- While several Xbox studios regained independence or found new owners yesterday, Arkane's staff must negotiate their own future - 7 July 2026
Yesterday, Xbox announced that they were spinning off five major studios in the course of the latest round of "historic" restructuring , with 1600 jobs instantly chopped and 1600 more layoffs to follow over the next financial year. It's the latest in a string of failures on the part of Xbox leadership, who have repeatedly butchered the division after an evidently overambitious acquisition spree that dates back to the 2010s . It has, at least, not yet resulted in any outright studio closures. Double Fine and Compulsion are going indie again with a little funding from Microsoft, keeping ownership of their games. Ninja Theory and Undead Labs have been sold to unnamed new owners. And then there's Dishonored and Marvel's Blade developers Arkane, whose fate is still being negotiated. Read more
- "It felt like we had needed couples therapy": Dishonored devs Arkane making Thief or Blade Runner games sounds ace, but might have sparked a creative director scrap - 26 May 2026
Dishonored co-directors Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith seem like good mates. In a newly published YouTube let's play of their creation, they sit side by side, both dressed in black t-shirts like a married couple who've gone to great pains to coordinate their threads. Would that still be the case if their efforts to make Thief 4 and a Blade Runner game respectively hadn't ended up being mashed together to form 2012's sneaky holiday to Dunwall? Perhaps not, given Smith said it felt as though the pair needed couples therapy by the time they wrapped up a game which wasn't based on a single established work one director would have loved more than the other. Read more
- Arkane's Dishonored always felt like a secret Thief sequel, and that's because it started life as one - 24 May 2026
Dishonored remains my personal favorite of Arkane Austin's lineup. I appreciated the studio's take on Prey, and even have a playthrough of Redfall under my belt (I'll maintain it had the foundations of something great, though it never stuck the landing). It's the 2012 sneak-em-up that won my heart, however. Atmospheric and stylish, it manages to walk the line between freeform stealth game, immersive sim, and bombastic action. In many ways, it felt like the secret Thief 4 that (at the time) didn't exist. As its co-creators reveal, there's a very good reason for this: it started life as exactly that. Read the full story on PCGamesN: Arkane's Dishonored always felt like a secret Thief sequel, and that's because it started life as one
- Dishonored director calls Game Pass an "unsustainable model" for the industry - 6 July 2025
Arkane founder and Dishonored co-director Raphaël Colantonio says Xbox Game Pass is an "unsustainable model" that's been damaging the videogame industry for years, and that it can't continue to exist alongside other similar subscriptions. Colantonio adds that Game Pass should be an avenue for access to the back catalogue, because otherwise it just hurts videogames at large. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Sci-fi RPG with Fallout vibes unveiled by former Dishonored developers Dishonored director says Metacritic lifts up "boring games" as Stalker 2 suffers Prey and Dishonored devs have a new ARPG and playtest signups are open
- Arkane's founder is open to the idea of making Dishonored 3, just don't place any bets on it actually happening - 3 April 2025
Much like many of you, I suspect, I too would love a Dishonored 3, but I'm not entirely confident it will ever happen. Arkane Austin was obviously shut down last year , and Arkane Lyon are making a Blade game , which leaves little room for a Dishonored sequel. But is there any possibility of one happening all the same? Well, still no, probably, but Arkane Studios founder and Dishonored co-creator Raphaël Colantonio did recently say that he could at the very least see himself working on a follow-up. Read more
- Sci-fi RPG with Fallout vibes unveiled by former Dishonored developers - 4 February 2025
It's anyone's guess when we'll see another Fallout , so some former developers of Prey (2017) and Dishonored are working on a retro-futuristic project that may just fill the gap. So far, it sounds like a mixture of Bethesda's post-nuclear role-playing game, Weird West, and the aforementioned beloved immersive sims, but it might be a ways off yet. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Dishonored director says Metacritic lifts up "boring games" as Stalker 2 suffers Prey and Dishonored devs have a new ARPG and playtest signups are open Some of Steam's best stealth games are less than $3, for now
- Dishonored director says Metacritic lifts up "boring games" as Stalker 2 suffers - 23 November 2024
Arkane founder and Dishonored co-creative director Raphaël Colantonio says the Metacritic scoring ecosystem encourages devs to make "safe, boring games," while launches like Stalker 2 suffer in overall scoring at launch due to bugs and technical problems. Colantonio calls lower launch scores impacted by bugs "misleading" because these technical issues can be fixed further down the line, while the overall score remains the same. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Prey and Dishonored devs have a new ARPG and playtest signups are open Some of Steam's best stealth games are less than $3, for now QuakeCon sale gives you up to 85% off these essential FPS games
