When looking at games that got it right in the realm of emergent gameplay experiences, the Thief series definitely comes to mind (Arkane seems to think so as well). However, the Thief games were from a different time - a time when stealth could stand on its own.

Nowadays pure stealth is like a dirty word. It's simply not seen as mainstream enough to justify the development costs, thus stealth is virtually always treated as an option. The typical company line is: "You can go in guns blazing or take a stealthy approach!"

The shift is very obvious in series such as Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid, with more and more concessions made to amp up the action. But that shift comes at a cost.

Part of the reason Thief was so successful was precisely because you couldn't go in guns blazing. Yes, you could exploit the AI's poor pathfinding to win battles, but the game was clearly designed to punish un-stealthy players. You were meant to always feel vulnerable.

The dilemma is: Once "guns blazing" becomes an equally viable option to stealth, how do you maintain that sense of vulnerability? Doesn't the world necessarily have to become less threatening to allow for that type of player empowerment?

This, I think, would be the main challenge in crafting a game like Dishonored. Can you strike a balance that keeps the stealth just as tense and satisfying as in a dedicated stealth game like Thief, or must there be a compromise that will result in a "good, but not great" overall gameplay experience due to trying to please everyone?

The higher the difficulty the more vulnerable Corvo is and the more perceptive the guards are. If you watch the demos, even on normal Corvo can't take on several highly armed guards by himself. That means if you are going to do a guns blazing playthrough on very hard its going to be just as difficult as if you were doing a stealth focused playthrough. The two playstyles seem equally balanced imo.

well if you do that a lot of gamers will be pissed at being so vulnerable feeling. I am not that patient to be honest to actually like the "stealthy" long and arduous way into things. My boyfriend on the other hand can do both. I like feeling powerful but I can see where the sense can get lost. I'll try to be stealthy with this since now you can possess fish and dogs to get away. :3

In terms of which is the most effective making them both equally effective is kinda meaningless. I mean if both are viable people are gonna go for the obvious faster paced approach. That is why games like Deus Ex never made guns blazing an approach that is viable all the time. Although I've played both the first and HR on the highest difficulty action heavy.

When people start this conversation up they are usually fed up with the fact that you are forced to go stealth because "playing it like CoD gets me killed". The idea of the two options is something that people never seemed to grasp and that is context. You are powerful and skillful enough to take on a lot of people (a lot being 20 maximum and not 20 000) and survive. Whether you survive with or without ammo or valuable items is still up to you and the situation at hand. So that makes stealth the more appealing approach and combat a second option.

I don't think they made games like that to please to everyone. They preferred having the option to adapt to a situation and not just get the typical "Game Over" screen. There was a story from the first podcast where a player knocked over a flower pot and then an entirely different scenario occurred. He had to run away, stab some people and at the end fight for his life with his sword and gadgets. That is what emergent gameplay is and that is what gaming should strive to be. Of course having balance is preferable but I know a lot of people in the industry who think that the balance that we can see in Deus Ex is probably the best choice and maybe in future games RPG titles could tend to give you a lot more freedom in skill customization in order to achieve that action heavy fast paced commando-style character. And I tend to agree.

P.S. Just to add on the difficulty settings comment, I really have no trouble playing an action heavy approach. I've played Deus Ex on Realistic so many times and find that both approaches are possible and in fact take a lot of skill. But like I said Dual it's not about catering to a larger audience or wanting to have a Stealth game played by more people. It's like Warren Spector said: "If we make a game with a lot of gameplay options just to cater to a larger audience, we might as well make the game into version Stealth, version Action and so on." They didn't want to make their game confined like that and have the option to play like CoD or like Thief, but rather have the possibility for those systems to interact.

It is said that the guards are very challenging. The game won't be too much easier or harder if you go stealth or "guns blazing".

Oh the guards are relentless! They will fight you, shoot you and go after you like you carry the holy grail.

The balance has its own organic stopgaps. Guns blazing is a resource heavy way to play. You'll need to do equal, if not more, exploring to find items to sell when you get back to the pub to constantly have the ammo and potions to make it share parity with a careful, stealthy approach. Ammo isn't going to be lying around in copious amounts nor will potions and spiritual essence. It could even be more difficult for that reason. A mixed approach or stealth will be easier because of preparation. There's no health regen like in CoD or even DE:HR unless you put it on easy or upgrade the Vitality power to its second level. Spiritual essence only regens so far. Harder difficulties will play their roles. I'm sure there's other things but they're not readily apparent to me at the moment.

