Games are very good at satisfying fantasy violence and elaborate, gory executions are commonplace. These animations are partly there to shock and illicit that wincing "oof" when you watch your character dismember some unfortunate guard, but they are also there to make your moments of victory in a combat encounter stand out from the rest of the melee. A satisfying, decisive takedown is a release valve that gives you a moment to regroup before the fight resumes.
They are also useful for establishing character. Fight choreography can be used to say a lot about your avatar's mindset. Jackie in the Darkness 2 is sadistic, and worryingly inventive with his demon arms, as though he has spent far too much time thinking about how to use them. In Shadow of Mordor, Talion is quick and decisive with his deathblows—the technique of a warrior used to fighting many enemies at once. Agent 47 is efficient and wastes no energy on flair, as you would expect from a seasoned professional.
We started discussing memorable melee attack and takedowns that work particularly well in the context of the game world in which they feature. Violence in games rarely analysed. It is discussed in terms of 'is this bad?' rather than 'how did they make this so satisfying?' Here is a collection of games that do it well. Warning: if you don't want to see lots of pretend polygonal NPCs get beaten up, shot, and stabbed (a lot) look away now.
Kicking guards in Dark Messiah of Might & Magic
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic delighted in the Source engine's ragdoll physics systems, and integrated them into its combat system with the excellent kick move. Booted foes fly through the air, taking out destructible terrain and getting stuck on spikes. Might & Magic's levels find many contrived ways for you to finish fights using this signature melee attack. Those spiky panels are everywhere.
Hammer takedowns in Hitman: Blood Money
Hitman is, of course, all about killing people in horrible ways, but there is something especially mean about the hammer attack in Hitman: Blood Money. Perhaps its the directness of the attack, combined with the use of such an ordinary everyday tool, that makes it so effective. Agent 47's animations all express a psychopathic nonchalance that well befits a contract killer.
Jensen's melee attacks demand so much energy that you might not see all of his takedown animations. They are remarkably elaborate and inventive. The developers had to create a fighting style for a guy who can shoot blades out of his wrists and elbows—a futuristic martial art. Some of the moves are comedic—the double headbutt is great—but the one where Jensen unhinges his hand and spins it to throw his enemy is so crazy and alien it sells Jensen as the terrifying futuristic commando he's supposed to be.
There is an outstanding level in Arkham Knight when Batman teams up with Robin to infiltrate a hideout. You can switch between characters, order each other about and join forces to beat up the Joker's goons. The Arkham games use Batman's brutish takedown animations to sell his powerful, direct method of fighting. The co-op takedowns take this to another level, contrasting Batman and Robin's styles in moments of superheroic teamwork. The Arkham games use slow motion to create snapshot moments that look like living comic book panels.
Everything Ezio does in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Every weapon type in Brotherhood has its own set of complex multi-foe takedowns that Ezio executes with dazzling, horrifying efficiency. The Assassin's Creed games always feature spectacular choreography but Brotherhood's takedowns are particularly elegant, often using aggressor's momentum and weapons against other enemies. Ezio is skilled, but he is only human, so Brotherhood's combat relies on technical martial prowess rather than absurd feats of strength (see Deus Ex: Human Revolution and the Batman Arkham games for that). There is obviously a lot of martial arts expertise on the development team, and the resulting takedowns really sell the idea of the assassin as a master of all weapons.
Violence is a form of catharsis in a revenge fantasy, and Dishonored 2's gory knife finishers are a grisly vector for Corvo and Emily's fury. Dishonored's art style produces guards with of an almost caricature appearance. Their features are exaggerated and they are unusually expressive. This, combined with the close first-person perspective, makes these executions uncomfortably intimate. They are pretty graphic, but the violence of Dishonored 2's executions add extra weight to the lethal/nonlethal decisions at the heart of the game.
Being and Orc in Shadow of Mordor has to be one of the worst jobs going in PC gaming. Talion is absolutely merciless. Shadow of Mordor's take on the Arkham knight combat system benefits from the addition of a very sharp sword and a dismemberment system. The flash of a blade, backed up by some excellent slashy sword noises, sells the execution. There are no Legolas-style flourishes here, only the straightforward aggression of a trained soldier looking for the fastest killing blow possible.
Billie Lurk has played a prominent role throughout the mythos of Dishonored: She was present at the assassination of Empress Jessamine Kaldwin, aided Daud throughout the Knife of Dunwall expansion, and even gets some work in Dishonored 2. For that game's expansion, the upcoming Death of the Outsider, she finally becomes the star, and so fittingly Bethesda has put out a new teaser revealing more about who she is and what she brings to the table.
Spoilers ahead—Billie could quite easily end up dead at the end of Knife of Dunwall, but in the Dishonored canon she slips away to start a new, presumably quieter life. Obviously that doesn't go quite as planned, and she ends up rejoining her mentor-turned-adversary Daud for one last job.
"When we find her in Death of the Outsider she's sort of getting it back together. She's finding purpose in her life again, and she's taking action," Arkane creative director Harvey Smith says in the video. "She's going to change things for the better."
