With Dishonored reaching its tenth anniversary this year – and Noclip releasing footage of Arkane’s scrapped Ravenholm game – I thought I could look at the art across the Dishonored games. The first article looked at Dishonored’s environments. This article will focus on the Dishonored’s characters.

Released in 2012, Dishonored is widely known and beloved for its distinctive art style. In both its environment and character design, the game features a stylised, exaggerated aesthetic.

British Faces

In the previous article, I talked about how the city is made up of sharp lines and blocky shapes and how that is used for visual storytelling. Well this visual language also continues in the character design. Anyone who has ever played Dishonored or seen anything about it, will surely recognise the sharp, scowling faces with exaggerated features.

Both Viktor Antonov, who was the game’s Visual Design Director, and Sebastian Mitton – the Art Director at Arkane – have spoken about how they visited London to get a sense of the city (see previous article). However, they also studied British faces, to try and understand what makes a face British. Frankly, if the Dishonored characters are what they’ve settled on, it’s pretty insulting.

In addition to modern day images, the art team at Arkane looked at photographs and illustrations from the Victorian and Edwardian eras. They looked at mugshots from Britain and Australia to get a sense of what type of character would fill the dark city of Dunwall. The art team were then able to use their own mugshots in-game, to help enrich the environment’s storytelling.

The Artistic Inspirations

The artists the developers looked at included Dean Cornwell and Charles Dana Gibson. The developers of Dishonored liked Cornwell’s use of shape and line. In the two paintings above, you can see the same geometric style that the characters of Dishonored have. In the left painting, you can clearly see the use of brushstrokes and line to create expression. However, it is not fully realistic, Cornwell doesn’t mix the shades, but places them next to each other. This creates that blocky style, echoed in Dishonored. Also, note in the painting on the right how the man in the background resembles one of the Pendletons from Dishonored.

With Gibson’s illustrations, the developers at Arkane focused on his portrayal of the aristocracy. The team were particularly interested in his use of line. In the illustration above, look how Gibson’s use of quick, sharp lines completely defines the character’s personality with little detail. Look how the sharp lines, wavy hair and angular nose is repeated again and again in Dishonored’s characters.

Cedric Peyravernay

The most famous artist to be associated with the Dishonored game is surely concept artist, Cedric Peyravernay. The artist’s style is a match made in heaven for the style of Dishonored. So much so, in fact, that it would not be a surprise to learn that Peyravernay developed his famous style based on the research the team at Arkane did. In the paintings above, look how the use of line is similar to the angular lines of Gibson. Or how for the second game, Peyravernay’s concepts (on the right) took on the scratch-like hatching of Gibson.

In addition, the use of a bold, angular silhouette – accentuated by stark highlights – is similar to Cornwell and J.C. Leyendecker. The geometric brushwork is also reminiscent of Lucian Freud. Also note how the concepts look like mugshots with their turnarounds.

City and Characters Alike

By using the same visual language as the city’s design, the characters echo the same tone. They not only add a sense of cohesiveness to the world, feeling like they belong to the city. They also seem to illustrate the violence, danger and oppression that permeates the city. With their sharp edges, the characters of Dishonored feel dangerous or ruthless. Their patchwork-like skin echoes the blockiness of the city’s industry, but it also evokes that feeling of disease as the plague ravages Dunwall. The tall bodies and long faces reflect the verticality of the city’s architecture, but their furrowed brows and sharp noses echo the pointed rooves.

This sense of exaggerated line is consistent throughout the entire game. Hell, even the rats reflect the same characteristics. In fact, with their angry scowls the characters begin to look like rats. This not only reminds the players of the plague but also reflects the character’s dark, scheming personalities.

The art style is still incredibly effective after 10 years. The city and characters alike help to set the tone of the world and drive the story forward. Their exaggerated features and movements make the player feel slightly disorientated, echoing that off-kilter feeling in the story. They’re similar but something’s not quite right.

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The post The Art of Dishonored: The Characters first appeared on Get2Gaming.

With Dishonored reaching its tenth anniversary this year – and Noclip releasing footage of Arkane’s scrapped Ravenholm game – I thought I could look at the art across the Dishonored games. Because no one has ever done that before. Nonetheless, despite its lack of originality, this article will focus on the first Dishonored game’s environments.

Released in 2012, Dishonored is widely known and beloved for its distinctive art style. In both its environment and character design, the game features a stylised, exaggerated aesthetic.

