Dishonored Series Taking A Break, Dev Says

Arkane Studios rose to prominence with the release of Dishonored, a unique first-person stealth-action game renowned for its immersive world and flexible gameplay. Since then, the series has become one of the most acclaimed of the modern generation, but according to one of the studio's developers, it could be a while before we see a new installment.

Speaking to VG247, Arkane lead designer Ricardo Bare revealed that the Dishonored series is on a break for the moment. "I can't say definitively what might happen down the road, anything could happen, but [Dishonored] is resting for now," he said.

The latest Dishonored title was 2017's Death of the Outsider, a smaller standalone adventure set several months after Dishonored 2 that wrapped up the series' storyline. But while a new Dishonored game may not be in the pipeline for the foreseeable future, that doesn't mean the studio is moving away from that game's style of immersive worlds and emergent gameplay.

"The things that are important to us as a studio are coherent, deep world building and environmental storytelling--we're always going to craft spaces that you feel like you're visiting, whether it's Dunwall or Talos 1," Bare said. "It's just as important a character as the player or the people you meet. Then it's improvisational gameplay--giving players a bunch of cool abilities and tools, then saying, 'You figure it out, you be creative, you own the experience.'"

Bare didn't share any details as to what the studio is working on next, but he did suggest that multiplayer could play a role. "Being able to incorporate more online sharing or multiplayer type stuff, we totally might do that," he said. He also teased that future Arkane titles may not necessarily be in first-person, as most of the studio's games have been.

In addition to Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, Arkane released the first-person horror shooter Prey in 2017. The game recently received a new DLC expansion called Mooncrash. Arkane is also releasing an asymmetric, hide-and-seek mode for the game called Typhon Hunter later this year.