In Death of the Outsider, Billie wields powers and gadgets that haven't previously been seen, including the Sliver of the Eye, a sort of supernatural monocle that presumably gives her special visual abilities. (It may also be a cool callback to a malevolent gem in Thief: The Dark Project called The Eye, although that's strictly speculation on my part.) Her arm is made of chunks of the Void—I'm sure that's an interesting story all by itself—and she packs a "Voltaic Gun," a sort of electrified wrist-bow.
Dishonored 2: Death of the Outsider comes out on September 15.
Warren Spector is stuck in Prey. The director of Deus Ex, who has worked on many games since labeled "immersive sims"—in fact, he coined the term in a post-mortem of Deus Ex—has been playing the modern games inspired by classics like Thief and System Shock. But he hasn't finished Prey yet. Or, as he puts it: "The crew quarters are kicking my butt."
He's enjoying it though, just as he enjoyed the other recent immersive sim from Arkane Studios, Dishonored 2. "I thought they were both excellent examples of what I think of when I say 'immersive sim,'" Spector says. "They removed barriers to belief that I was in another world and they let me approach problems as problems, rather than as puzzles. I'm really glad Arkane exists and that they're so committed to the genre. Without them I'd have fewer games to play!"
Spector's not the only one who'd mourn their loss. Arkane is still around, but there's this uneasy feeling in the air that there's now some reason to worry. Not about Arkane, necessarily, but the immersive sim in general, this genre held up as the shining example of PC gaming at its most smartest and most complex. None of the last three big-budget immersive sims—Prey, Dishonored 2, and Eidos Montreal’s Deus Ex: Mankind Divided—have broken a million sales on Steam.
It's always been a niche genre, defined by player freedom, environmental storytelling, and a lot of reading diary entries. How long can they be propped up by the fact that some designers really like making them?
In the 1990s and early 2000s immersive sims seemed like the future, an obvious extension of what 3D spaces and believable physics and improving AI could do when working together. But they rarely sold well. When Ion Storm’s third Thief and second Deus Ex game flopped, the studio closed. Looking Glass Studios, responsible for System Shock, Ultima Underworld, and the first two Thief games, was already gone. The immersive sim went into hibernation for years.
Despite the love and praise for games like Deus Ex, they're not easy to sell to players. Jean-François Dugas, executive director of the Deus Ex franchise at its current owners Eidos Montreal, says it can be tough even convincing people to make games that let players deviate from the critical path.
"You need to realize and accept that you will build a ton of material that a good part of your audience will miss," he says. "Since you are building possibilities through game mechanics and narrative scenarios, you know that you might not be able to bring all the pieces to the quality level you would like. You have to rely on the effect of the sum of the parts to transcend it all. The GTA series is a great example of that. When you look at all the pieces individually, they’re not the best in class but what they offer their audience when combined is unparalleled. After that, there is a big effort required to convince your team and upper management that spending money on things that many players will not see is a good idea," he says with a laugh.
Spector disagrees with the notion that immersive sims are harder to convince publishers on. "Honestly, I haven't really noticed any particular challenge. It's not like you go into a pitch throwing around geeky genre identifiers. The reality is that immersive sims are action games, first and foremost and most people get that. It's just that the player gets to decide what sort of action he or she engages in and when to do so. Selling action games isn't that tough. Well, at least it's no tougher than selling any other game idea—they're all tough to sell!"
There is a big effort required to convince your team and upper management that spending money on things that many players will not see is a good idea.
Jean-Fran ois Dugas
After Looking Glass and Ion Storm's closure the influence of immersive sims was still felt, as people who'd worked on those games brought similar ideas to Oblivion, Fallout 3, and BioShock. The immersive sim philosophy survived in STALKER, Pathologic, and the early projects of Arkane Studios, Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah of Might & Magic.
And then in 2011 Eidos Montreal's prequel Deus Ex: Human Revolution came along, a true immersive sim and one with the Deus Ex name stamped across it. It sold 2.18 million copies in just over a month. The year after that Arkane teamed with Bethesda to bring out Dishonored, a game in the lineage of Thief which enjoyed "the biggest launch for new IP" of the year. Sequels to both followed, as well as Prey, Arkane's spiritual successor to System Shock. The immersive sim was back.
And yet in 2016, Mankind Divided's launch sales were significantly lower than Human Revolution's. In response the series has seemingly been put on hold, though a publicist told me Eidos Montreal are "not quite ready" to answer questions on why it appears to have failed, or whether there will ever be another full-size Deus Ex.
There are plenty of potential reasons why Deus Ex: Mankind Divided sold disappointingly. It launched a long five years after its predecessor. Its microtransactions and pre-order model were unpopular, and though reviews were positive, most noted that it felt shorter and had an even less satisfying ending than Human Revolution. And yet, though they lacked those specific problems, neither of Arkane's immersive sims was a smash hit either. Perhaps Dishonored 2's launch issues on PC hurt sales, though the history of video games is full of rocky launches that sold like gangbusters. As I write this, Car Mechanic Simulator 2018 is still in Steam's top 25 in spite of its bugginess.
