Dishonored 2 - Preview @ PC Gamer

[HiddenX]

Henriquejr spotted this Dishonored 2 preview:

Dishonored 2: creative killing in Karnaca

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The success of the first game means that Arkane has the freedom, with Dishonored 2, to double-down on its strengths. There’s no pressure to make a simpler or more traditionally marketable offering, as has happened with games like this in the past. “When we made Dishonored we weren’t really sure how it’d be received,” Bakaba says. “It’s weird when you say it now, but I can tell you that until the very end, when the first reviews came, we were thinking ‘maybe this industry doesn’t want this type of game’. That is now in the past, that fear. This time we approached it like ‘OK, they like what we’re doing, what we’re passionate about, how can we improve.’”

The team are also guided by their success, particularly when it came in forms that they didn’t expect. “For whatever reason, we have a wider range of demographics who like our game than is traditionally true and I love that,” Harvey Smith says. Dishonored 2’s two protagonists represent one way that the sequel celebrates this diversity, and the cast of principal characters is another. “I love writers like Ta-Nehisi Coates who talk about how important it is to have a representational avatar for a comic or a game,” Smith says. “Not just a grizzled white dude. That’s an easy trap to fall into. We found that the more we include other types of people in the world, the more it resonates with a wider range of people and it doesn’t hurt the core audience at all. It doesn’t hurt the core fantasy at all.”

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More information.

 

[Kyrer]

I'm really glad to hear that Stephen Russell, the main actor from the original Thief games, is coming in to voice Corvo. I absolutely loved the original Thief's, and even though I preferred their game-world over that of Dishonoured's, I'm happy that the Dishonoured franchise is turning into Thief's spiritual successor.

Also, speaking as a "grizzled white dude," I'm very happy that we are maybe starting to see a bit more diversity amongst gaming protagonists. Even if you reject the "politically correct" argument for this, I believe more variation and less stereotyping just helps to create better, more original fiction.

 

[joxer]

Voice Corvo?
Horrible idea. I don't think this new game will repeat the success - Corvo is supposed to be mute who's impairment led him excel in other skills!
I'll still buy the game, but count me disappointed.