Arkane Studios newest project Dishonored is released on PC, XBOX 360 and PS3 on October 12th. It is the console title I am most anticipating in the run-up to Christmas for numerous reasons: quirky and interesting graphics, chunky and expressive character designs, the near innumerable amount of freedom to orientate, discover and interact with a vividly realised game-world where the architecture and inhabitants actually have a logical engagement with one another. All of this and more separate Dishonored from the wolf-pack of sequels being fed to the masses this autumn. Read on dear reader, and I shall elaborate
1. The Narrative
You play as Corvo Atano (whom the videogames title is in reference to); a former bodyguard to an assassinated Empress and also the unlucky soul implicated as the neer-do-well responsible for her death. Your purpose is to find vengeance in the fug-oppressed industrial city of Dunwall and find out what really happened: fair enough, so far so not very mind-blowingly original. But its how the narrative unspools in the suspect politics of the city thats so interesting. The disease-carrying rats that scurry uncontrolled are tolerated by the government because the poorest citizens of the oppressive Dunwall regime cannot protect themselves, and are themselves considered as much vermin as said rodents. The infected inhabitants become Weepers, doomed to live in abject poverty in the slums of the city with blood dripping from their eyes... Though don't pity them too much, because their crazed, rabid-up-to-the-bleeding-eyeballs demeanour will get you dead rather than a philanthropy of the year award. Like a particularly insidious regime, there are barricades that segregate different parts of the city and its inhabitants: walls of light that only the Tallboys can pass through without, well, dying. It is for all intents and purposes a smoke-stacked, waste-watered prison for the poorest, and a reinforced fortress for the rich and powerful. The city is also given an odd yet viable historical background for its industrial status. It is a prime location for fishing and whaling, which is handy considering that whale-oil happens to be the fuel of choice. It's this surreal quirk in the functioning and purpose of Dunwall's industrial processes that gives the game's otherworldly atmosphere extra chutzpah: it's not just the surface narrative that is strange, but also the city's background narrative that may or may not prove relevant to the main story.