Even in their heyday all it took was two commercial failures, Deus Ex: Invisible War and Thief: Deadly Shadows, for immersive sims to go out of fashion for years. Are we about to see that happen again?
If the future isn't bright, why is Adam Jensen wearing shades?
Human Revolution and Dishonored both seemed to find an audience beyond traditional immersive sim fans, beyond the people who know to try 0451 in every combination lock just in case. Their success encouraged Eidos Montreal and Arkane to go ahead with big-budget follow-ups, but of course games cost a lot to make, both in terms of time and money, need to justify that with strong sales.
Spector says, "it's clear that there hasn't been a huge immersive sim hit on par with some of the other video games out there. I mean, we're still waiting for the game that sells a gazillion copies! I think part of the reason for that is that immersive sims require—or at least encourage—people to think before they act. They tend not to be games where you just move forward like a shark and inevitably succeed. In the best immersive sims, you have to assess the situation you're in, make a plan and then execute that plan, dealing with any consequences that follow. That's asking a lot of players who basically have to do that every moment of their waking lives—in the real world, I mean."
Dishonored 2 applies the immersive sim's freeform gameplay to combat like nothing before it.
It wasn't just immersive sims that didn't sell as well as expected in 2016, however. Titanfall 2, Street Fighter V, and Watch Dogs 2 also struggled for their own reasons—while big, acclaimed games like Overwatch and Battlefield 1 dominated. Dugas says that "your product needs to be more than 'GOOD' today to be successful—whether you are making a movie or a game. People have options and last time I checked there are only 24 hours in a day. If you are not good enough, your audience has gone somewhere else. Bottom line: I believe that if we make outstanding games, no matter what type of genre it is in, people will be there, whether it’s an immersive sim or not."
It's clear that there hasn't been a huge immersive sim hit on par with some of the other video games out there. I mean, we're still waiting for the game that sells a gazillion copies!
Warren Spector
Jordan Thomas, who worked on Thief: Deadly Shadows and all three BioShocks before going indie with The Magic Circle, puts it this way. "Are immersive sims suffering specifically in the market or is everybody? I lean more towards the latter. I think the games space is experiencing a new boom and the simpler your concept is to communicate the more likely you are to find your demographic quickly because they're seeing hundreds and hundreds of concepts at a time. I think that immersive sims traditionally have struggled a little bit with helping people to understand what they're about because they're about many things. They're about a feeling, a cross-section of ideas, whereas a game that is like, 'No—this is just to quote Garth Marenghi—Balls-to-the-wall horror,' it's easier for people to wrap their heads around from a marketing perspective."
Making games like these is expensive, too. "Looking at something like Prey," Thomas continues, "everything is just sparkling. The sheer amount of salesmanship that can go into all of the different reactions that the player can concoct with their chemistry set—literally, in that game, but you know what I mean. The idea of objects being combined to some clever result, every single inch of it shines."
As an indie developer, that level of detail and scope is simply out of reach. "I do think that most indie games that would self-accept the label immersive sim have to compromise because the games that typically are associated with this subgenre were kitchen-sink games."
Perhaps immersive sims are just a particularly tough sell in a crowded market. The next ones on the horizon—a Dishonored 2 expandalone, a spiritual sequel to Ultima Underworld, and both a new System Shock and a remake of the original—might face the same problem. They all have something else in common, though. They're all tied directly to existing immersive sims, whether directly or spiritually. None of them are brand new ideas.
It's said that though few people saw the Velvet Underground live, everyone who did seems to have formed a band of their own. The original Deus Ex sold 500,000 copies, a decent amount at the time, and it can seem like practically everyone who bought a copy became a game designer (or at least a games journalist) after studying from its design bible. Its influence is unavoidable, as is System Shock's. That's not to say their influence makes for bad games. Prey is the best thing I've played this year, even though it's essentially System Shock 2 with zero-gravity bits. But there's perhaps a limit to the number of spiritual sequels to the same games we really need. If poor sales motivate future immersive sims to move further from their roots, to try out new settings and inspirations, that might be a silver lining to their current troubles.
Hope comes in the shapes of games that incorporate some of the core elements of immersive sims without being kitchen sinks. Thomas gives the example of Near Death, a survival game set on an Antarctic research base.
"Near Death is made by folks who worked on assorted BioShocks and Deus Exes," he says, "but it is not oriented towards combat whatsoever. It is set in a world with no magic, just you versus an environment which, arguably, is one of the callsigns you might associate with immersive sims." It's another game that presents problems rather than puzzles, in "a fully realized environment that has rules that you must learn in order to eke out an existence. It is that concept writ large. You are trying not to freeze to death and you are using your wits to combine systemic objects in the environment based on some amount of real-world common sense."
It may not seem like it when you're punching a tree to collect wood for the hundredth time, but according to Thomas there's a direct connection.
