Bethesda sound rather pleased with their sneaky, stabby new frontman Corvo. Speaking to Destructoid, the publisher's VP of PR Pete Hines, said that with Dishonored, "we clearly have a new franchise."

"I can tell you that Dishonored is far exceeding our sales expectations, which is especially cool considering it’s new IP facing a host of well-established franchises this quarter," Pete said. "We did terrific numbers again this past weekend, both in stores and on Steam, where Dishonored was listed as the #1 selling title over the holiday weekend. And Dishonored has really sold well overseas."

"So, we’re very pleased and appreciate all the fans that have supported Dishonored and Arkane. We clearly have a new franchise."

Not that they released those sales fingers, mind, choosing instead to keep them hidden in a secret cubby-hole, behind a revolving bookcase that's opened by pulling out the book Corporate Espionage for Dummies.

So, successful game in possible sequel shocker. While it's not the most surprising news, it's still nice to see that a game as well-crafted and flexible as Dishonored is finding a substantial audience. What would you like to see in the follow-up? Personally I'm hoping for a series of sidequests in which you try to cause the biggest accident possible by blinking into a room and startling everyone. And a button that makes Corvo throw his hands in the air and shout "surprise!"

Thanks, Game Informer

Bethesda have just announced the first DLC for Dishonored, titled the Dunwall City Trials. It's a time-trial and score-attack challenge pack that, they claim, will put your combat, stealth and mobility skills to the test.

The ten maps are set in the abstract world of the Outsider and will feature a range of objectives, including collecting clues to help identify and assassinate a target, a Thief-like non-lethal mansion infiltration, a wave-based battle against tallboys, weepers, thugs and guards, and a challenge to chain as many drop-kills as possible.

A high score leaderboard will rank your score, letting you brag about your blink prowess. Naturally there'll also be a selection of new achievements.

Dunwall City Trials is due for release on December 11, and will cost £3.99.

Good news, everyone! Steam, Amazon, Blizzard, and more have kicked off Consumer Season by booby trapping the web with potent spending bait such as 33% off XCOM: Enemy Unknown, 50% off The Walking Dead, and 66% off StarCraft II. We spent the morning stumbling through the minefield to compile a list of some of the best seasonal discounts, but stay vigilant: more surprise server-busters are bound to go live as we approach the spendiest weekend of the year.



Steam: Like the Summer Sale, the Steam Autumn Sale rotates deals daily, with even more fleeting Flash Sales lasting only 10 to 15 hours, so serious shoppers should check in at least twice a day. As a bonus, you get to follow Steam's adorable doodle story: currently, it seems a turkey is being forced to enter a Felix Baumgartner-inspired high diving competition.

But don't just look at the front page: Steam isn't promoting most of its deals, so scan the full list now and then. Here are some of the better discounts at the time of writing:


33% off XCOM: Enemy Unknown - $33.49 / £20.09
50% off The Walking Dead - $12.49 / £10.49
25% off Borderlands 2 - $44.99 / £22.49
75% off ARMA II: Combined Operations - $17.99 / £14.99
25% off Dishonored - $44.99 / £22.49
50% off Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - $11.24 / £8.99
33% off The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - $40.19 / £23.44
75% off Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - $2.49 / £1.74
75% off Limbo - $2.49 / £1.74
25% off Torchlight II - $14.99 / £11.24
75% off Cave Story+ - $2.49 / £1.74
More Steam Deals





Amazon: (Some deals are region-specific) Amazon hasn't been quite as liberal as Steam with the big games, but it has conjured a storm of Lightning Deals on desktop PCs, components, and peripherals. The scattershot selection below should give you an idea of what to expect.

HARDWARE:

17% off iBuyPower AM699 Desktop - $579.99
18% off CyberpowerPC GUA890 Desktop - $499.99
39% off Dell S2330MX 23" Ultra-Slim VGA Monitor - $139.99
40% off Samsung Series S24B30BL 23.6-Inch Screen LCD Monitor - $119.99
33% off Corsair Vengeance C70 Mid Tower Case - $97.45
31% off Logitech Optical Gaming Mouse G400 - $34.49
19% off Logitech G600 MMO Gaming Mouse - $64.62

GAMES:

50% off The Walking Dead - $12.49 (Steam code)
80% off Dungeon Defenders - $2.99
10% off Hitman: Absolution - $44.99
75% off all Assassin's Creed games (excluding Assassin's Creed III)
More Amazon Deals




Blizzard: Blizzard has joined the party with Diablo III for $40 / £33 and StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty for $20 / £17.



