14 DAY TRIAL // Pete Hines, who leads the Public Relations department at publisher Bethesda, says that the success of the recently launched Dishonored means that his company is aiming to turn it into a full-fledged franchise, although it is not clear how it plans to achieve this goal.
The executive tells Destructoid that, “I can tell you that Dishonored is far exceeding our sales expectations, which is especially cool considering it’s new IP facing a host of well-established franchises this quarter.”
“We did terrific numbers again this past weekend, both in stores and on Steam, where Dishonored was listed as the number one selling title over the holiday weekend. And Dishonored has really sold well overseas. So, we’re very pleased and appreciate all the fans that have supported Dishonored and Arkane. We clearly have a new franchise,” he adds.
Hines has not announced an actual sequel or spin-off, which would cement the franchise status of Dishonored.
Harvey Smith, one of the co-directors of the game and co-founder of developer Arkane, has previously said that he sees Dishonored as a complete package and has mixed feelings about a direct sequel.
His partner, Raf Colantonio, says that the entire team is happy to see their game perform well, both critically and commercially, and that they are interested in working with Bethesda on a potential sequel.
Dishonored allows players to inhabit the character Corvo, a master assassin who also has access to supernatural abilities, as he explored the steampunk city of Dunwall and tries to find out why he was framed for the murder of the Empress he was protecting.
The game is based on stealth mechanics, but gamers also have a lot of options during combat and there’s no penalty for achieving goals by simply taking out all enemies, although moving around without being detected is much more satisfying.