1:35 Hey that's me! Nice - and yeah we don't know how that specific dust district skip works either, and it took almost 7 years to get it consistent as we didn't even bother looking into it. Seemed too random :).
To anyone who has not done a no powers playthrough of Dishonored 2, I cannot recommend it enough. You truly appreciate Arkane’s thoughtful level design when you cannot blink to where you need to go.
I'm doin this just now and it's quite incredible, there is always a beam or a ledge to jump on to reach high places you can normally just Teleport up to.
What innovations would you like to see in a title like Dishonoured? And what do you think you can do in future titles to push the envelope with your level design?
Would be cool to learn another portion of your favorite games list. Also, would be interesting to know your thoughts on level design for collectathons like Banjo Kazooe and others.
Man, I'm so sad that we might not ever get another Dishonored game. Dishonored 1 is my favourite stealth game of all time and it has the best atmosphere I've seen.
A question for a future video: how did your FPS level design experience apply to your work on Tactical Breach Wizards? I could imagine that Dishonored’s emphasis on varied tools is similar to promoting exploration and creativity in TBW encounters, but there are also huge differences in the “puzzle” feeling of the game and the obvious camera difference leading to different visual communication and architectural limitations.
Heyo, I love your videos and Dishonored 2 is one of my favourite games. So it's really cool having an inside perspective on that game :) And your videos helped me a lot understanding Leveldesgin. A Question: Would it be possible for you to make another video of "watch me design a level" but just for stealth or even with a little bit more ways to get to the objective? I'd be really interrested in that, cause I'm working on something my own (Just some private game) and I want to give the Player some freedom. I'm not sure if a video like that would be a bit to time consuming but I wanted to ask :)
Another random question... How useful do you think it is to put two designers onto a task, rather than one deigner? Or another way to ask maybe... when designing a level, how often do you think it's useful to bring in another designer to give feedback, brainstorm more ideas, give suggestions or critique, etc?
Late following this up from your Reddit post: but holy smokes #6 was my question! Thanks so much, Steve! I really do think about this when I am doing Jindosh Mansion and Stilton's Manor because they are so much fun to play and replay. I always try to run them in a slightly different way than I've previously done....and that's the genesis of my question.
Legend! You've worked on level design in a game which contains some of the best level design there is. Thank you for for contributing to one of the best immersive sim experiences 🙏.
Love the video! Your expertise is invaluable, and hearing about the design of D2 is always a treat. Funny how Paolo's power is good for an immersive sim in the same way that vampire antagonists are good for TTRPGs lol
I really appreciate your process in level design and the Dishonored series because I come from an architecture and design background. I can see plenty of similarity in architectural thinking and in your process of level design. When you say that there a process of a level design mechanic idea that becomes a story or a story idea that becomes a level design mechanic, this really resonates with me because in architecture you can have come up with a great functional space then you create a story of how that space is used or you have a story that drives the design and conception of a function space. I appreciate that in dishonored 2, you guys put in flushable toilets and other support items in the world to make it believable which goes along wit environmental story telling. Can they be made more functional rather than an aesthetic feature?
Thief 2014 had a small side-mission in a "clockwork" house with moving walls, but it probably didn't influence Dishonored 2 at all, considering how close their release dates were.
Thank you for this look behind the curtains of game development! And also thank you for making it as grounded and chill as you did, the format is perfect. If you get enough questions, I'd personally absolutely be interested in a part two! (Also I appear to be one of the 30%)
One idea for a possible other video would be to "design a new Dishonored level" on the fly, thinking about the ingredients and values of Dishonored, and how to come up with an overall level concept / rough layout. Would be interesting!
Hey Steve! Thank you for another awesome video! And btw, I do watch your videos right to the end. A few of them I even followed to a T to create my notes on game and level design, and your teaching is invaluable to me, someone who is learning how to make a game by himself. Thank you, again, and can't wait for your next video!
Really interesting video, your explainations are clear and full of insights. Dishonored is my favorite series, which level design contributes greatly to. It always blows my mind how I can play these games 5 times, and on the 6th time still find new secrets or routes.
I am so happy the algorithm brought you into to my feed. I genuinely think Arkane are the best level designers on the planet. Thank you for all the greatness you brought to the industry, I am now looking forward to sitting through your videos. Arkane's titles are insanely underappreciated for all that they did.
