Dishonored Designer Complains of Too Many Sequels and Lack of Variety

Viktor Antonov, the visual designer of the upcoming Dishonored game from Arkane Studios, has shared his thoughts on the gaming industry and bemoaned the lack of variety in terms of interactive experiences, saying that most developers and publishers are just relying on sequels to get by.

Dishonored is one of the most impressive all-new intellectual properties that will be released this year, with Arkane Studios and Bethesda trying to deliver a top-notch first-person experience set in a steampunk world with lots of supernatural elements.

When compared to the already-established genres in the gaming industry, this unique premise certainly stands out and, according to Antonov, who previously worked on the critically acclaimed Half-Life 2, this is unfortunate, as it signals a lack of creativity.

"There have been too many sequels, and too many established IPs that have been ruling the market. And a lot of them are war games. And they're great projects and great entertainment, but there's a lack of variety today," he told Eurogamer.

When someone tries to do new things, like Arkane with Dishonored, Antonov notes that gamers and even the press gets confused and starts to look for similar experiences, like BioShock.

"We're doing a historical piece, a retro-futuristic piece, which has pretty much nothing to do with BioShock except for the fact that it doesn't take place in the far future, but has references to the past. And, unfortunately, BioShock and Dishonored are the only two games that go into that fiction for the past - how many years?”

"So, lack of variety in what's in the market leads to associations like this. There should be more historical realistic worlds out there. And too bad there are not; I was expecting there to be 20 games like this."

Dishonored is going to appear on October 9, in North America, and on October 12, in Europe, for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.