Dishonored Creator Hints At Next Immersive Sim, Saying “Give My Team A Couple Of Years”
Dishonored co-creator Raphaël Colantonio replied to an X (formerly Twitter) post regarding the lack of new Deus-Ex / Morrowind-inspired indie games, saying “Give me and my team a couple of years.”
The post was a screenshot of a green text that said despite an “indie game revolution,” nobody was making Deus Ex or Morrowind-inspired games. These two aren’t exactly in the same genre, but both titles espouse a multiple-choice approach to plot resolution, with minimal hand-holding.
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Colantonio is one of the founders of Arkane, developers of Dishonored, Prey, Deathloop, Redfall and the upcoming Marvel’s Blade. He departed the studio in 2017, citing ‘creative anxiety’ around triple-A development and his desire to spend more time with family as his reasons. The story of the partnership between Colantonio and fellow creative Harvey Smith is well worth a read, especially given Arkane Austin’s recent closure at the hands of Xbox.
A couple of years later, Colontanio founded WolfEye Studios. The studio’s debut game, Weird West, a top-down ARPG with immersive sim elements, was released in 2022 to mostly positive reviews.
An Implacable Genre
The immersive sim genre has always been a tricky one to even define, “action games with player agency,” and “narratively-rich shooters,” – these definitions come close, but don’t quite encapsulate everything an immersive sim is.
Deus Ex, Hitman, Thief, Dishonored, Alien: Isolation, BioShock, System Shock, are the types of series that people think of when they think of immersive sims. There’s a lot of player agency, and you’re often thrust into the worlds of these games without excessive direction.
Colantonio is partially responsible for Dishonored, one of the best immersive sims of all time. Fans of his previous work and the immersive sim genre should keep an eye on what WolfEye is working on when they’re ready to talk about it.
Ken Levine, creator of BioShock, is currently working on Judas, an immersive sim comprised of “narrative building blocks.” The remaining half of Colantonio’s old studio Arkane is working on Blade, another immersive sim-type experience. Perhaps we’ll see a small resurgence in the genre during the coming years.
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