The maximizing-possibilities approach makes a lot of sense, and I do expect that I'll be able to get some tension out of Dishonored (especially by cranking up the difficulty). Also, I think Arkane is exaggerating a bit when they mention a "guns blazing" approach, as, unless you're really stocked up, it looks like combat will actually require a lot of tactical thinking and not just running-and-gunning.

That said, I sometimes wonder if we'll ever see a pure stealth game with modern production values. Thief 4 is coming, but too little is known about it for me to get excited. A game with Dishonored's breadth of abilities, but with more of those abilities related to distracting or escaping guards (as opposed to killing them) would certainly be of interest to me, but I digress...

I don't know, The guards look challenging in themselves, but the way the world reacts as a whole doesn't seem to add up.

As we know, in the first gameplay demo in the Golden Cat (the brutal playthrough) we saw Corvo tearing [censored] up, shootin and everything, but that guard outside, standing oblivious to what is going on. That shouldn't happen.

Then in the recent 'Three Ways to Play' trailer; When Corvo blinks past the guards and gets shot from behind, there is a handful of people standing in the courtyard who make no reaction to a Gunshot occuring just around the corner. Sure the Guards who have seen you give chase as they should. Corvo then blinks up to the balcony above where there is another guard on patrol. He too is oblivious to the Gunshot which would have been easily within earshot.

Breaks immersion and minimises risk for the guns blazing approach. If I was entering the Golden Cat and blowing [censored] up, I'd expect the whole place to go on alert. Now that doesn't mean all guards converge on you mindlessly. I'd expect those on the same floor or within earshot to come running, others to become afraid, maybe some to run to the aid of the important folk. This only seems to occur when that awesome sounding city siren starts wailing.

Sound propagation doesn't seem to work 'right' from what we've seen so far, and it doesn't look like it's getting changed; more like it's just...being conveniently forgot about.

Apparently the higher the difficulty the more perceptive the guards are (i.e. better hearing and eyesight).

I'd have to watch the "Daring Escapes" video again, which is the one I think you're referring to. As to TGC, the developers said there was a bug interfering with the way sound worked and they've ironed that out. It's possible when making the marketing reel those playthroughs were based off an older build.

I hope so. I mean it's no deal breaker, but it just leaves you scratching your head.

No, they care very much about your surroundings and how guards react to interactions in the world. It would be disappointing short of the easier difficulties for the guards' situational awareness to be blunted. I think it'll work out.

Speaking of the TGC playthroughs, the action-oriented one had Harvey saying it's a resource-intensive style so there's that bolstering of give and take too.

Could you please elaborate on that?


The guards' sound perception was bugged. It has been fixed.


The guards there do notice him but he blinks away. And then the guard on the top noticed the alarm and turned around.


They do that within a small period of time.

Not really. Everybody was saying that and on the demos on QuakeCon they showed them how they fixed even explaining it in technical terms.

I do agree it's a problem but like you said not a complete deal breaker. I will ask around and see how they are dealing with that if it's an issue still.

I'd like to believe that most gamers are completionist on some level, so even if there aren't any mechanical incentives to play stealthily there will always be that curiosity to find out what would happen if you completed the game with zero kills. They may only play the game once, but they'll likely try to complete one section without hurting anyone.

Judging from videos and developer interviews however, the mechanics appear to be geared in favour of the stealthy approach anyway. Developers have stated on multiple occasions that going in guns blazing is very taxing on resources, so if these resources aren't immediately abundant, players will likely have to either play more of the game or fight smarter. Heck, the guy playing the guns blazing play through would have died had he not possessed his own rat and escaped.

Of course. That's why the "guns blazing" approach is not completely brain dead.

Quoted for truth.

It kind of annoyed me I heard so much grumbling coming from DE:HR about how low ammo quantities were. Ammo was fine imo, there was plenty for sale and in loot. I went in guns blazing plenty of times...it just shocked people it wasnt the CoD, Crysis type of gunplay. I loved the shotgun in that game...loved it. What the game did awesomely right imo is the fact it didnt have braindead ammo placed in bulk in convenient locations...you had to loot bodies and the environment properly....AND manage your inventory properly, too, dont forget.

I see Dishonored in the same light...a stealth action game with solid to strong RPG gameplay mechanics. Lol obviously. Hope its similar in ammo and loot items as it was in DE:HR. I think it will be...in the Golden Cat violent demo Harvey Smith said this style will burn resouces (loot and ammo) quickly. Not a problem though for thorough looters like me, unless they kept loot slim. I really enjoyed DE:HR looting...thought it was very well balanced.

Anyways, I'm excited for Dishonored. I'll be putting down all games and taking every morsel of this one in start to finish. Hopefully Arkane and Bethesda will make further games in this universe, too.

Btw...any full scale inventory? Or just the wheel?