Arkane: 13-year-olds are “hungry for highly interactive, non-dogmatic experiences”

Arkane Studio’s Harvey Smith says that people are hungry for non-linear games, and Dishonored is something that will deliver it to them.

He mentioned on the PS Blog that younger gamers will appreciate games that challenges them and makes them think out of the box.

“When we release a game like this kids sometimes come to us and say ‘this game blew my mind; I didn’t know games could do this; I only played very linear games before. That’s what we like to hear. I actually have more faith in the 13-year-olds as they’re playing things like Day Z or Dwarf Fortress or Eve Online. They’re hungry for highly interactive, non-dogmatic experiences, I think,” he said.

He also revealed how the game approaches stealth.

“We decided to go with ‘view cone’ based stealth. Enemies have a view cone. Their peripheral vision is weaker and they don’t see as well up high – it’s squashed so you can hide in the rafters. The deal is that if you’re in front of their view cone they see you, no matter what the lighting levels. Even if I turned out the lights right now, I’d still be able to see you, right? So we decided to go with something realistic,” Smith said of the stealth mechanics,” he described.

“The truth is that we tried all of the models you can think of. We tried the ‘pool of shadow’ model, but modern players would say the AI looks bad if I’m in a shadow and an enemy walks right by me. That looks dumb. They want a more reactive system. And that makes it a little more hardcore. To sneak, you really have to stay behind cover, lean out behind walls. It requires you to really know where an enemy is looking and avoid that range.

Dishonored is shaping up to be an amazing game. Don’t believe us? Check out our Gamescom 2012 preview here.

“The amount of choice and variation in just this one level is simply staggering, there are at least a dozen distinct, unique means of completing this level and it balances linear and open worlds with supreme precision and poise. Dishonored has the makings of a special game and even in its current state it would take a disaster of biblical proportions for it not to be a strong contender for game of the year,” wrote our author Jordan.

“Dishonored is also winner of our Golden Bolt award for Best Game at Gamescom 2012.”

Thanks, VG247.