Arkane Studios: Dishonored / Deus Ex / Thief - One of the gaming industry's most unfortunate victims.

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

Dishonored is an action game with stealth mechanics. Thief is one of the first stealth games that’s playable with multiple ways to try a level.

I like Dishonored, but Thief 2 is one of the best stealth games of all time. Garett being a weak bitch is so you don’t kill your way through a level.

The death of Looking Glass Studios was a tragedy. Now everywhere you look the gaming industry is a travesty. Dumbed down mechanics, DLC, DRM, subscriptions, gacha, whales...

 

[Epoch]

Dishonored 2 was kind of terrible imo, the writing was awful and the voiced character sucks. The level design felt less open and more railroaded into specific paths (1 had this but it was generally more open), the graphics feel like a downgrade artistically, its in some weird hyper real cartooney instead of painterly look, it looks like that 'this will be tf2 in 2015' image.

I tried playing death of the outsider and did the first 2 missions and got so bored I just quit and never played it again.

I also tried to play Prey twice, got mid way through and just got bored and dropped it in the same spot. I can see the appeal of games like Deus Ex and System Shock, I love me some System Shock, but Arkane games just don't feel like those and instead just feel very bland. I've seen people argue that you have to use the game's systems or something, but if I have to go out of the way to make things harder for myself by using random interactions instead of just shooting something in Prey, then I feel like that's bad design, its the exact same reason I hate Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom.

Dishonored 1 was pretty good, its more like an action game, I don't think its really an immersive sim like the Looking Glass games.

TLDR: I think Arkane is overrated and overhyped

 

[Lokenstien]

One of the small details I find I love in these games are the post mission stat screens. Being able to confirm you didn't fuck up challenges too wondering how you missed 200 coins after spending 4 hours in a level checking every corner is a kinda of simple joy I need in games. After all, whats a video game without a score?

 

[Judge Dredd]

The death of Looking Glass Studios was a tragedy.

I'm reminded of something some communist said about the Roman Empire. Do people who want to return to the days of Rome also want to restore the things that led to its downfall?

People point to the best Looking Glass made like Thief and System Shock, but if every game was a smash success masterpiece, why did they close down? If wikipedia is to be believed, their output was more than the classics, and included a lot of stuff people don't care about like Flight Unlimited, Terra Nova, or British Open Golf.

I've seen people argue that you have to use the game's systems or something, but if I have to go out of the way to make things harder for myself by using random interactions instead of just shooting something in Prey,

This is what I mean about the games encouraging a playstyle at odds with the fun.

Prey is at it's best when you're looking for mimics and finding upgrades that completely change the game. However, the "best" way to play the game is keep putting trash in the recycler and brute forcing everything to get more resources. By playing on easy, you need to make less trips the recycler, and you can play sloppy without worrying about those banana peels you missed because you went around the enemies.

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

People point to the best Looking Glass made like Thief and System Shock, but if every game was a smash success masterpiece, why did they close down? If wikipedia is to be believed, their output was more than the classics, and included a lot of stuff people don't care about like Flight Unlimited, Terra Nova, or British Open Golf.

They closed down because their games didnt sell well, even the classics. They were before their time in creating authentic system simulations aside Maxis and Peter Molyneux and theyre respected precisely cause of that. Nowadays everything is bloatware and even if its 200 gb its incapable of creating an authentic system simulation which can reach the quality of the stuff Looking Glass and Maxis were doing which is one of the reasons why devs nowadays should learn to develop small and optimize stuff cause if that authenticity and quality of simulation can be achieved with almost nothing computing specs, imagine what can be achieved with just a fraction of power more if not on the same specs itself. In fact a lot of looking glass founders came from Micropose and adjacent companies developing simulations in the 80s like silent service and 3d hovertank. As much as Microsoft flight simulator is jizzed off to by everybody, it cant reach the authenticity of silent service II or III.

 

[RSU 1741]

Terra Nova

Two points: Sports games were/are usually good sellers, and Looking Glass' golf game was for its time good. Sold like shit. Terra Nova is also amazing in theory, it's a power armour simulator that had to be progressively simplified because it was too much of a simulation and its death kiss was trying to run after Wing Commander and its FMVs. Budget wasn't simply enough and so they cut multiplayer, but imagine, they could have gotten a simulation-like proto-Tribes out in 1996. I still enjoy it quite a lot (and it has that amazing background work typical of mid-90ies games) but it's noticeable how it got crippled by wrong development choices.

