Dishonored owes its existence to years of pre-production, says Arkane

By Stephany Nunneley

Without the years of pre-production work put into it, Dishonoured wouldn’t exist, claim Arkane Studios’ art team.

Speaking during a session at Develop 2012, art director Sebastien Mitton and Viktor Antonov, visual design director at ZeniMax Media, discussed with attendees how the team spent two years researching and conceptualizing the stylized world in the game.

“Pre-production was the crucial element. It’s why the game is here today,” said Mitton in the Develop attended seesion.

As part of the team’s pre-production work, Mitton and Antonov spent time in both London and Edinburgh taking photographs of inhabitants as well as the various buildings and objects. Main streets were avoided, as the team instead found the alleyways and side streets fit the overall theme of what it had it mind for the game.

“We were trying to design the game from a rat’s viewpoint,” said Mitton. “If we have a small city, from a constrained viewpoint, what are all the different angles that we can explore?”

Themes, architecture, morphology and the use of mystical lighting also played a roll when illustrating the set pieces, which also aided the pre-production team’s to experimentation while sticking with the original tone.

Dishonored is slated for release on October 9 on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.