One of this week's big game releases is Dishonored. And while it's common knowledge by now that the game is great, it's quite surprising that it managed to get released at all since it's a new IP and it doesn't have a multiplayer component at all.
So, did the development team over at Arkane Studios ever felt "forced" to include multiplayer in the game? Not so according to co-game director Harvey Smith.
In an interview with Kotaku, Smith revealed that they told Bethesda that Dishonored was an "aggressively single-player game" and the publisher bit.
No one ever pressured us to do that. We told them that this was an aggressively single-player game, and they said alright, we moved forward, and that was it.
Of course, this wouldn't have worked if Dishonored's publisher — Bethesda — didn't give the go-ahead. And Smith was very generous in his praise for the publisher.
I've been at a lot of publishers…"I've worked in games for 18 years. I've worked independently at times; I've worked in big teams, small teams. And I can honestly tell you, no smoke, that this is the smartest group of executives I've ever worked with.
Well, there you have it. Not every game needs multiplayer; you just need to find a publisher willing to take that "risk" and have a damn good game in order to do it. Of course, that's easier said than done and with today's multiplayer-centric gaming scene, Dishonored is one of those rare games that can "get away" with it.