And of course like all of LG's games it sold like shit as Georgio said. Most of Looking Glass' output was amazing, but the sales weren't just there and often development priorities were terrible.

 

[Vect]

The West has truly fallen if all that race-obsessed losers like you do is complaining about ethnic minorities or whatever the fuck making their videogames.

Hey, it's pattern recognition. Like, I played the shit out of Deathloop, but when you consider the 3 white male characters in the game are: a bloodthirsty billionaire manchild who price-gouges pharmaceuticals and hides his face in a mask the whole time, a computer nerd who is dominated by his druggie artist girlfriend and splices audio recordings of people praising him, and a highly-strung, egomaniacal pseudoscientist who's defining character trait is that's he's hated by everybody, then the fact the guy directing it is black might, in certain contexts, be worth nothing.

Here is Mr. Bakaba talking about race in Deathloop. (Archive)

Anyway, I think the main flaw with Dishonored 2 is the polish of the combat system encourages you to start fighting. The first Dishonored made combat really lethal and you had fewer tools to work with - it also helped that it was fairly primitive. But in 2 you could engage in spectacular swordfights that feel weighty and rewarding, and show off a bunch of cool powers that allowed you to do horrible shit to NPCs. The only level where it properly encourages stealth is the Clockwork Mansion, which had a good antagonist, dangerous enemies and was a level where you could extensively manipulate the environment. One reason I liked the DotO DLC was it played with formula by allowing you to impersonate people, but it just wasn't very mechanically flexible outside of certain plot progression.

...excellent Knife of Dunwall.

There's something about just Daud's teleport in that DLC that's weirdly addictive. That ringing, rushing sound as the screen desaturates and the way the ambient sound pitches down and up again is a level of style and detail I wouldn't trust them to preserve in a remaster.

Also, OP should mention Arkane Lyon got roped in to help MachineGames make Wolfenstien: Cyberpilot and Wolfenstien: Youngblood, which weren't so hot either. I should also point out that Deathloop and Youngblood are the first Arkane games that exhibit the modern Bethesda trademark of having inexplicable and never to be patched memory leak issues.

 

[Judge Dredd]

They were before their time

So when was their time? Everything Looking Glass, Arkane, and even Irrational Games seems to be a financial failure despite endless acclaim by fans, and despite the technological advances, they can't seem to make it work.

When I look at the failure of games like Titanfall 2, I see how they were fucked by management. I wasn't into PC gaming until after Half-Life 2 was out so I can't comment on Looking Glass, but Arkane seem to victims of their own incompetence. As mentioned, Prey and Dishonored are neat and all, but they struggle to reach above the standard of "okay". Dishonored 2 was a mess on release, while Deathloop and Redfall are notoriously bad despite them being ideas I should love.

When I went back to play System Shock 2, I fucked myself over during character creation by making a psi character. Making a gun character didn't help as the guns would dissolve after a magazine or two. When I was told that I have to edit an ini file so the guns are functional, I threw in the towel.

 

[Get the rope Macaulay!]

Does anyone really think 3 is going to be good? Deathloop was straight up a dishonored clone with a fresh coat of paint. Even if people bitch about it, at least by making it black heavy and 1970s inspired it was different than anything else on the market visually.

We all know dishonored 3 if they've even begun making it will be a lot closer to Deathloop in terms of races and we'll probably play as some trans person, minority, or woman in piss easy gameplay. the stealth will be non-existent, which won't matter because every enemy can be taken out super easily a la Assassins creed 3.

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

So when was their time? Everything Looking Glass, Arkane, and even Irrational Games seems to be a financial failure despite endless acclaim by fans, and despite the technological advances, they can't seem to make it work.

When I look at the failure of games like Titanfall 2, I see how they were fucked by management. I wasn't into PC gaming until after Half-Life 2 was out so I can't comment on Looking Glass, but Arkane seem to victims of their own incompetence. As mentioned, Prey and Dishonored are neat and all, but they struggle to reach above the standard of "okay". Dishonored 2 was a mess on release, while Deathloop and Redfall are notoriously bad despite them being ideas I should love.