Dunwall

The game takes place in the fictional city of Dunwall. The city is ravaged with a plague and is under oppressive rule. This feeling of danger, disease and oppression is reflected throughout the city’s design. Viktor Antonov, who was the game’s Visual Design Director, spoke of being inspired by the Victorian era and Lovecraftian literature. Antonov made it clear he wanted the game to feel like a painting or novel, rather than a traditional video game environment.

The city of Dunwall is based on London. Initially, with the idea of the plague, the game was to be set during the Great Plague in 1666. However, the game was moved to its own time and place – drawing inspiration from medieval and modern periods alike. Eventually, they settled on what Sebastian Mitton – the Art Director at Arkane – called a Neo-Victorian style. The developers visited London and Edinburgh to study the architecture and get a feel for the cities. They also studied a number of paintings and photographs from the Victorian and Edwardian eras to get a sense of style.

The Visual Language of Dunwall

The style of Dunwall makes great use of shape in its design. The city is filled with sharp edges and blocky shapes. The use of sharp edges in Dunwall helps to create this Gothic style, with its use of sharp points and repeated triangles in the city’s landscapes. However, the blocky shapes repeated throughout the architecture create an industrial style, echoed throughout the game. Mitton spoke of how the developers noticed the verticality of London and this is reflected in Dishonored’s architecture. The imposing, stylised buildings shoot straight up and then come to a sharp point at the rooves.

Overall, this design helps to evoke the tone of the story. The crowded, tall buildings overwhelm and oppress the player. The blocky edges and straight lines reflect the industrial age of Dunwell. The sharp edges echo that sense of danger and violence in the city. The Gothic style and murky atmospheres help reflect this feeling of horror and tension that the plague evokes. The exaggerated style and crowded environment helps create this sense that everything is off-kilter – again reflected in Dishonored storyline.

In the next article we’ll be looking at how this visual language is continued in Dishonored’s character design.

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The post The Art of Dishonored: The Environments first appeared on Get2Gaming.

Context

So… yeah gonna start this one off with a content warning. While mostly this will pertain to the Recent map released by John Romero, it was released within the context of the currently unfolding situation in Ukraine.

I just like playing doom, and the history of these games, their development, and their developers. We are going to keep this light and mostly focus on the map itself, but do know that this may get heavy at times

One Humanity

John Romero, best known for having the best hair in the industry and also once threatening to make gamers his bitch, has just released a Doom level. The now 54 year old game dev started out in the industry as a founding member of ID software, and together with Tom Hall, Adrian Carmack and the Far future AI weaning Human skinsuit known as John Carmack, they made Wolfenstein and, today’s topic, DOOM. Recently, John Romero has released a new map for DOOM 2, titled “one humanity” as part of a fundraiser for the Red cross and the UN Central Emergency Response to help the people of Ukraine

Now this is Romeros’ first *doom 2* map since 1994, however this is not his first doom map. Back in 2016, Romero released remakes of doom 1’s maps E1M4 and E1M8, which were the only maps in Doom Episode 1 not designed by Romero originally. Later on, Romero would release SIGIL, the “official Unofficial 5th episode” in 2019, either for free with a midi soundtrack by James “Jimmy” Paddock, or a Second non-midi soundtrack by Buckethead that cost €6.66. So its not like this is Romeros’ first map in 38 years… but it is the first one for Doom 2, meaning we have all of the new Doom 2 stuff that that entails.

The gameplay

This Map replaces MAP01: entryway from the original doom 2 (although it replaces nothing else so upon completion you are sent to the original MAP02: Underhalls). The Map also requires you to have an original copy of DOOM2.wad and a modern source port (I used GZDoom because I am a fake gamer, the real gamers probably use Chocolate doom or Crispy doom IDK).

This map takes *heavily* from SIGIL, by the way… which is to say it is aggressively cruel and tough and it will kick your ass. I stopped playing to write this article and I made it a *decent* way through on Ultra Violence but to be clear, we are talking “locks the player in a room with an archvile with nearly no-where to hide” cruel. We are talking “spawns 2 Cyber demons who will bombard the player for the rest of the level” cruel. But even then its so good and its so tightly designed.

There are a couple of things I want to note for those planning on playing this Level

1. 1. It uses SIGILs Mechanic of shootable switches. There are these red and green eye-like sprites that are from vanilla doom that, when shot in this map, will open, close, raise of lower floors
   2. The water at the bottom of the pit doesnt hurt you. Jump off the starting platform immediately, there is a rocket launcher down there that will be hard to grab later as that area is filled by 2 cyberdemons who you dont really have the space to fight
   3. There is a hidden BFG. it’s a secret within a secret, so if you find any of those, wall hump.

