Redfall and Deathloop developer Arkane nearly labored on Thief 4 and a Blade Runner recreation earlier than it made the primary Dishonored.
That is in accordance with former Arkane co-directors Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith themselves, who sat down collectively earlier this week to speak about their time on the studio, the video games they made, and likewise the video games they practically made.
As noticed by Knoebel and shared on BlueSky, Colantonio spoke of a time when Bethesda approached the studio to think about including to the Thief franchise.
“Earlier than we did Dishonored, we had been speculated to both do Thief or Blade Runner. Bethesda approached us with the proposition, ‘Hey, we’ve got the Thief franchise, and we all know the folks to make that recreation, and it is you’,” Colantonio mentioned. “It is our recreation.”
“Which is principally like coming to 2 cats and saying, ‘We have now a giant bag of catnip right here on the one aspect. We have now one other bag of catnip right here, which one would you like? You need each?'” Smith mentioned. “We had been each so excited. Blade Runner and Thief, two of our favorite issues of all time.
“We had been in such a dire state of affairs business-wise, they usually got here up not solely to avoid wasting us from enterprise, but additionally to deliver frankly the IP that I’d have favored to work on essentially the most,” Colantonio added.
Smith mentioned: “We had a tremendous pitch for Thief. Would have been Thief 4–” – “we’ve got greater than a pitch, we had some movies,” Colantonio interjected – “–and for Blade Runner, we had labored with our good animator, specialising in first-person fight, a extremely good man, and a recreation designer on prime of every little thing.
“We additionally did some Replicant combating as a result of we had talked to [the godfather of immersive sims] Doug Church, and he mentioned, you already know, even sitting round in a room collectively, they’d be doing issues with their our bodies that people could not do. Like, reaching in and seize[bing] the eggs out of the boiling water or no matter. So we had flips and it was tremendous thrilling to be engaged on Blade Runner.
“The story pitch we had for Blade Runner was simply– I liked it.”
Arkane Studios practically labored on Thief 4 or a Blade Runner recreation earlier than they made ‘Dishonored’.
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youtu.be/ZVq0af9DwPU[image or embed]- Knoebel (@knoebel.bsky.social) Could 23, 2026 at 8:45 PM
“The humorous factor was that we initially thought we had been going to be [working on] Thief. I used to be so excited, they usually mentioned, effectively, it may additionally be Blade Runner, and there was no approach I might deal with Thief and Blade Runner on the identical time.”
Colantonio went on to clarify that although none of it labored out – and as they hadn’t been acquired by Bethesda but, they had been a bit of involved – however Bethesda finally to them to “maintain what you are doing and name it Dishonored”.
“[Dishonored] began on the bottom of Thief 4,” he added.
The video is simply the primary in a multi-part sequence the place Smith and Colantonio can be joined by a number of members of the unique Dishonored growth workforce to “inform tales, share design insights and possibly get eaten by rats… loads”.
Arkane stays one in all my favorite studios of all time, and Dishonored is one in all my favorite video games ever, too. As I wrote on the flip of the last decade, video games typically contact us not solely due to what they’re, however what they are not and, for me, Dishonored was a recreation that relaxed conventional gameplay in a approach I hadn’t fairly anticipated. It “unshackled expectations, allowing me to discover Dunwall’s battered, damaged environs at my very own tempo and in my very own model” (which was typically Low Chaos in intent, and Excessive Chaos actually).
“Taken individually, Dishonored’s distinctive artwork model, brooding setpieces, participating story, and revolutionary design are attractive sufficient,” I wrote on the time. “Woven collectively, nonetheless, Arkane delivers one of the distinctive, engrossing titles I’ve performed in years.” (Deathloop is criminally underrated, too).
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