Dishonored 2 Game Designer Harvey Smith has taken to Reddit to answer questions regarding what is inarguably one of this month's biggest releases. We've learned a bit behind the development of the game, what its aspirations are, as well as perspective regarding Bethesda's review policy.
Check out the best questions and answers below.
What was your main goal while developing Dishonored 2? What are you most proud of in the new game?
Harvey: Main goal was to be true to our players.
While I understand that you don’t necessarily have much influence over Bethesda’s PR strategy, I’m very interested to hear your thoughts about the new review policy, as it impacts the perception of a product you’ve worked on for years.
Harvey: We're really confident in Dishonored 2. And I know the post-launch critique stuff everyone does will once-again be interesting. Looking forward to hearing all those thoughts – press and players alike – once people have played more of the game.
In our case, we took the game on tour to a bunch of cities and let players run through the Clockwork Mansion mission as Emily or Corvo, and the response we got on those nights and afterward was super positive; very gratifying.
What was the thought process of adding features to the sequel? Were there ever moments where the team had to ask themselves that a new feature was indeed a natural progression of the first, or was it something you were adding for the sake of it being a "bigger, badder" game than the first?
Harvey: Creating big games is hard. Making a sequel is a different kind of challenge. With lessons learned, we wanted to 1) give players more of the core elements, strengthening them when possible, 2) add a few impressive, complementary elements, 3) fix the few things players disliked in Dishonored 1.
Does Dishonored 2 have as much little mind blowing details like Dishonored? For example the Sokolov's High Overseer Campbell painting changing when you pick up the cider.
Harvey: Hard to count, but I think more. Some small details, but some really big things more fully detailed.
Do you remember the process of deciding to make Emily an assassin? How did this come about?
Harvey: It was a leap moment. Dialing through my thoughts on framework for the new game. It required moving the timeline by 15 years, but once it occurred, I could not shake it.
The full AMA can be read here.