I honestly feel like a lot of the people who are building these ultra-successful early access survival games are influenced by immersive sim design. That notion of systems alchemy is at the core of that.
Jordan Thomas
"I honestly feel like a lot of the people who are building these ultra-successful early access survival games are influenced by immersive sim design. That notion of systems alchemy is at the core of that. When the trend caught on it felt fresh, right? It felt liberated from some of the rhetoric associated with immersive sims and very seldom about story at all. It's if you took the parts of the genre that we used to say we loved, which were that all of the rules of the game could be atomized and combined into new molecules—that's what we told ourselves as developers of these things. 'This is a real place, man! With a sort of mathematics that you can learn to speak and you're gonna express your mastery through doing that!' But survival games are that crystallized and they let go of a lot of the high-minded philosophy and let atavism rule."
Survival games aren't the only place the influence of immersive sims is felt. New open-world RPGs and sandbox games are all obliged to emphasize player choice. Horror games like Alien: Isolation and Resident Evil 7 borrow directly from the immersive sim playbook right down to the environmental storytelling through graffiti, and stealth games like Hitman with creative paths to murder can evoke the same feeling. Indie games like Consortium, The Magic Circle, and even Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon each take aspects of the immersive sim each and expand on them, and so do walking simulators. Both Gone Home and Tacoma take the bit of Thief where you rummage through someone's belongings and read their diary, building up an idea of who they are, and make that the entire game. Tacoma is even set on an abandoned space station, possibly the most immersive sim location imaginable.
If immersive sims become too commercially risky for the current climate, and if they go into hibernation for another decade, they won't really be gone. Thanks to the spread of their concepts throughout games they can't really go anywhere—because they're already everywhere.
As revealed at E3 earlier this year, Dishonored 2 will return next month with its Death of the Outsider standalone expansion. Due September 15, it's now got a new trailer which showcases some typically brutal hand-to-hand and supernatural ability-driven combat, a host of mechanical enemies, and a new area of Karnaca that's billed as its "gritty underbelly".
As you may already know, Death of the Outsider stars notorious assassin Billie Lurk and "The Knife of Dunwall" and one-time Whaler leader Daud. You'll control the former as you investigate cults, underground fight clubs, and pull off bank heists, so says Bethesda in this blog post. And as if that wasn't arduous enough, you're out to kill a god in the Outsider.
The following short unfolds quickly, and while I myself couldn't pick out divine assassination, there's a healthy amount of powers and ultra-violent melee takedowns.
"See a new side of Karnaca as Death of the Outsider takes you through its gritty underbelly," explains the aforementioned blog post. "Playing as a new assassin, you’ll have access to slew of powerful new supernatural abilities, weapons and gadgets, all of which are designed to help you cut a bloody swath through Karnaca and leave your mark on the history."
Like Dishonored 2's base game, and its 2011 forerunner, playing stealthily is also an option. There's an argument to made doing so makes the game more challenging—but when you've so much chaos at your fingertips, hugging the shadows almost seems wasteful.
Choose your own warpath when Dishonored 2: Death of the Outsider lands on September 15.
The job of a concept artist is an important one. Before a single model or texture has been created, they’re responsible for establishing a game’s atmosphere and tone. The things they create might not even make it into the final game, but their work underpins the aesthetic of everything from incidental props to entire worlds. And so, to celebrate the work of these talented individuals, here are some of my favourite concept images from the last few years.
MachineGames has repeatedly proven itself to be one of the best world-builders in the business. Its vision of a 1960s America that has been conquered and twisted by the Nazis is hugely compelling, which this atmospheric concept art by Swedish artist Christoffer Lovéus helped bring to life.
Recalling Ron Cobb’s detailed, functional designs for the 1979 film, Creative Assembly’s Brad Wright produced some stunning concept art for Alien: Isolation. These evocative images of Sevastopol station and the Anesidora are particularly striking, capturing the cold, industrial atmosphere of the Alien universe.
At the heart of Giant Sparrow’s unforgettable journey through the lives of the Finch family is their grand, clumsily stacked house. These concept images were created by artist Theo Aretos early in development to get a sense of what the strange old house might look like, and are works of art in their own right.
The Creed series has always been more concerned with capturing the romantic image of its cities and time periods than creating perfect, historically accurate recreations. These images by Tony Zhou Shuo paint a vivid picture of Victorian London, using iconic landmarks to give them a rich sense of place.
Ninja Theory's post-apocalyptic epic remains one of the prettiest ends of the world we've seen on PC. Rather than being bleak and gloomy, this ruined Earth sizzles with colour. And it's perhaps no surprise that these pieces of concept art by Alessandro Taini are just as vibrant and evocative.
The mood of the Commonwealth is constantly changing as the weather and time of day shift in real-time around you, which these elegant paintings by senior Bethesda concept artist Ilya Nazarov capture beautifully. I especially love the subtle use of colour, reflecting Fallout 4’s brighter, livelier wasteland.
