CONNECT WITH US
Gaming

Gaming

Dishonored was a last-ditch effort by Arkane Studios after years of fruitless contract work, according to the game's co-creator: 'I think we had four months of money left'

PC Gamer logo

Published on

Add as a preferred source on Google
Dishonored was a last-ditch effort by Arkane Studios after years of fruitless contract work, according to the game's co-creator: 'I think we had four months of money left'

Former Arkane Austin head Harvey Smith recently announced his new studio, Black Pony Immersive. As the name suggests will be dedicated to making immersive sims in the tradition of Deus Ex and System Shock. It's a commitment that I wholeheartedly support, though as is always the case with this genre, there's a concern over whether such a move is commercially viable.

As it turns out, however, this isn't the first time that Smith has bet the house on an immersive sim and come up trumps. That's exactly what happened with Dishonored—the game that cemented Arkane's reputation as the new guardian of this particular strand of RPG.

Speaking to The Game Business, Smith revealed that Dishonored was a ride or die project, a way out of a mire of fruitless contract work for other developers. "People would come tell us 'Man, to keep the business alive, you better take some contracts. You need to be working on whatever you can get.' And for a while we tried that, even though it felt wrong."

Despite some promising projects like a cancelled Half-Life 2 episode, Smith's fears proved justified: "There was a point in time when Arkane was about to go under. I think we had four months of money left. We were working on Boom Blox with EA. We were pitching to Ubisoft. We had a couple of guys on a zombie shooter. We were farming people out left and right. We were on nine projects at once."



Source link
Related Topics:Gaming

Disclaimer

We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We TheMorningPulse.fyi want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It's possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.