GOG: GOG's current sale nets you five games from a list of 20 for a mere $10 (just over £6). The list is loaded with some great indie adventure and puzzle games, so if you don't already own them, now's a good time to prepare for that "it's cold outside, so I'm going to drink tea (whiskey optional) and not leave my screen for the next forever hours" feeling.



Green Man Gaming: While Green Man doesn't celebrate consumerism with a morbid-sounding Friday, it is offering its usual voucher code. Enter GMG20-1FYLZ-EDG8R when purchasing a PC download for 20% off any game, except those already on sale. At the time of writing, GMG's daily deal (North America only) is Mass Effect 3: N7 Digital Deluxe for $15.99.



Newegg: (US and Puerto Rico only) Newegg has taken this whole "Black Friday" thing awfully far. Not only has it preempted Black Friday with "Black November," it's re-preempting it with a Pre-Black Friday Frenzy sale. How about a 500 GB Western Digital WD Blue hard drive for $50? A Samsung B350 Series LED monitor for $180? Keep in mind that if you visit Newegg from now until December 1st, you should not expect to then purchase other things, like food.

If you find any great deals as the weekend progresses, we'd love it if you shared them in the comments. And if all these sales combined with a poorly-timed lack of funds has you feeling down, remember that buying stuff is only briefly thrilling, while instead you could be continuously thrilled by PlanetSide 2, MechWarrior Online, Tribes: Ascend, or many of the other new free-to-play games we're thankful for this year.

Oh, bother. Gentlemanly royal bodyguard Corvo Attano seems afflicted by a rather sadistic streak while slaying his way across Dishonored's Dunwall. Bethesda collected a slew of player-submitted creative murders, kills, and assassinations into nearly three minutes of cat-and-mouse, oil-tank candy trails, grenade sniping, and other custom combos, impressively proving how much I suck at this game by comparison.

Check out a fearless player's base-jumped air-stab around the 2:25 mark. Kudos to Bethesda for branding the video with a straightforward title instead of—as one YouTube commenter put it—"~xXx+NoSc0pE-MLG-PrO-RzRwIrE-K­1LLsTr3aK+xXx~."

In this week's episode of No Trace, I ruin Lady Boyle's masquerade ball with a bit of planning, a lot of luck, and a relatively small amount of unplanned crisis. By my standards - and if you've watched the previous episodes in the series, you can make up your own mind about how low that particular bar is set - this is probably the purest execution of the No Trace concept so far. At least in so far as I don't have to deal with rubber aristocrats or murder innocent people to cover my inept backside. As ever, spoilers within.

As everyone's favourite flying passive-aggressive is fond of telling us, this really will be Lady Boyle's last party. Ladies will move. Gentlemen will move. Somebody will ring an alarm. There may or may not be a fire on the roof.



(There isn't actually a fire on the roof. Nor can I, by the game's rules, throw any elbows. I will throw a few more Corvo kicks, however.)

You can watch all of the previous episodes in the series here, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for the rest of our video things. Check out Tom's Dishonored review for more on why it's one of the most exciting stealth games released this year.

Dishonored depicted a city in the throes of a commerce- and people-killing plague spread by nests of vermin as Corvo Attano stuck it or snuck it to his wrongdoers. Yet Dunwall also plays host to a secondary epidemic far less sinister in nature: words. Speaking to New World Notes, Dishonored co-creative directors Harvey Smith and Raphael Colantonio revealed the freeform stealther holds "roughly 90,000 words in AI-driven one-liners and spoken dialogue and another 40,000 written words in the form of notes, books, and graffiti." Sticking to the novel-sized script is a sizable cast of around 100 characters, half of which exist in the tattered books, journals, and clippings peppered upon Corvo's journey.

Smith and Colantonio also shone a whale-oil lamp on the literary, music, and film influences shaping Dishonored's narrative cocktail, saying, "Many people on our team made mention, on a weekly basis, of various influences from Herman Melville to Mervyn Peake. You could point to Thomas Burke (for Limehouse) or Dickens as general influences, and as people who have added to the cultural map that most of the team shares.

