First-person supernatural sneaky murder simulator Dishonored is indeed getting a sequel, which was never in doubt but is still splendid news. Publishers Bethesda last night announced Dishonored 2 [official site], which will let folks travel to a new land to stab faces as either the first game’s face-stabber, Corvo, or the first game’s small girl, Emily Kaldwin.

It’s set 15 years later after she’s received a visit from the Outsider to get her own magic powers, mind. Come see in the announcement trailer.

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Gathering together the best shooters is no easy task, but if you’re looking for a new PC FPS to play, look no further.

Your favourite game is at number 51.

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Alec wrote about some of his favourite gaming moments last week and I was inspired to put together something similar. Ever the structuralist, I decided that I’d string my favourite moments across a fictional interpretation of an actual day. Here is one of many days in my life, from a breakfast of champions to the blurred bottles at the heart of Saturday night.>

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Though there have been murmurings (and indeed alleged leaked emails) that much-anticipated but much-troubled open world shooter Prey 2 had been snatched away from original dev Human Head and entrusted to the tattooed hands of Dishonored dev Arkane, Bethesda have now stated that the game is as dead as Zhora after three bullets in the back.

But what’s in a name? … [visit site to read more]

You could finish Dishonored for free this weekend. It’s free to play on Steam until 9 o’clock on Sunday evening, which certainly gives enough time to zip through and stab everyone in the neck. You would, of course, be a monster–not just for the reckless murder, but for missing some of the finest first-person sneaking of recent years. No, unless you have nowt going on, the trial will give sneaky players just enough time to crave closure. Handily, the game’s on sale cheap too, as are its ace DLC chapters.

Killfreaks can alternatively play Titanfall and Borderlands 2 free this weekend, mind.

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There are a lot of words being written about the new consoles this week but when I spoke to Warren Spector a few days ago, he was clear about where his future lies: “I think all the interesting stuff is happening on PC now… Assuming I make more games, which I intend to do, PC and Mac are going to be my targets.”

It’s good to hear. We spoke at the Bradford Animation Festival and covered a wide range of topics, from his theories of design and pioneering role in PC gaming to thoughts on the current state of the industry. In this first part of our conversation, there’s insight into how Spector see his own legacy and the work of his former colleagues, and how frustrations with Thief’s difficulty inspired the player empowerment of Deus Ex.>

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Path of Shadows is an upcoming non-commercial student project in which the player character can teleport between shadows. As seen in the prototype video below, it resembles an over-the-shoulder Mark of the Ninja, with a protagonist who is wearing a magical glyph version of Isaac Clarke’s RIG read-out. Limiting the teleportation ability to shadowy areas suggests prescribed paths through levels, a puzzler’s approach to stealth. As is often the case, the sneaky protagonist feels compelled to creep through temples, silently murdering guards. A goddess instructs, “do not bother remembering anything”, which sounds exactly like the sort of thing that somebody would say if they’d killed you and taken command of your soul in the recent past so they could make you smash up a rival deity’s temple.

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This is the latest in the series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills.>

Games move pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you might miss them. The pretties this week come courtesy not of a particular game, nor indeed me, but of the Dead End Thrills Flickr group, a caravan of some 500+ ‘players’ who spend more time stopping games and looking around than they do actually playing. The times we live in.

With some 11,000 images in there, I wasn’t sure how best to approach this. (Drunk, obviously, but how badly?) I’ve gone for the easy option: a round-up of games and/or users that stood out over the last few weeks. What you’ll often find is that wrangling games into ‘screenshot mode’ has knock-on benefits for any PC gamer, so let’s see if that holds true. (more…)

When I saw that Dishonored was going to have additional DLC missions I was worried that it might wander off the beautiful path that the original game created. It was all too possible that any additions might seem like bad fan fiction for the original, quite neatly encapsulated, game. Corvo’s story was so complete that would be very odd to see “further adventures of”, or anything of that ilk. Arkane, of course, chose wisely in this regard. They chose Daud, the troubled master assassin defeated by Corvo in the original game. And Daud, I am beginning to feel, makes for a better experience than Corvo ever could.

The Brigmore Witches, then, is very much worth playing.> (more…)

Dishonored lacked multiplayer, $5828375 worth of microtransactions, and hyper-linear setpiece rollercoasters, yet for some reason everybody loved it. It’s almost like people want intrigue, options, and whale-oil-based societies from their games. Almost. So, with the new (and excellent) Brigmore Witches DLC bidding adieu to the first game’s creaking, disease-infested Dunwall, what’s next for the best sneaky-stabby series to come along in years? Bethesda’s officially calling it a “franchise” now, so a sequel’s all but certain. Where might it go, though? Could multiplayer be in the cards? And where does Arkane think the first game failed? Also, were Dishonored’s two DLC episodes – with their tweaked powers and fairly vocal main character – a preview of things to come? I spoke with Dishonored co-creative director Raphael Colantonio to find out.>

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