The grim dystopian future of Deus Ex was imagined by a talented team of concept artists who designed everything from entire cities to individual props. Art by Eidos Montréal’s Frédéric Bennett, including this dramatic image of Golem City, helped establish the game’s distinctive, recognisable visual style.
These remarkable images by BioWare concept artist Ben Lo perfectly capture the scale and majesty of Mass Effect’s grand space opera. Refined, understated art direction is one of the series’ defining features, echoing classic ‘70s science fiction: an aesthetic these paintings are wonderfully reminiscent of.
The unique painterly style of Dishonored’s visuals mean the game is a lot closer to its concept art than most. These exquisite paintings by Arkane concept artist Sergey Kolesov wouldn’t look out of place hanging on the walls of a lavish Karnaca apartment—particularly the image of Duke Abele on his palanquin.
Hinterland’s survival game just left Early Access, and although the visuals have steadily improved over time, its dedication to that gorgeous hand-painted art style has never wavered. These atmospheric concept images by Trudi Castle skilfully capture the lonely, melancholy atmosphere of the game.
Getting to work on a Star Wars game like Battlefront must be a dream job for any professional concept artist. These vivid, dramatic paintings by EA DICE’s Anton Grandert are reminiscent of Ralph McQuarrie’s iconic Star Wars concept art, evoking the chaotic, operatic drama of the films’ battle scenes.
Daniel Licht, the composer responsible for the scores of Dishonored and Dishonored 2 has died of cancer, aged 60-years-old.
Licht was perhaps best known for scoring all eight seasons of popular crime mystery series Dexter, winning awards for it and his work on medical drama Body of Proof.
As reported by Variety, many of Licht's scores featured in the horror genre—with Hellraiser: Bloodline, two Amityville movies, and NBC's 1998 adaptation of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World among his credits. Similarly, Licht composed music for the PlayStation 3's Silent Hill: Downpour and the PS Vita's Silent Hill: Book of Memories.
Licht's work on Arkane and Bethesda's Dishonored and PC Gamer Game of the Year 2016 Dishonored 2 is what the composer is best known for within the videogame spectrum. Tributes from other game composers have appeared on social media.
According to The Wrap, Licht is survived by his wife Hilary Kimblin Licht, son Kian, his mother, two brothers, his sister and several nieces and nephews.
Summer Games Done Quick isn't over yet, but there's already a Mad Max-style trail of demolished games lying in its wake. Doom? Destroyed. Half-Life 2? The bastards skipped the best parts. Dark Souls 3? Completely humiliated. In fact, few PC games have walked away from the event with their dignity intact. Speedrunners are a savage group.
This year has had a fantastic showing of PC games—many of which have never been run at the event before. There's the return of some old classics which, while fun, we've already covered at Awesome Games Done Quick 2017 and SGDQ 2016. But, this year, we're calling out some new contenders you should be sure to watch.
Dropping it like it's hot in Divinity: Original Sin
Time: 23 min 47 sec
Let's start strong with my favorite speedrun from SGDQ 2017. This is Divinity: Original Sin's first showing at the event and the results are spectacular. For one, I have to acknowledge that runners Shaddex and Drtchops manage to beat a 50-plus hour, relatively linear RPG in just over 20 minutes. That's thanks to a string of ingenious skips which largely rely on a pair of pyramids each player has in their inventory that allows them to teleport to the other instantly. At one point, Drtchops clips a pyramid through a wall and Shaddex warps to it, skipping 90 percent of the game in one fell swoop.
The best part, however, comes from the main objective of the run. See, Divinity's combat is pretty damn tough and the two under-leveled players don't stand a chance in hell against the unavoidable final bosses. So they spend almost the entire run going around the world gathering over 60 heavy barrels to put into an indestructible chest until it's so heavy that they can simply drop it on the final few bosses and kill them instantly. It's one of the funniest game exploits I've seen. If you watch one run this year, watch this one.
Getting sabotaged in Clustertruck
Time: 26 min 43 sec
Ignoring that this high-octane platformer took longer to beat than Divinity: Original Sin, this Clustertruck run has an excellent twist. If you're not familiar, Clustertruck has Twitch integration that allows viewers to alter the game by voting in the chat. Speedrunner 097Aceofspades continually has to contend with very thin trucks, trucks with lasers, or inverted mouse controls. But halfway through the run, Clustertruck's developer hacks into the game and starts screwing with him in the best possible way. It might not be anywhere near the world record, but this run is so unpredictable and fun to watch. 097Aceofspades never once loses his cool even when the entire world seems to be conspiring against him.
2B or not 2B in Nier: Automata
Time: 1 hour 43 min 05 sec
Nier's combat can be complicated for people who have use of two hands, but Halfcoordinated makes it look easy with one, pulling off some very technical skips to bypass huge sections of the game. If you haven't played Nier, you don't have to worry too much about spoilers either since every cutscene is skipped and Nier doesn't make any goddamn sense anyway. The only thing is that the whole run is set to a constant barrage of Nier puns from the commentators that range from clever to cringey. If you're a fan of dad jokes, this is your El Dorado (also Halfcoordinated's dad sends him a message via donation that's really cute).
