Arkane Studios founder Raphaël Colantonio has plenty on his plate nowadays, with current studio WolfEye working on a new first-person action RPG. However, he revealed that he would love to work on a new game in the Dishonored franchise, even if it’s highly unlikely to happen.
As caught by RockPaperShotgun, Colantonio spoke on a recent episode of the Quad Damage Podcast when asked about sequels to the Prey and Dishonored games. While he didn’t express any interest in a new game in the Prey series, Colantonio was keen on working on a hypothetical Dishonored 3.
“I’d love to,” said Colantonio. “I mean, we’re talking totally hypothetically at this point – I could see myself working on Dishonored 3 right now because it’s been so long that, you know, why not?”
He mentioned that quite a few of the developers at Arkane had their own ideas for a new game in the Dishonored franchise, including Deathloop director Dinga Bkaba and Dishonored creator Harvey Smith. However, since these are just ideas for now and haven’t even been pitched as of yet, Colantonio doesn’t believe there is much of a point in talking about a Dishonored 3 at this stage.
“I don’t think it would make sense to talk about it,” Colantonio continued. “Which of those three versions will ever see the day, now we’re talking about science fiction at this point. So many of the people [that worked on the series] are scattered around, and Harvey is not at Arkane any more. I’m not at Arkane, and Dinga is working on Blade.”
The first Dishonored game, back when it came out in 2013 on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, essentially put Arkane on the map after the studio had previously worked on niche titles like Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. Dishonored was able to successfully combine an oppressive visual style in the vein of Half-Life 2 with the stealth-based gameplay of the Thief franchise and some of the more fanciful abilities you’d see in titles like System Shock 2.
Its sequel, Dishonored 2, was also a critical success. The game was especially praised for the wide variety of powers that players could get access to, as well as intricate level design that still hasn’t been seen in other games since then.
While Arkane Lyon, the studio that worked on Deathloop, is currently working on Marvel’s Blade, the game is still some time away. Back in December, reports indicated that the studio was internally aiming to launch it in 2027 “at the earliest.”
Arkane Austin, on the other hand, was part of a host of studio closures at Microsoft last year. The studio was joined by Tango Gameworks, Roundhouse Studios, and Alpha Dog Studios. Bikaba has previously called the closure of these studios “absolutely terrible.” He also called out company executives for making developers’ work environments “Darwinist jungles.”
For more details, check out our coverage of the closure of Arkane Austin. In the meantime, also check out our review of Dishonored, Dishonored 2, and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider.