- Are Skyrim and Baldur's Gate 3 immersive sims? If you're asking one of the guys that created Dishonored, yes - 12 August 2024
The infinite debate about what is and isn't an immersive sim continues to rage on, as one of the co-creators of Dishonored says he thinks Skyrim is one. Immersive sim, as a genre, is a really hard one to define. I'm not even going to try to define it in any meaningful way for you, I just know that games like Thief, Dishonored, and Deus Ex fit within that genre. It's a type of game that has major qualities of lots of other genres, which is why it can be hard to define. But in a recent interview with PC Gamer , Dishonored co-creator and Arkane founder Raphael Colantonio has shared the bold opinion that he thinks Skyrim is an immersive sim (and that Baldur's Gate 3 is "immersive-sim adjacent"). Explaining himself, Colantonio said "If you really think about it, Bethesda games - or Obsidian games - are very, very immersive sim. The overlap between first-person RPG and immersive sim, it's ver…
- Prey and Dishonored devs have a new ARPG and playtest signups are open - 8 August 2024
It's hardly the feature for which Dishonored is most keenly remembered, but back in 2012, I was very impressed by 'The Heart.' You hold it up, you point it at an enemy, and it tells you something about them, something from deep within their soul. Suddenly, they're not just an NPC - they're a person, and the stabbing you're about to inflict becomes heavy with implication. From two of the key developers behind Dishonored and the similarly inventive Prey 2017, a new ARPG is now in full production and seeking players. If you miss Deus Ex, long for more BioShock, or feel the sting of Deathloop's absence, this is for you. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Some of Steam's best stealth games are less than $3, for now QuakeCon sale gives you up to 85% off these essential FPS games Get Bethesda's best games for dirt cheap ahead of Starfield
- First official portrait of the King makes him look like a video game villain, so of course it's already been modded into Dishonored - 16 May 2024
King Charles unveiled the first official portrait of himself since his coronation earlier this week, and uh, he only looks a little bit like an Elden Ring boss. I'm not quite sure who told the artist behind Charles' first portrait as King to make him look like he is engulfed in the flames of hell, but that's pretty much exactly how it came out. If the painting was of anyone other than a royal family member I'd honestly say it's pretty sick, hell, I'd love to be painted in a way that makes me look like a terrifying boss from a video game. It's just, when you're literally the king of England, well, in the first instance it might not be all that tonally appropriate, but you also best be prepared for people to take the p**s out of it. Which, of course, many quickly have, with several users online quickly pointing out how much it looks like a portrait from the Dishonored series . So, of cour…
- Some Steam stealth games are less than $3, for now - 14 November 2023
Dishonored , Prey, Deathloop, and some of the best stealth immersive sim games ever made by Arkane Studios are part of an incredible Steam sale right now. With up to 90% on the developer's back catalog, minus this year's much-maligned Redfall, there are some truly excellent games on offer. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Dishonored director calls Game Pass an "unsustainable model" for the industry Sci-fi RPG with Fallout vibes unveiled by former Dishonored developers Dishonored director says Metacritic lifts up "boring games" as Stalker 2 suffers
- After Deathloop and Redfall, Arkane is finally going back to Dishonored 3 - 19 September 2023
In a pretty big leak of documents that have come from the FTC's court case with Microsoft , it's been revealed that Dishonored 3 is in the works. Back in 2018, developer Arkane said that Dishonored was " resting for now ," meaning it was moving on to develop other projects. That resting period appears to be over now, though, as over on Resetera it's been spotted that a series of documents revealing all sorts of confidential information from Microsoft has been leaked. This includes a lineup of games currently in the works at various Microsoft owned developers, and notably it mentions Dishonored 3 could be released in 2024. Now, that should come with a big asterisk as it feels pretty unlikely that Arkane would announce and release a game all within such a short timeframe. Not only that, the document notes that Starfield and Redfall were planned to release in 2021, but both were initially…
- QuakeCon sale gives you up to 85% off these essential FPS games - 2 August 2023
A QuakeCon sale gives you huge discounts on many top series from the legendary studios behind some of the best FPS games . Along with Doom and Quake creator id Software, Bethesda (now a part of Microsoft) also comprises Wolfenstein developers Machine Games, Dishonored and Deathloop maker Arkane Studios, and Tango Gameworks, the studio behind The Evil Within and Hi-Fi Rush. Now, that huge catalogue gets some equally massive discounts to celebrate the upcoming QuakeCon. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Get Bethesda's best games for dirt cheap ahead of Starfield Dishonored meets Jurassic Park in this steampunk RPG Awesome Games Done Quick's complete January 2018 schedule has been released