Trying to beat each other's meat in Super Meat Boy
Time: 21 min 14 sec
Nothing makes you more aware of how bad at videogames you are quite like watching two people crush Super Meat Boy in 20 minutes. This head-to-head race is a photo finish because both Fimbz and Warm_Ham are just so damn good. Despite the odd mistake, watching them tear through each level is almost dizzying. It's speedrunning in its purest sense because neither runner exploits game-breaking bugs to gain an edge. Instead they each use a series of very subtle tricks, like pausing the exact same frame that they jump to basically trigger auto-jumping and bounce through a level extremely quickly.
Out of bounds in Mirror's Edge Catalyst
Time: 1 hour 03 min 49 sec
This is probably my second favorite run this year for one reason: It's nearly impossible to tell when Matchboxmat is exploiting the game. See, Mirror's Edge Catalyst boasts a big open-world to run around in but the game still pushes you along a linear path from objective to objective. In the true spirit of parkour, Matchboxmat uses many of Faith's abilities to go outside the intended path and pull off some legitimately impressive stunts without actually breaking the game. Unless you're familiar with Mirror's Edge, you might not even realize the moments when he's gone out of bounds or is doing something extra tricky because, like the best parkour, it all looks so effortless. The best speedruns are those that give you a newfound appreciation for a game, and after watching this one I felt a much deeper fondness for Catalyst.
Slipping through Dishonored 2
Time: 35 min 14 sec
Similar to Mirror's Edge Catalyst, this Dishonored 2 run is all about inventive use of Emily's powers to quickly skip through entire levels. Speedrunner Bloodthunder whips through each zone so quickly you'll forget that this was supposed to be a stealth game. Because Dishonored 2 is so story-driven, there's a lot of unskippable cutscenes that need clever tricks to avoid. The most common one is finding ways to damage yourself after the cutscene begins in order to interrupt it, like when Bloodthunder tosses a bottle in the air that'll hit him in the head seconds later. Also there's an exploit called the "Jesus Jump" that let's you skip across water like a rock, so extra points for that.
Gotta go fast in Freedom Planet
Time: 44 min 19 sec
One of the best showings at Games Done Quick is always traditional platformers like Mario and Sonic. They just never get old. But this year, I was blown away by Fladervy's run of Freedom Planet. My love for this run comes down to two things. First, Freedom Planet is a wonderful homage to classic Sonic games in a way that very few imitators ever achieve, which also means that watching it as a speedrun is as thrilling as the real deal. Secondly, Fladervy is an absolute machine. Not only are the levels large and very intricate, but he navigates them at such a breakneck speed it's sometimes hard to keep up. Fortunately, the commentary from his friend fills in all the gaps and you'll quickly begin to appreciate Fladervy's skill. Like Super Meat Boy, this is a speedrun that relies heavily on dexterity and muscle memory rather than exploits.
If any one character of the Dishonored series deserved a standalone expansion, it's the uber-cool ex-Whalers lieutenant Billie Lurk. Revealed during Bethesda's E3 conference on Sunday, Death of the Outsider sees Lurk partner with former comrade-in-chief Daud—"The Knife of Dunwall"—as they plot to assassinate the titular black-eyed supernatural being.
Naturally, this means new weapons, gadgets and, most interestingly, new extraordinary powers. In conversation with IGN, Arkane's Harvey Smith discussed Billie's so-called 'displace' ability, which appears to be her idiosyncratic take on the game's iconic blink maneuver, as a move that lets her move between and through walls.
"It's interesting strategically, these games are stealth games or high in combat games but of course you can approach everything in many different ways. Billie's main mobility power is called 'displace'," says Smith. "If you read the comics there's a hint that what happens in Dishonored 2 does something around her in time. Like, she both is in one state and in another at the same time, which causes kind of a distortion around her.
"Displace is a power where she can imagine being where she's at now or somewhere else and then choose to go there. What that means as a player is that you leave a marker in the world and then you can go about your business and do whatever you want and at any point switch with that marker."
Smith then explains that's exactly what Billie is up to in the trailer below, where she's placed a marker in the hallway, awaits her foe to turn around and then displaces to that location.
Interestingly, Smith also says Billie hasn't been marked by The Outsider and that her powers come courtesy of artefacts, an eye-mounted Eye of the Dead God contraption, a "void-esque" arm that's made up of pieces of the void, and the knife that was originally used to sacrifice The Outsider.
What's more, Smith says that upon completing Death of the Outsider players stand to enter something called "original game plus" whereby Billie is equipped with Emily and Corvo's skillset from the base game.
Bethesda revealed at its pre-E3 event tonight that a new Dishonored 2 standalone expansion called Death of the Outsider is coming this September, featuring the return of Daud and Billie Lurk. The former leader and second-in-command of the notorious group of assassins known as the Whalers are reuniting for one last job, and it's their biggest one yet: They're going to kill the Outsider.
