PandaMittens

This is a sexy start.

I would say that you could just mail me that drink, but my wife has asked that I stop putting things that come in the mail into my mouth.

The "story fragment" system is probably closest to my heart, because it is the feature that eventually inspired our "story-tellers" theme, which prompted us to use the Balinese shadow puppets in our art style, and basically just created the whole game concept.

For those that don't yet know, the "story fragment" system is the concept that each decision you make in the game turns into a little token (which we call a "story fragment"). These modify your stats, are used in diplomacy with other tribes, and are an integral part of the game.

Another favorite is the feature where you can send a story fragment back home via carrier pigeon, allowing you to restart as the next generation of your clan after you die. The story fragment then starts with you, only now it has grown into a "legend", meaning its positive AND negative aspects have grown, making it more powerful but also more volatile.

Oh and killing Assassins (the guys with the masks) doesn't raise your chaos level. Go nuts.

Like any project, I'm happy with some things more than others. I'm rather pleased with the player movement (which I wrote and tuned in conjunction with producer-designer Seth Shain). I like that the player is seldom locked down, seldom hung up, and extremely mobile for a first person game. After working on Dishonored for 3.5 years I was frustrated playing other games where I couldn't move as easily, but the game wasn't even out yet so it wasn't like it was a standard or anything.

I'm also very happy with the fan reaction to the game. I feel like it was an important game to a lot of people, and that it delivered in a AAA space a lot of features that gamers were being told "these things don't sell". I can't take credit for that as that was a big effort by the whole team and the leadership in particular, but I'm still proud for them and for the game itself.

Truth time: I'm most annoyed by the game's presentation. I'm very sensitive to animation hiccups and abnormalities, and I know Dishonored's quirks better than probably anyone. Maybe not a fair criticism for your average gamer, but I'm a game developer and so I'm hyper critical in that way.

This is probably more a question for the game's creative directors, Raf and Harvey. However, I can give you my $0.02 (strictly my opinion). I personally like getting some closure in a game, and all too often franchise games leave too much unsaid in order to tease out that inevitable sequel.

That all said, I'd be really surprised if this was the last you've heard from Dishonored. I don't work there anymore so don't take this as fact, but ZeniMax (Arkane's owning company) has basically said publicly that "a franchise is born".

I can't find the link to the news article right now, but I'm sure some of the readers know what I'm talking about and can dig it up.