The future

As of right now, Romero is working on a sequel to SIGIL, which will be a “megawad” to completely replace DOOM 2’s maps. As of right now we don’t have a release date, although if we take “one humanity” as a teaser for the map pack, then we may see it  before too long.

As for modern id software themselves, they have been hiring recently, suggesting there may be plans for a new game. Now, personally I don’t expect to see a new entry in the doom series for a while, but I would not be opposed to a new Quake game in the universe of QUAKE 1 rather than its sequel.

You can grab “One Humanity” here

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Tango Gameworks Ghostwire: Tokyo,has had many gamers left in the dark or curious since it was first revealed in 2019. But on February 3rd, Sony and Tango offered all-new details about (and first extended gameplay of) the upcoming PlayStation 5 exclusive, which is slated for a March 25 release on console and Windows PC.

Tango Gameworks the same developers that created Evil Within franchise is back with another scary addition in Ghostwire: Toyko During the new video showcase, Tango Gameworks founder Shinji Mikami asked his co-workers to describe their new game Ghostwire Toyko, which resulted in various different answers. Character designer Reiko Hiroshima, who also worked on the Evil Within franchise called it “paranormal,” while programmer Tsuyoshi Okugawa described the game simply as “authentic Tokyo.” However, game designer Suguru Murakoshi, had an very unexpected response.”

Game Designer Suguru Murakoshi said;

“The origins of it are truly Japanese,” “In a Japanese studio, and a game set in Japan, it’s a game where everyone can find something to love. With some sweet and tangy parts, just like a strawberry shortcake.”

To briefly sum up what the game is about; Ghostwire: Tokyo is about a supernatural and paranormal event that takes place in Tokyo, Japan. The city’s residents just upright vanish, a deathly fog castes all over the city, and it comes down to the protagonist Akito and his partner KK, a spirit who inhabits Akito’s body and grants him supernatural powers. To cleanse to clean the streets of tokyo that is covered in Yokai (Yōkai are a class of supernatural entities and spirits in Japanese folklore), ghosts, Slender salarymen, headless schoolkids, and other paranormal creatures. Trying to stop Akito and KK is a mysterious and malicious masked man named Hannya.

GhostWire Tokyo is a peculiar one for Tango Gameworks cause like their previous games, this one

is first person, spell-casting action-adventure game which is quite the change from the survivor horror games that they did. normally there’s a pattern of theme with Bethesda and their open world adventure games and first person shooters, you know, with guns, armour and things of that nature but in GhostWire Tokyo, your weapons are your hands and the monsters you slay are inspired by Japanese legends and folklore.

“The power of the hands plays such an important role,”- said game director, Kenji Kimura. Akito will have the ability to master and control the four elements; earth, wind, fire, and water against the weirdest yet powerful creatures. He’ll also gain access to a bow and arrow, grappling hook as his way to move across rooftops and use stealth to overcome the toughest situations. And it’s not just the ghosts and demons trying to stop Akito from succeeding; Tokyo itself will get twisted and corrupted to mess with our hero’s mind.

Ghostwire: Tokyo arrives March 25, officially, on PlayStation 5 (where it will be a one-year console exclusive) and Windows PC. Early access to the game on March 22 is available through Ghostwire: Tokyo’s Deluxe Edition.

The post Creepy, Spooky and Frightening: Ghostwire Toyko gameplay trailer has dropped. first appeared on Get2Gaming.

For the last decade we have been in the constant, time honored tradition of gamers of buying skyrim everytime Todd Howard chooses to release it again. Jokes aside, Skyrim has captured the hearts and minds of thousands across the world. With numerous iconic locations, Distinct NPCs for people to interact with, Serviceable combat and a wealth of Mods for the more deprived individuals, Skyrim is a phenomenon. However, even with it being 10 years old at this point, some players are still managing to uncover new things.

A reddit user recently made the discovery that, in the spinning totem puzzles scattered throughout the game, if you look down at the base of the item you rotate, there is an arrow to indicate which way the thing is facing.