The trailer isn't laden with detail, but the listing on Steam has more. In Death of the Outsider, players will take on the role of Billie, one of Dunwall's most notorious assassins, who splits with the Whalers at the end of the Knife of Dunwall expansion for the original Dishonored. Teaming up with her former mentor Daud, she sets out to kill the powerful Outsider, who they believe is response for some of the Empire's darkest moments.
As Billie, you'll travel "deep into the seedy underbelly of Karnaca," taking advantage of "a unique set of supernatural abilities, gadgets, and weapons" as you traverse underground fight clubs and black magic cults, take on new enemies, and—if you choose—accept Contracts that will present you with optional targets to find and eliminate as you pursue your ultimate quarry.
Dishonored 2: Death of the Outsider is scheduled for release on September 15, and is available for preorder now for $30/£20/€30, or bundled with Dishonored 2 for $60/£40/€60 bundle. First screens are below.
Without bagels, I’d probably live to be 100 years old. But I have regular access to bagels and sourdough loaves and this sandwich bread always in my house called Birdman that’s covered in seeds and I don’t know why. I eat the stuff so fast I’ll be surprised if I make it to 50.
In videogames, bread often gives you health instead of slowly seeping it away, a soft beacon of restorative power. It’s been this way since the earliest games, and as technology became more capable of producing detailed environments and uncanny human likenesses, so too advanced the fidelity of the loaf. But the evolution of bread didn’t happen in a straight line. Diverse genres, art styles, and game engines shifted the purpose and priority of bread throughout the ages.
To get a clearer picture of how game bread has or hasn’t evolved, we’ve taken a look back at its implementation in some best games ever made to some of the most obscure.
BurgerTime (1982)
As one of the earliest depictions of a hamburger bun, BurgerTime did a decent job. And it should have, given the name. Notice the inference of sesame seeds on the top bun and how the light diffuses on the bottom bunk. Early pixel art set a high bar for bunwork.
Ultima VI: The False Prophet (1992)
A decade later, the burger genre fell out of vogue and fantasy roleplaying games stepped into the limelight. Ultima IV didn’t feature bread in a major way, but was an early example of inventory art, proof that you didn’t need the latest in computer graphics to make a great loaf.
Jesus Matchup (1993)
As a preteen, I went to a Catholic church camp even though I’m not and have never been Catholic. I ate the body of Christ even though I wasn’t supposed to and my friend Brian chastised me after the fact. He said I needed to get confirmed first and that I broke some kind of holy rule. The bread was just a thin wafer, like a sugar cone without the sugar, and maybe the aftertaste of it was a taste of hell itself. Jesus Matchup’s brown lump captures my disappointment exactly.
Ultima Online (1997)
Pixel loaves hadn’t evolved much between Ultima IV and Ultima Online, but for one minor detail that changed the bread game forever for a few months. Ultima Online’s bread features a small blemish, giving the impression of a bite or piece ripped away for light post-adventure munching. The loaf went from inanimate prop to inanimate prop with history.
Thief: The Dark Project (1998)
Whether Thief should commended or condemned for its early attempt at modeling a 3D loaf is beyond me. All I know for sure is this: that’s a log.
Someone’s in the Kitchen! (1999)
You may know Steven Spielberg for his hit films like E.T. and Jurassic Park, but did you know his name was once mentioned in a trailer for a game he probably had nothing to do with? Someone’s in the Kitchen! isn’t just good reason to call the police, it’s a bad point-and-click edutainment game with one hell of an opening theme song. Also, you make a sandwich in it while a demon toaster—who is going to kill me, I saw it in a dream—judges your creation. The bread looks like my little brother sat on it, and is a shade of yellow I’ve only ever seen in bathrooms built in the 70s. Clearly, the late 90s weren’t great for game bread.
The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind (2002)
Even the modern masters of 3D bread had to start somewhere. In Morrowind, Bethesda drew inspiration from something other than felled trees and instead turned their eye to the sky, probably. I’m guessing here. They managed to suggest bread by texturing a footballish shape with what look like photos from the visible surface of Jupiter, a perpetually storming gas giant.
World of Warcraft (2004)
Just two years later an MMO, known for prioritizing multiplayer features over looking good, managed to bake bread that an Orc could tolerate. While the left loaf looks like a water chestnut, the precise angles and light divots up top are a convincing enough illusion. The right loaf, except for it’s undercooked coloring, nails the shape. And the inner texture marks a defined border between crust and light, fluffy inside. I’m tempted to throw some mayo, lettuce, tomato, and a bit of thinly sliced night elf meat on there just looking at it.
The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion (2006)
Maybe Bethesda should’ve prioritized bread resolution DLC over horse armor. At a glance, one out of ten times I’m going to say that’s bread. The other nine times I’m going to say that’s a large misshapen potato. I lived in Idaho for a while. Got invited to a ‘Baked Potato Party' and yeah, they get that big.
Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale (2007)
While 3D game bread moved into potato territory, Recettear reaffirmed that pixels were still the way to go. Its depiction of Walnut Bread takes a good squint to make out, but when you get up close, the shades of gold and brown and white light diffusing on the outer crust nearly flash the entire baking process on the back of your eyelids. “Walnuts, soft dough and a bit of sugar…” do more than an extra dimension ever could.
