Like many single-player focused studios,Arkanehas increasingly pursued multiplayer over the past few years.Deathloopkept these elements fairly small so that you could opt out of engaging with them entirely and play it as a single-player game. ButRedfallwent all in, with a co-op looter shooter that earned Arkane the worst reviews in its entire history. As an outside observer, it seemed clear that the storied studio couldn’t keep going in this direction and, given the cruelty of capitalism, it didn’t seem out of the question that a game failing as badly as Redfall could put the creators ofPreyandDishonoredonMicrosoft’s chopping block.
Thankfully, that doesn’t seem to be the case. The FTC vs. Microsoft case has produced amassive leak, including unredacted documents that reveal a ton of information from withinXbox. That includes the fact that the corporationconsidered buyingNintendoandValve, and that it hasmid-gen refreshes coming the next year. But the most interesting bit of info was the confirmation thata new Dishonored game is in the works. Or, at least, it was three years ago.
RELATED:My Favorite Thing To Do In Starfield Is Take Unsettling Pictures
This took me by surprise. Though the first Dishonored was a big commercial success,Dishonored 2and Death of the Outsider underperformed. Given that six years have now passed, it didn’t seem unreasonable to think that Arkane had moved on to greener pastures.
But Dishonored 3 is happening, apparently — though the timeline is unclear given that some of the leaked dates for other games have already passed or conflict with previously released information. Per the leak, a new Doom game will launch next year, but the documents also list the release date for The Elder Scrolls 6 as 2024, and Xbox’s Phil Spencer recently saidthat game is five years out. So the timeline has, at least, been pushed back. But regardless of when it may be released, it seems Dishonored has at least one last ride ahead.
This always seemed like a potential upside of Microsoft acquiring Bethesda. Arkane’s immersive sims had rabid fans, but didn’t seem to sell well enough to keep Arkane afloat. But when Arkane is just one piece of a biggerGame Passportfolio, there can be more wiggle room for experimentation and nontraditional releases. Obsidian’s Josh Sawyertold Waypoint Radio last yearthat he “never would have proposed making Pentiment without Game Pass… I don’t think it would have been possible.” Then again, Hi-Fi Rush, which seemed like a textbook example of the kind of game this level of freedom can produce,was pitched years before Tango Gameworks was acquired by Microsoft. Despite how the news initially appears, Dishonored 3 appears to be a similar case, as the documents predate Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda. Could Arkane have been encouraged to begin early development of a new Dishonored by the news that Bethesda was being acquired? Maybe. Not even these leaks reveal that much.
Whether or not Microsoft has anything to do with Arkane returning to Dishonored, Arkane’s post-acquisition record is likely an encouragement to return to its niche. Redfall was a critical and commercial flop, while Deathloop, which hewed much closer to the single-player immersive sim formula of Arkane’s previous work, received glowing reviews. It wasn’t a gigantic hit, but has been played by more than five million players since launch. As I wrote about recently, the pivot many studios have made to chasing the games as a service trend has not paid off, and Arkane’s multiplayer games are no exception. I hope that Dishonored 3 represents, not just the studio returning to its roots, but the industry giving up on the ‘forever game’ pipe dream.
