immersive, first-person video games.
Making Dishonored was difficult – the work of many people – but time makes us forget the hard parts, leaving us with a sense of accomplishment, and pride in what our team at Arkane pulled off.
Any message for future fans who’ve yet to play Dishonored?
In a way, those people are lucky because now they get the best possible version of the game. It’s different than most video games, and we’d encourage people to play through twice, experimenting with stealth versus combat, using different powers, and exploring alternate pathways through the world. It’s a game about an assassin where you don’t have to kill anyone, which makes the experience really interesting. You can be incredibly brutal or ghostlike and clever.
The story-based DLCs include the characters Daud, Delilah Copperspoon, and Billie Lurk, who are really popular amongst the Dishonored community. We feel like there’s just a lot to love and enjoy in this package.
Dishonored Definitive Edition arrives on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 and will be available on August 25 in North America and August 28 across European Territories. If you played on PC and missed any of Dishonored’s content, Dishonored GOTY Edition features all the game’s content (DLC included) the way it was intended to be played.
Dishonored 2 will release on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC in 2016 – stay tuned for updates.