When I went back to play System Shock 2, I fucked myself over during character creation by making a psi character. Making a gun character didn't help as the guns would dissolve after a magazine or two. When I was told that I have to edit an ini file so the guns are functional, I threw in the towel.

If looking glass existed in the 2000s, around 2007 or 8 they wouldve been like id in the 90s or nintendo in the late 80s. Every game of theirs wouldve been a critical and commercial success. The reason they didnt succeed in the 90s was because they developed simulations almost exclusively for the pc autists and the dnd crowd which was a miniscule market at the time in the face of nintendo and arcade games (and the PC market was dominated by non simulation streamlined CRPGs, which is not the same as system simulation, think ultima wizardry and Richard Garriott shit). The dishonored series is a bit too mainstream and simplistic but system shock and deus ex are like the gold standard for what to expect from looking glass while thief was a bit less accessible but is still regarded as a cult classic. System shock 2 has some shitty design decisions in hindsight because it requires scum saving and 80s style player communication, you have to collaborate with other players irl to test out strats and builds so the games knowledge base can be expanded. Player communication was a big part of old games, pc games specifically cause the developers thought the idea of real world collaboration to create knowledge bases would be a fun thing. Dark souls employed that scheme, part of its difficulty comes from the fact that it doesnt communicate anything and you have to test out stuff and make notes or read the wiki.

In the realm of simulation games you have three types of simulation which were pioneered by three entities which I mentioned earlier, you had system simulations pioneered by Looking Glass, you had organic simulations pioneered by maxis and you had entity simulations pioneered by Peter Molyneux. System simulations focused on creating interactive systems and worked within the context of immersive sims and rpgs where most interactions were organic and systemic which required the player to formulate plans and strategies around a given task. Most of that looking glass system simulation is now employed by open world games like MGSV and BOTW which currently have the benchmark for best system simulations aiding gameplay (RDR2 is faggotry). Organic simulations refers to simulations of complex and organic systems which gave the player managerial capabilities over said systems and the ability to engineer required results. This is where most of the tycoons, builders and life sims falls under with most of it being pioneered by Maxis. Entity Simulations focused on entity simulations within a given game world and the authenticity of entity interactions which can be exploited to give predictable results. This is the realm of god games and strategy games which Peter Molyneux is known more for but Sid Meier technically did more for. Two of these genres are dead, organic and world simulations are completely dead with system simulations living vicariously through open world games although most of them arent truly simulations but interaction flowcharts. A good example of what I mean is how successful Bioshock 1 was, it was for all intents and purposes a more simplified Looking Glass game (made by a looking glass school of simulations graduate, Ken Levine) and when it was released in 2007 it almost instantly became a hit and one of the best games of its generation. You had a ton of successful system simulation type games around mid to late 2000s from Bioshock to Messiah of Might and Magic to Dishonored to Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl and more. Looking Glass wouldve killed if it cohesively survived beyond 2004 but it didnt, unfortunately.

 

[Henri Barbusse]

Dishonored 1 was pretty good, but everything after that was at best heavily flawed. Even Dishonored 1 had a bunch of dumb shit in it like how it tries to be a stealth game, but the stealth is incredibly simplistic and most of your powers and equipment revolve around violence. It does have a neat idea in that if you play violently, later levels have more enemies for you to kill, but then the sequel has a black woman scold you for engaging with the most developed system in the game. 1 had some scolding, but nothing stopped you from just killing Samuel at the end. And I have to admit, making every character in the game fake-Victorian English to get around Unreal Engine characters all looking ugly was a stroke of genius.

Dishonored 2 is just shit. The levels are generally bland shitheaps or overly gimmicky. The first game had a nice rhythm where you first traversed a trashed city to arrive at some generally well-kept, posh area to really drive in that you're killing the people in power. It got broken at the end once you got to the Flooded district, but that had the assassins to keep things interesting. 2 has way too many trashed areas, even the conservatory. The writing took a huge dive in quality and it feels like there's way too much of it. There's some slight effort in having more stealth-oriented powers, but that doesn't change that combat is the most developed part of the gameplay and dismembering enemies is the most fun you can have in the game. And as a final touch, bloodflies are way worse as a symptom of the city falling apart than the rats. A swarm of rats feels more real than a weird huge fly nest filling a room and in terms of gameplay, the bloodflies are too trivial to swat away with a sword. The rats aren't a huge threat, but they require some expenditure of resources to get rid of it, while flies are almost always dealt with a convenient nearby flammable bottle. The voiced protagonists are also a mistake, Corvo is clearly an afterthought and only there because they managed to get Stephen Russell and Emily is a generic Strong Female Character.