The fact that things like this are still being discovered is surprising and really speaks to the amount of detail Bethesda put in when crafting Skyrim. Recently, the launch of Skyrim anniversary edition has opened up new avenues for players to seek out and discover, with potential new discoveries just on the horizon. However, it may not be too long until Skyrim loses its grip on the industry

After ten years, I finally realised that the spinning puzzle things have an arrow at the base that marks the position it’s facing. Better late than never I suppose. from skyrim

While Skyrim has achieved something few games has, with ports spanning multiple generations of consoles, the game is also on its way out in favour of its successor, the as of yet untitled sixth game in the elder scrolls series. We know the game is on its way, as it was unveiled at E3 2018, but we have heard nothing else since. We know that bethesda’s main project in that time has been starfield, so we may well not see any more from Elder scrolls for some time.

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How long are we going to have to wait for this one? It feels like years ago since we last got any update on Bethesda’s upcoming Starfield game. Finally, fans are getting some more content to indulge in whilst we wait for the games hotly anticipated release.

The post Bethesda Shows Off More Starfield Content first appeared on Get2Gaming.

Bethesda has released the first in a series of Behind the scenes videos for the upcoming game starfield. Titled “Into the Starfield: the Endles pursuit”, the seven minute long video features insights into the development process from the one, the only, “it just works” Todd Howard, as well as studio Director Angela Browder and Art Director Matt carofano. The video discusses how the game is more grounded than the studio’s fantasy output, but will be equally capable of providing awe inspiring moments.

Carofano said, “its got a more realistic science based backing to it. Whereas Skyrim is an epic fantasy, this is more of a grounded game and a grounded setting about exploration, and I think that gives us a different take on how we make everything, so that’s sort of the thing you latch onto when were making new areas, making environments, making characters”Todd Howard stated “The mechanics of the world are entirely different. But there are similarities. And I think that those are things we like. We like playing first person. We like having all the coffee cups. We like being able to touch everything. Those moments make the whole thing believable. Being able to watch the sun set and nighttime come, and just sit there and watch the world go by, seems like it’s not gameplay, but it is vital to how you feel through the rest of it.”

Howard also discussed the feeling players get in bethesda games the moment they step into the world, such as exiting the vault in Fallout 4.

“We always have that ‘step out’ moment into the world, so to say. Technology has changed, we’ve all changed, so our expectations when loading up a game are like, ‘Ok, I’m going to step out and there’s going to be this moment’. Us being able to do that and have it feel new every generation, every game, is something that is really special about what we do. I like to say that Starfield has two ‘step out’ moments. It’s cryptic.”

Starfield was announced in 2018 with a teaser trailer, before reappearing at this years E3 which showed off an in-engine trailer for the game and confirmed a november 2022 release date for Xbox Series X/S and PC. on the game, Bethesda stated  “In this next generation role-playing game set amongst the stars, create any character you want and explore with unparalleled freedom,” “Harnessing the power of next-gen technology and built on the all-new Creation Engine 2, Starfield takes you on a journey through space as you strive to answer humanity’s greatest mystery.”

Todd Howard has recently hinted players may have to wait until summer next year for more major reveals from starfield.

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About a year ago Microsoft Acquired Zenimax media, who are the parent company of bethesda. With that in mind, on of the earliest Concerns was that this would mean that Bethesda games would be Xbox Exclusive and, atleast at the time, the general tone coming from microsoft was “no”… but it was always a big of a tentative “no” with like ten asterisks and that asked you to sign a waver.

Well it has recently come out that the plan is to make the Highly anticipated Elder Scrolls 6 an Xbox and PC exclusive. The game will not be coming to Playstation, (at least not at launch, in recent times we have seen some console exclusives make the jump to being multiplatform after a few years).

The official line from Phil Spence, head of Xbox, is that this is being done to aid compatibility and integration with Xbox Live, Game pass. Xbox Cloud Gaming, Etc. 

Now this does leave a few questions hanging, such as “ok so its going to be on PC, but where on PC? Microsoft store only, or also available through steam? What about epic store”. Right now we obviously don’t have answers, especially given how far off Elder Scrolls 6 is, but judging by Microsoft Putting Halo MCC and Halo Infinite on steam I personally feel its reasonable to assume that Steam users will be able to buy the games on their preferred platform. As for the epic games store side of things, I can’t say. I don’t have an epic games store account out of principle.

As for the Exclusives, and again, this is an opinion piece, don’t shoot me, but as a PC gamer predominantly… I don’t like exclusivity at the best of times. In my opinion, Consoles should be sold on Function and Hardware more than “look at all these games you can only play if you buy our box”. The console exclusivity mindset does not help the end consumer, all it does is net these already wealthy companies more money.

