Dishonored to do right by its multiple platforms

Dishonored dev, Arkane Studios, has implemented system-specific tweaks to ensure that whatever your choice of platform for its stealth-action assassination title, that platform will feel like home.

Arkane Studios has insisted that it has optimised controls, feedback and configuration options for each of the PC, 360 and PS3 versions of its upcoming first-person action title, Dishonored.

Discrepancies in visual feedback, control options or UI are often the bane of a gamer's life when trying to play a multi-platform title on anything other than the lead platform. This particularly applies to differences between console and PC versions of games.

However, in an interview with AusGamers, Arkane's co-creative director Harvey Smith assured that won't be the case with Dishonored, "one of the great things about Arkane, is that we have different factions on the team that represent each of the platforms," he said.

"So we have fanatical Xbox guys that want to make sure their Achievements are handled correctly; we have a lot of old-school PC guys that want to make sure that there’s no mouse-acceleration forced on you, and you can turn off parts of the HUD, and that the key-bindings are right. And also on the PC of course, you can run at 60 frames a second, which is pretty sweet.

"And then we have PS3 guys as well that are, like, fanatical for their platform and make sure the trophies are handled correctly and it performs well on the PS3 and all that. So that’s one of the good things about the team."

Arkane Studios' boss, Raphael Colantonio, was also recently quoted as saying that the PC version has its own interface.

Further along in the interview, Smith reiterated the notion that Dishonored's game systems have been designed to allow for emergent, experimental play thanks to the protagonist's myriad powers, which can result in player's doing things that the developer hadn't deliberately built into the game.

Quoting an example from a recent demo showing, Smith illustrated, "we jumped off the building and on the way down, before hitting the ground, possessed this woman standing down there, which broke the fall by moving into her body. So that’s a good example, and we didn’t plan for that either."

He quickly followed up with another example:

"But we have recently seen people doing things where: the Tallboys are the guards on stilts that are the city watch and dealing with the infected -- they’re walking around on stilts -- and we’ve seen people blink-teleport into the air over them, and then as they fall onto the tallboy, initiate the drop assassination. So you can actually drop assassinate the tallboys, which is fantastic."

Dishonored launches in October for PC, PS3 and 360.