„People who loved Dishonored and Prey are going to feel very at home.” Arkane veteran sparks appetite for new, untitled RPG
The head of WolfEye studio spoke more about one game currently in development. Fans of Dishonored and Prey are expected to „feel very at home”.
We still know little about the project announced some time ago by Raphael Colantonio, the founder of Arkane Studios, who co-created Dishonored. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, he described the current game as "perfect" for his team (WolfEye Studios, where many former Arkane developers are currently working).
So far, even the working title of this game hasn't been revealed. In March, we learned that it was going to be a futuristic-style retro RPG, and in August, we received the first three concept arts for the project. In that same month, the dev also "accidentally" revealed a gameplay fragment featuring a character holding a shotgun from a first-person perspective.
Since then, there has been silence around the project - until the discussed interview. While there wasn't much specific information available, there were some interesting details that should please both RPG fans in general and the "good, old" Arkane in particular, especially fans of the Dishonored and Prey series.
People who loved Dishonored and Prey are going to feel very at home. It's uncompromised… We are just going full on into that kind of game [in] the way we create worlds, the way we let choices to the player. And I think there are going to be even more choices this time because of the RPG layer. We'll have a lot of different ways to do things. [...] There is something about real-time decision making, as opposed to everything being stats, that makes us feel more in the moment, more immersed. I'm surprised the intersection between RPG and first-person shooter has not been more of a thing.
This raises a question: if Colantonio speaks so passionately about the project being developed, which he calls simply perfect for the team, then why was the first game from WolfEye Studio significantly different from Weird West? The dev explains this decision as follows:
After Arkane, I didn't exactly know what I wanted. I knew I wanted to do something smaller. [...] We had to go through something smaller because it was a new company, so we had to bootstrap. [...] We had a good deal on Weird West. It was the first time that we had revenue share, we kept the IP, were able to do something with not much money, and that felt good. It was grounding, and we needed that in order to recalibrate.
We have nothing left to do but wait for more materials from the upcoming RPG. Perhaps next year - if not at The Game Awards 2024 - we will get its first trailer.
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