We'll wear charms made of their bones to enhance our abilites - our magicks may well rely upon a fuelling substance derived from their oils/blubber, and they are at the heart of the gameworld's thriving industry. They seem to be described as relatively passive beings as opposed to aggressive man-eaters, and may be growing endangered of extinction due to overhunting. They sound absolutely beautiful, in a slightly horrible way - I know not how hard Arkane's artists and designers will be fighting to make them visible in the game as well as simply a background feature, but imagine the temptation must be great.

Might our character carry out a mission on one of those whaling ships? Might we see their colossal carcasses washed up on a beach or stretched out on a butchery wharf, being browsed by gulls and unscrupulous gumbo-makers?

How important are these beings to the ecosystem and the world itself? Such colossal beings, insofar as they've existed in our own world tend to grow slowly, living to a great age and breed rarely - they cannot compensate for the rate of kills claimed by a growing industrialised nation. Japan doesn't even need whale byproducts to survive or thrive by any stretch of the imagination, and even under sanction they're still doing great harm to their local populations. Just how brutal would the industry be in a world where the 'whales' are the very source of magic? It's a compelling question.

I cannot express my excitement enoughto see a developer exploring truly creative world designs again. It has been a long while since we've touched this kind of grand fantasy - and I've far more interest in the proposed gameplay of Dishonored than in that of Bioshock Infinite, for example.

It will be a struggle to keep the whales out of my dreams, knowing how my sleeping mind works. I hope we actually get to meet them in Dishonored - however tragic the circumstances of the meeting may be. If such occurs, lets hope the developers have played Shadow of the Colossus, or have their own ideas on how to make the death of an ancient giant as saddening as it should be.

- Jakkar

Even though it's very macabre, I'd like to see one or more of those tentacle-whales in a butchery wharf.

In the new http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2011/07/20/the-look-and-feel-of-dishonored.aspx, there's a few shots showing a whale strung up on a huge ship, at 3:32 and 4:05. http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/1382/dishonoredwhale2.jpg's the http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/3699/dishonoredwhale.png.

Nice find. But that "whale" looks very strange (I know they're no actualy whales but loosely based on them).