- Get Bethesda's best games for dirt cheap ahead of Starfield - 16 June 2023
The Elder Scrolls , Doom, Fallout, Dishonored, Wolfenstein, Quake, The Evil Within - you name it, Bethesda has some of the best PC games in its catalog, and you can get most of them for next to nothing right now thanks to a sale with up to 85% off the likes of Skyrim , Oblivion, Fallout New Vegas, Wolfenstein 2, and Prey. With the Starfield release date swooping over the horizon, what better time than now to enjoy Bethesda's best? Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Dishonored meets Jurassic Park in this steampunk RPG Awesome Games Done Quick's complete January 2018 schedule has been released Dishonored co-creative director "hopeful" for future of complex, PC-like multiplatform games
- Bethesda weren't sure if they wanted Dishonored 3, and so we got Deathloop instead - 20 April 2023
Dishonored was Arkane’s breakout hit, the assassination sandbox that elevated the studio to the top table of immersive sim makers. Its success validated Bethesda’s decision to buy Arkane a couple of years earlier, and left the publisher with a promising new series. But despite critical acclaim, Dishonored 2 failed to bring the series to a wider audience. And after 2017’s standalone expansion, Death Of The Outsider , Bethesda decided to put the series on pause in favour of a shorter, more experimental project - according to Arkane founder Raphaël Colantonio, who spoke to me in an interview about their cancelled project The Crossing . Read more
- Dishonored and its excellent DLC is free to keep from Epic this week - 29 December 2022
The Epic Games Store's festive season of freebies has drawn to a close. The Epic Games Store's weekly freebies have therefore resumed. Right now and until January 5th you can grab Dishonored: Definitive Edition for free, which includes Arkane's first-person stealth playground and all its expansions. Read more
- Developers are sharing their game dev "sins" and some of them are gleeful - 21 November 2022
If Twitter does die, I will miss it. Amidst the wailing lie certain gems, like this thread of developers sharing confessions and cheeky tricks from across their careers. We're talking cobbling rat-tunnel ducts together to form a makeshift flare launcher in Dishonored , or using the bottom of a bleach bottle as a stand-in for a light fixture. I've picked out some of my favourites - come and revel in them with me. Read more
- You guessed it: Deathloop and Dishonored are set in the same universe after all - 9 October 2022
After some speculation from fans, Deathloop director Dinga Bakaba confirmed that the game is in fact set in the same world as Dishonored . Arkane's games all tend to have some similarities here and there, being one of the few big developers to actually make immersive simulators, but Deathloop and Dishonored obviously shared some DNA in more obvious ways. But according to Deathloop's director himself, the games are both in fact in the same world, something likely to please fans that have theorised as such. Bakaba confirmed the connection on the most recent episode of the Xbox Podcast (thanks PCGamer ), where he said that Deathloop is "one of the futures of the Dishonored world." Asked directly about the connection, Bakaba noted how due to the nature of the game not everyone will see the same thing, "so it was nice to see the community pick up the little clues that we did sprinkle everywh…
- Devolver Digital-published isometric RPG Weird West delayed to March 31 - 23 December 2021
Devolver Digital and developer WolfEye Studios announced (thanks RPG Site ) that action RPG/immersive sim hybrid Weird West would be delayed to March 31 to make it more immersive and weird, pushing the game two months past its original release date of January. Made up of veterans of immersive sim exemplars like Dishonored and Prey, WolfEye Studios aimed to make a game with a western setting mixed with stranger, supernatural elements in the mold of something like Diablo meets Fallout. Creative director Raf Colantonio explained the reasoning behind the delay: Announced in 2020 during a Devolver Direct , Weird West touted its team made up of Arkane Studios devs. Then, back in October, the release date was set for January , though obviously WolfEye now feels like it needs more time to deliver the best game it can. Hopefully it will be worth the wait when it does hit. Read more
- Have you ever gone to great lengths to save an NPC? - 6 September 2021
Spoiler warnings for Mass Effect 2. I'm not sure why I liked Kelly Chambers so much. There's definitely more exciting characters in Mass Effect 2. She was just cool is all. They seemed so good together, her and my Shepherd, two straight-talking women on a ship full of neverending melodrama, quipping back and forth along the bridge. But I was trapped in a loveless relationship with the odiously boring Kaidan Alenko. So Kelly remained elusive: the steadfast second in command, a constant source of warmth, good sense and pragmatic kindness. Anyway, she melted. In fact, most of my crew died in that final mission, but Kelly was the first, melting down into flesh chowder in a giant frosted glass tube. Afterwards I read that the only way to save everyone was to max out your relationship stats, upgrade your ship to the nth degree, and hightail it over to the suicide mission the moment you can. R…
