The creators of Dishonored were about to make Thief 4… and a Blade Runner game

Arkane Studios is one of the most unique studios in the video game industry. With absolute classics to their name, they are also a studio that has never managed to sell much of any of their games. This is understandable because they have never targeted a mainstream audience, preferring fans of what is now called immersive sims: games filled with systems where everything interacts with everything and the fun is discovering how you want to solve each situation. And seeing how it unfolds. Something that has given us gems like Dishonored.

Two Amazing Licenses

Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith are playing Dishonored, a game they co-created, for the first time since its release. And by streaming it, they are dropping some fascinating nuggets of wisdom, but also things we didn’t know about the studio or the game’s development. For example, they were close to making Thief 4. And a Blade Runner game.

According to Colantonio, “before we made Dishonored, we were supposed to make either Thief or Blade Runner.” Adding that “we were in a delicate business situation and (Bethesda) came not only to save us but also to bring us, frankly, the IPs I would have loved to work with the most.” Something that Smith has defined as “if you go to two cats and say ‘we have a huge bag of catnip on this side. We have another bag of catnip here. Which one do you want? Do you want both? We were both excited.”

Unfortunately, neither of the two projects moved forward. Although not everything was bad. As Colantonio has said, “in the end they said, ‘oh, that’s fine; keep doing what you’re doing and, uh, call it Dishonored.” So while we didn’t get what could have been a very interesting sequel and a game from a franchise without major video games, we got an excellent original game. Something we can’t complain about.