"During development, we discussed the works of H. P. Lovecraft, Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman, and others. Films like Gangs of New York, Perfume, and Anonymous factored into our research. As we've mentioned before, some of us love the Decemberists and took small influences from the lyrics of Picaresque and Her Majesty."

Both Smith and Colantonio felt "most proud" of Dunwall's emergent nature and how players experience the mass neurosis of the crumbling city, but a few embedded plot elements earned Arkane's love. Spoilers: "The Heretic's Brand, Campbell showing up later as a weeper, Emily's final drawing (based on high/low Chaos), and the Empress' little room of leftover stuff in Dunwall Tower."

The rest of New World Notes' interview spotlights some more interesting tidbits on level design and Dunwall's identity.

It's No Trace time again! In case you were wondering, 'No Trace Time' is now defined as 'once a week, pretty much.' Thank you for your continued understanding. In this week's episode, I tackle Kaldwin's Bridge in pursuit of the Royal Physician, Anton Sokolov - all the while attempting to leave no evidence of Corvo's involvement whatsoever.

There are a number of obstacles in my way this time around, not least the fact that the mission is a kidnapping, not a murder: so no more fatal staircase montages. I also deal with my own somewhat severe respiratory problems, Sokolov's prodigious vomiting, disappointingly small explosions, and the only perceptive guard I've ever encountered. Guest starring Corvo's magic frictionless backside and the problem-solving man-punting that it facilitates.



If you're new to No Trace, start here. Otherwise, see you next week! When I can breathe again, and hopefully won't need to edit six different coughing fits out of the commentary track.

Though not as ludicrous as a Victorian-esque assassin impersonating a British actor impersonating an American vigilante with halitosis, the idea of a speaking Corvo Attano flitting about Dunwall's dankness in Dishonored seems unfeasible—especially after we learned his brooding silence brushed close into "creepy as hell" territory. But that's what Dishonored co-creators Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith told OPM UK, even revealing the displaced royal protector's original incarnation as a ninja.

"We added some text input options for Corvo around alpha but never really went further," they said. "To this day, we wonder what the other version would have felt like in the game."

Colantonio and Smith both explained that an anchoring design element throughout Corvo's gradual reworking was the choice to stay your blade and seek non-lethal solutions. Corvo's acceptance of both slayed or spared outcomes was a deliberate decision to let players mold Corvo's personality as they wish. "If we portrayed Corvo angry and seeking revenge, it might offend the non-lethal player who is seeking a stable outcome for Dunwall and vice versa," they said.

The rest of OPM UK's report details interesting concept iterations for the mighty Tallboys (once a meek streetlamp lighter) and Corvo's signature Blink ability (initially an optional power). Well worth the read.

As I discovered in the previous episode of No Trace, making Corvo's assassinations look like accidents isn't exactly a noble endeavor. I've fed innocent people to rats in order to cover my tracks, and in this week's episode I'll put innocent people - and fish - to the blade if it'll help me build a more convincing lie. I am not especially proud of myself. Nor am I especially good at staging a staircase slip-up. I'll let you figure that out for yourself.

In episode two, I take on the Pendleton twins in the Golden Cat bath house, and finally figure out how to make Corvo talk. There will be vomit. I will have trouble with a locker door. I will make a certain amount of use of stock sound effects and circus music. Needless to say, there will be spoilers.



If you're new to the series, start here. If you've finished the game, you can also give our Dishonored podcast special a listen for more of our thoughts. Check back next week for episode three.

Martin, Chris and Tom Senior discuss wibbly wizard whirlwinds, the problem with peace, returning to Guild Wars 2 and what today's games might taste like if they were food. Also featuring the Steam charts, your questions from Twitter, and an exploration of hamster Objectivism.

We've noticed some comments about people not being able to see the Flash podcast player on previous episodes. This may be down to an ad blocker - if you're running one, you may need to temporarily disable it. You can always subscribe on iTunes. And you should!

Show notes:

Shepard's awkward, awkward dancing.
Adam Jensen can dance if he wants to, he can leave his friends behind.
Star Wars: The Old Republic free to play details.
Our Dishonored podcast special.