Dinner Date (2011)
I’d flake on a guy who thought it’d be a good idea to dip that twisted loaf in some red shit too. And look at that distribution! I’m not sure what’s being distributed, but half of that isn’t even bread, it’s Dark Brown Stuff. Jesus, man. We should never be able to see inside the bread if the tech isn't ready and can’t simulate a good bake.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)
Star Baker goes to Todd Howard this decade. Look at the fidelity of this loaf. A nice rise, detailed textures, and I can nearly hear the muffled tip-tap from the even bake. Forget adventure and the snowcapped mountaintops and vampires and dragons—like a toilet in a Tarantino movie, a good loaf is the keystone of any open world.
Minecraft (2011)
Well regarded for its wild redstone contraptions and horrifying monuments to pop culture, Minecraft’s bread has been largely ignored, and for good reason. You’re one of the most successful games of all time, and a brown lump is the best you can muster? I’ve felt more love radiating from an old hotdog bun.
Scribblenauts Unlimited (2012)
You can tell this was made in a bread pan, small specks imply the bread is airy and light, you can summon it whenever you like, and nearly every humanoid creature will eat it. It’s a crude child’s drawing, sure, but Scribblenauts built put time into simulating natural, albeit simple, bread world behaviors. Consider it this immersive sim, the System Shock, of bread. Place it in the world, and the world reacts to its presence.
If one game knows how good its bread is, it’s Bioshock Infinite. If you were to press pause and inspect the 3D baguette, it’d be possible to nitpick small design decisions, like texture resolution, flour distribution, and grain density, but because the bread is sandwiched with context—the dancing bread boy and his believable reaction to owning a baguette inside a big patriotic amusement park city held up by balloons that Ken Levine imagined using his brain, his very own personal brain—it doesn’t feel out of place. Realism is helpful, certainly, but the game world needs to feel alive, like a natural home for bread above all else.
Team Fortress 2: Love and War update (2014)
Bread is only monstrous when left to mold, and Team Fortress 2’s Love and War update bottles the essence of in a cute, tragic short film. There’s little purpose to the bread in-game aside from a few dough-themed items. Personally, I interpret it as a commentary on the state of game bread as nothing more than a simple prop and HP potion skin, new ideas and advances left in the pantry to rot. I see you Valve.
I Am Bread (2014)
As a goofy physics playground, I Am Bread is fine. I do take issue with how controlling a slice feels like maneuvering a heavy sponge. Bread isn’t heavy and sandwich bread isn’t durable. One fall off the table and it’s over, usually. I Am Bread forgoes natural bread behaviors for the sake of a joke, but I’m not sure we’ll be laughing when our kids start to think they can wash the dishes with a sandwich.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015)
Everything about The Witcher 3’s world feels hand-placed. Small villages, big cities, and even monster-infested caves are brimming with life and purpose, but in order to maintain such a sprawling illusion, nearly all props and people are static. NPCs sit in the same place spouting the same lines and props like bread just sit there, looking delicious, but forever out of reach. What an awful game.
Fallout 4 (2015)
After setting a new standard for 3D loaf work in Skyrim, Bethesda dropped the atom ball in Fallout 4, spending more time on the bread box than any bread at all. Modders came to the rescue again, modeling slices, sandwiches, and adding recipes any old ghoul could follow.
Dishonored 2 (2016)
Karnacan bakers know how to bake bread. Lovely rise, nice crust, but a bit low res I’m being honest. Eating it gives you a small dose of HP, but the animation is a simple swipe-and-swallow maneuver. It’s pan for the course, and not much else. In 2016, it’s a good bake, but it’s not a great bake.
Look at this damn toast. That might as well be real toast. If media is an extension of our senses, and videogames are a compilation of all mediums, a co-habitation of a near perfect reality, then this toast is, effectively, real. That's real, actual toast that we will never eat. It is right there and there's nothing you can do about it. This is the singularity, but instead of AI meeting the intellect of humans, it's toast AI meeting the toast-intellect of actual toast. Black Mirror whiffed on this one. I'm already clawing at the computer monitor. Next stop: my belly. Here we go.
The future of videogame bread
How far have we come, really? From BurgerTime’s advanced bun art to Dishonored 2’s simple dark loaf, videogame bread feels without a sure destination—a lumpy mass that needs more time to prove. Perhaps the future holds loaves we never could have imagined, or abominations, such as virtual reality pumpernickel that virtually tastes like sourdough.
Will Fortnite, as rumored, introduce the bunned meat of the Durr Burger as a health item? Will Kojima ever comment on the loaf in a world torn asunder by PMCs and omnipresent nuclear threat? Maybe someday we’ll spend as much money on naan as we do on spaceships in Star Citizen. All we know for certain is that bread will be there, a short roll for every dodge roll and an abundance of biscuits to crowd every RPG inventory.
