- Arkane Studios co-heads Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith say they almost pulled off a Blade Runner game and Thief 4
- Bethesda contacted Arkane with this idea, and Arkane developed pitches for both projects.
- Thief 4 ultimately became the basis of Dishonored
According to former Arkane Studios co-heads Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith, THE Death loop the developer almost made a Blade Runner game and Thief 4 before it is done Dishonored.
In a new YouTube series, spotted by user “Knoebel” on BlueSky (via Eurogamer), the developers sat down to think about Dishonored and its development 14 years after its release.
At the start of the video, Colantonio revealed that Bethesda had contacted the studio to consider creating a new game in the Thief series, which would have been Thief 4.
“Before we did it Dishonoredwe were supposed to do either Thief Or Blade Runner“, Colantonio said. “Bethesda approached us with the proposition: ‘Hey, we have the Thief franchise, and we know the people to make this game, and that’s you.’ It’s our game.”
“It’s like walking up to two cats and saying, ‘We have a big bag of catnip here on one side. We have another bag of catnip here, which one do you want? Do you want both?'” Smith added. “We were both so excited. Blade Runner and Thief, two of our favorite things of all time.”
“We were in such a dire situation business-wise, and they came in not only to save us business, but to frankly bring in the intellectual property that I would have most loved to work on,” Colantonio said.
Look on it
Smith went on to say that they had “an incredible pitch” for what would have been Thief 4Colantonio interjected to add that they also had “some videos”, and to Blade Runnerthey had worked with one of Arkane’s animators who specialized in first-person combat to create combat animations.
“We also fought Replicants because we talked to Doug Church. [a veteran game designer]and he said, you know, even sitting in a room together, they would do things with their bodies that humans couldn’t do,” Colantonio added. “Like, reach over and take eggs out of boiling water or something. So we had some flips, and it was super exciting to work on them Blade Runner. The story pitch we had for Blade Runner it was just… I loved it.
“The funny thing is that at first we thought we were going to be [working on] Thief. I was so excited, and they said, well, that could also be Blade Runnerand I had no way to concentrate on Thief And Blade Runner at the same time.”
Unfortunately, Arkane was never able to realize his vision for Blade Runner And Thief 4 a reality, and since Bethesda had not yet acquired the studio, they were concerned about the direction they were taking.
That is, until Bethesda suggested you “keep what you’re doing and call it Dishonored“.
“[Dishonored] started on the basis of Thief 4“, revealed Colantonio.
Dishonored was released in 2012, and Arkane subsequently developed Dishonored 2launched in 2016.
In early 2024, it was reported that Arkane Austin wanted to create a new single-player game, like a Dishonored suite, before the studio closed.
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