Prey did a great job with creating an environment, but then dropped the ball by having the least interesting enemies ever. The only interesting enemies in the game are the mimics and they lose their novelty after the first dozen. It's still a pretty good game, but if it wasn't almost comically easy to become overpowered enough so that combat is barely a speedbumb, it would be tedious slog.

Just play The Dark Mod instead of Dishonored 2 (or even 1) and I heard the System Shock remake is pretty good, even if kind of pointless.

 

[God of Nothing]

Deathloop was straight up a dishonored clone with a fresh coat of paint

it was basically dishonored 3, seeing as how it took place in the same world
yeah, it's fucking retarded but that's going for a complete switch in tone and aesthetic for you

 

[OtherLastTrainHome]

I do hope Arkane gets it shit together one last time to finish the trilogy.

i don't see it happening but i'm also not sure what there is to finish. Death of the Outsider left things open for the franchise to continue, as many games typically do to give themselves an excuse to work on more.

the problem is that Arkane got cucked after Anita Sarkeesian "visited" them. wokeness permeated everything in Dishonored 2 and even Death of the Outsider as a result. Emily's character was assassinated by the lesbianism and drug references, which read like the same disgusting shit from the Left Behind DLC for Last of Us. Billie was made a lesbian. Mindy is an outrageous insert for representation points. Emily's captain of the guard is a woman and she dies instantly when push comes to shove, lol. look what's going on with Starfield and tell me that's not going to happen with Dishonored 3. Redfall and Deathloop were massive flops so they're going to be on a tight leash. not to mention, it's unlikely any of the creative geniuses behind the beautiful, haunting and morose whalepunk setting of The Isles are still aboard.

the last game i enjoyed from Arkane was Prey (2017), which, despite it following Anita's visit, was still an enjoyable and atmospheric game. i can't see myself replaying it though. i've never had an interest in going back to any of them, tbh.

oh and don't forget that Dishonored 2 was very likely going to be much different than what we got. the announcement trailer from 2015 was full of mystery, charm and intrigue, all of it familiar to someone who enjoyed Dishonored 1. the final quote by the Outsider in it, holding Corvo's mask, still resonates with me. i was stoked for Dishonored 2 after many years thinking the first game was a one-and-done affair. of course, it all changed for the worse when the Outsider's original voice actor Billy Lush was tacitly fired and ignored by the bunch of pathetic, unprofessional assholes he worked with. if i recall correctly, he was quietly dismissed for having a naughty history of Xbox Live messages or some shit. doesn't even matter. he did an AMA on reddit under the username u/trannydestroyer, so all the best to him.

Dishonored 2 was kind of terrible imo, the writing was awful and the voiced character sucks. The level design felt less open and more railroaded into specific paths (1 had this but it was generally more open), the graphics feel like a downgrade artistically, its in some weird hyper real cartooney instead of painterly look, it looks like that 'this will be tf2 in 2015' image.

agreed, except that voiced characters don't bother me unless they're written by zoomers.

 

[God of Nothing]

Emily's character was assassinated by the lesbianism and drug references,

They tried to do that gender neutral name lover nonsense but you can tell from the spooky house note Emily has that she's rubbing pussies with a dyke from how they're both supposed to be afraid, which is really weird when you play as her and she's murder-happy queen bitch tomboy supreme.

 

[Asian tech support]

Does anyone really think 3 is going to be good? Deathloop was straight up a dishonored clone with a fresh coat of paint. Even if people bitch about it, at least by making it black heavy and 1970s inspired it was different than anything else on the market visually.

We all know dishonored 3 if they've even begun making it will be a lot closer to Deathloop in terms of races and we'll probably play as some trans person, minority, or woman in piss easy gameplay. the stealth will be non-existent, which won't matter because every enemy can be taken out super easily a la Assassins creed 3.