That said, this is… Partially Sony’s fault. Sony where really the ones pushing the “exclusives over all else” ideology last generation, and even as they have started to port their games to PC they have really hunkered down in that mindset, With Sony being the last to adopt Cross platform play, even after Old man Nintendo had already agreed to do it, and it is rumored that Sony even make developers pay to have cross platform enabled.

Does sonys actions make Microsoft making TES6 an exclusive justified? No, generally I would argue against “eye for an eye” mentality like that, but it does go to a level to maybe explain why this has happened.

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Last week Bethesda released Skyrim, again, along with updating special edition to version 1.6. While Bethesda where actively working with SSE’s developers (Skyrim Script Extended, a alternative executable file that is necessary for many mods to work) in the hope of the update not breaking mods too much, the update has caused a serious black screen bug upon loading saves, which has been affecting players who use mods (cause is apparently completing the civil war questline)

There has also been an increase in Freezes, Infinite loading screens, and some PlayStation users are reporting the return of an old glitch that tells them they need to free up 0Kb of system storage to play (this happened 2 years ago and was apparently caused by creation club)

On discord, Bethesda has acknowledged these issues, saying “we are aware of the 0kb error some PS4 players are experiencing as well as the ‘black screen’ issue. The team has been working on a fix for these (it’s taking a little longer than we’d like) and hopes to have them resolved as soon as we can.” a patch is in the works, and should be ready “early next week.

In the meantime, in typical Bethesda fashion, moders have come to the rescue. There is a mod that rolls back everything, reverting the game to version 1.5.87, and work has restarted on EngineFixesSkyrim64, with a version for anniversary edition in beta Right now.

You can buy Skyrim Anniversary Edition for PS4 and Xbox Series X/S

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“It’s not about punishing other platforms…”

Years ago, we never thought it possible for a gaming franchise of such seismic proportions as The Elder Scrolls to become a platform exclusive. Well, years down the line, this has come to fruition following Xbox’s acquisition of Bethesda as part of their $7.5 billion purchase of Bethesda’s parent company, ZeniMax Media.

Many, like myself, had hoped that despite Xbox’s newfound ownership of Bethesda, there would be a chance Xbox would not make the upcoming The Elder Scrolls 6 title an exclusive; however, this is not the case.

From a logical standpoint, Xbox wouldn’t spend that money on acquiring these studios if they wouldn’t use it to enhance their competitive advantage, meaning exclusivity. This does not stop with The Elder Scrolls. Starfield will be, of course, also exclusive to Xbox (and PC), as well as any future Fallout titles.

Titles we previously thought were too big to ever drop PlayStation (or Xbox) support are beginning to do so. The result is a divided gaming community with varying opinions across the industry.

The Xbox boss Phil Spencer came into the spotlight a few months back when he affirmed that such acquisitions are “healthy” for the gaming industry.

In the blog I wrote prior on this topic (linked above), I concluded that this remark was made simply from a business perspective and not from the eyes of a consumer.

Spencer has again touched on the topic, noting that it’s not about “punishing other platforms”; instead, it is directly related to strengthening Xbox itself.

Well, thank you, Phil; I think we could have worked that one out ourselves and for the record, that does very little to quell our sorrows.

Spencer’s full quote is as follows:

“It’s not about punishing any other platform like I fundamentally believe all of the platforms can continue to grow. But in order to be on Xbox, I want us to be able to bring the full complete package of what we have. And that would be true when I think about Elder Scrolls 6. That would be true when I think about any of our franchises.”

What do you guys think? I genuinely believe it is a travesty of the highest degree that PlayStation users will not get to experience future Bethesda entries (without purchasing an Xbox or PC).

Of course, It is still going to be some time until The Elder Scrolls 6 comes out anyway; maybe some new developments will take place in the next however many years… we can hope. For the moment, Bethesda’s attention is wholly directed at Starfield and its November 2022 launch.

In other news, October and the beginning of November have seen some big next-gen titles being released, including the likes of Call of Duty: Vanguard, FIFA 22, Far Cry 6, and Left 4 Dead’s spiritual successor, Back 4 Blood. You can purchase all of these titles, as well as pre-ordering both Elden Ring and Battlefield 2042 from our Go2Games website.

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The post Phil Spencer Comments On Elder Scrolls 6 Exclusivity first appeared on Get2Gaming.