I made a half joke response in the MS leak thread about Emily becoming a pooner for D3 but that's probably not going to be the case. If I was a betting man, I'd say they go with some kind of prequel/spin off because the game is tied to the Outsider's powers. there's a fair amount of supplemental materials involving other bearers of the mark and there's a wealth of content they could use as a baseline but I've no doubt they're going to write something new and have to retcon loads, which creates a set of problems that don't exist for pozzed Arkane but exist for anyone who cares about world building and the existing universe.



The Isles are extremely far north, although there's still a vast difference in the climates of Tyvia and Serkonos. For the sake of variety, I can excuse it as a gameplay concession, but it doesn't make sense for islands that close and so far north to exhibit the climates of both Spain and Greenland. Going through the wiki, Tyvia=Sweden/Russia, Morley=Ireland, Gristol=England/Germany/France, and Serkonos=Spain/Italy/Greece.

In both games, there are blacks, usually guards or thugs, and notably Billie Lurk. While I can accept that this map is by no means complete and that there are likely other inhabited lands besides The Isles and Pandyssia, it makes no sense for there to be a sizable black population in the Empire. Them being in the game is fine and it didn't stick out. However, because whatever Dishonored 3 ends up being will inevitably be some retarded DEI afrocentric nonsense, it will create a scenario where the (imo) mostly well done worldbuilding crumbles. The Isles is not The Hoods.

Unfortunately, further reading confirms that Deathloop is indeed the Dishonored universe in the far future so the damage is already done.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

When I went back to play System Shock 2, I fucked myself over during character creation by making a psi character. Making a gun character didn't help as the guns would dissolve after a magazine or two. When I was told that I have to edit an ini file so the guns are functional, I threw in the towel.

You know, gamers like to talk shit about games releasing half baked, but the lists of best games ever made is full of games that needs to be modded by fans to be playable. We get what we deserve.

 

[The Pulverizer]

Does anyone really think 3 is going to be good? Deathloop was straight up a dishonored clone with a fresh coat of paint. Even if people bitch about it, at least by making it black heavy and 1970s inspired it was different than anything else on the market visually.

Deathloop straight up repainted assets from Dishonored 2, and a lot of the powers were just copied and pasted (thanks, Dinga Bakaba). In all of its problems, at least Dishonored 2 had that spark of life. The music was delightfully reminiscent of European folk songs, which actually added a lot of depth to the world.


I think when it came to the art, they wanted to skip a few lawyers of paint that the characters contained because there were too many to design. They still look better than a lot of 3D models do today, but I'll still take the original over this. If the original characters were more like paintings, then the characters of D2 were more like statues.

Serkonos=Spain/Italy/Greece

Yes, that's what the music was reminiscent of.

Unfortunately, further reading confirms that Deathloop is indeed the Dishonored universe in the far future so the damage is already done.

I have no hope for a Dishonored 3. I think it all depends on how much power the old devs have. Arkane has to realize that they need a big course correction if they want to survive as a company. Maybe there's a slim chance that they'll choose survival over poz for once, though that could just be wishful thinking on my part.

Dishonored was a product of its time. The last piece of an era of gaming with the least corporate interference. Developers were actually able to use videogames to tell a unique and interesting story. In a way, Corvo is like us. He wasn't at all aware of the corruption and the degeneracy until it came and ruined his comfortable life. He gets the opportunity to drive his sword into the heart of all this evil. But will he act as a vengeful force to those that wronged him, or will he be considerate of the fact that society can't start anew if the reforms were built on piles of mutilated corpses.

Rest in peace, Daniel Lycht. The game wouldn't have been nearly as great if it wasn't for his music

 

[Henri Barbusse]

You know, gamers like to talk shit about games releasing half baked, but the lists of best games ever made is full of games that needs to be modded by fans to be playable. We get what we deserve.

System Shock 2 is very overrated, but definitely does not need to be modded to be playable. It, like Prey, has great environment and pretty good writing, but unlike Prey you can't clown on the worst part of the game. It's definitely fitting that hack fraud Ken Levine's reputation has been built on it.

 

[The Pulverizer]

It's definitely fitting that hack fraud Ken Levine's reputation has been built on it.

It's very unfortunately that Ken Levine is the most fondly remembered designer of that era with countless of video essays being written about him. I guess it's not all that surprising that a Jew found an easy way to reach the top.

 

[Odd Opossum]

Deathloop is technically Dishonored 3, since it takes place in it's equivalent to the 1960's.