The things I would do just to go to the studio and just watch and listen. Arkane has always been a huge inspiration for me as an artist, so being able to experience the design processes and strategies is very helpful as I’ve spent a lot of time studying these games. Each level is like a painting, drawing the viewers attention, leading the eye to their goals and how to accomplish them. Seriously, masterful stuff, thank you for shedding a little bit more light on this beloved franchise
Loving this video, man. What an absolute treat and thank you for making it! Dishonored 2 is in my top 5 favorite games. I have over 100 hours in it, somehow. I am always trying to convince my gamer friends to give it a shot, it kills me that none of them have because of how great the game is. Thank you for helping make such a wonderful masterpiece!
Hello Steve, first of all thanks a lot for the content u make. I'm currently working as a vegetation designer in a game studio but trying to learn LD and hopefully make that my job in the future. Your videos were a great source of inspiration and knowledge. I wanted to ask whether you got any plans to make a LD course or maybe more in-depth guides where you build a level from scratch, show the full process, etc. Thank you once again!
I feel that the time limit vs experimental thing isn‘t really true. Look at Prey Mooncrash for example, where you are pressured to use whatever you have to solve the situation by thinking cleverly. Sure: You could explore and fight further to get a stun gun, an EMP grenade, or neromods for the electric power if you are the engineer. You could try to fight all the enemies. But these all are through the lense of time or death probability a higher risk than going back to get a power module, to power one very costly thing down, to use the power modules breaking EMP to get through a Typhon gate. It‘s because of stuff like this that Prey Mooncrash is one of my favorite games. I feel that some sort of pressure is always the best thing to make you play differently and with variety. In a stealth game triggering an alarm could be that as an example. Have also worked on Prey a bit by any chance?
Re: time travel levels. Older games have done this plenty, like Link to the Past. Or recent metroidvanias, like Guacamelee. Everyone’s building on top of everyone else!
Hey Steve, love your videos thus far, especially your orthogonal design video. What resources would you suggest to learn more about these kinds of game design principles? Are there any resources that are well accepted amongst professional game designers?
There's an interesting conundrum in immersive sims. Play styles to explore is nice, but it's also a good idea to avoid dominant strategies in a game. If you give a player two guns, they spend the same ammo, but one is objectively better than the other, the weaker gun has no point existing. I honestly don't know how to organize my thoughts on this. I love Dishonored! I never felt compelled to play as an action hero, because it was fun to stealth around. Maybe dominant strategy is only relevant when the strategies are too similar. If the weak gun makes a fart noise I might want to use it more, is me point.
Hi Steve. Great video ! As a level designer myself, I always recommand your videos to my students and colleagues. Really interesting topic. Cheers from France !
Awesome stuff Steve, thanks for doing this topic. Really interesting. I'll be really interested to see what Harvey does next! Sounds like he's starting up a new project. :) I'd love to see some sort of super team, with all the different people who have spread far and wide, from Arkane, and Looking Glass, and stuff, all brought together. :D
Someone needs to get Doug Church back into the fold! He has disappeared for too long. :D Hoping Harvey will basically make a super band of all the immersive sim folks he can find, and other talented folks, and make something incredible...
Did you see Ghost of Dunwall and Ghost of Karnaka videos? No powers, no kills, no detection, no knockouts? The fact that you and the team designed the game to make this possible blows my mind.
Definitely watching all the way to the end 😄 I also always love the practical "here's how I design levels" ones, there's so much you learn from seeing the problem solving process in "realtime." (Actually speaking of, do you ever stream when you work on like a jam project or the DOOM level videos and such? Just occurred to me that I'd totally watch the messy, unedited version of what the design process actually looks like in practice)
In response to 5: Applying constraints upon Dishonored playthroughs is the challenge. Try beating the game with a) no powers b) not seen (ghost) c) both of the above (in one playthrough)
D2 my all time favorite Dishonored title and one of the best (if not the best) stealth based game for me. Loved everything about it, played it 4 or 5 times since release, and still playing it and finding new ways to have fun around. Level design was just great, and it looks incredible at 5120x2160. Too bad Arkane will never deliver D3. By the way, i would love a video about Deathloop level design, since there's many similarities with Dishonored.
Hey Steve. I spent a lot of time in Dishonored 2. It's interesting to see the face of the person who created the spaces I explored. Edge of the World was a memorable level. Seamless indoor-outdoor transitions (AC Unity), Rooftops (love traversal on roofs) Sunny... Clockwork Mansion must've been difficult. Do you enjoy the 3Dness of Dishonored 2's level design? Must've been quite challenging to consider and incorporate Dishonored's playstyle elements into the level. I.e. Blink, jumping distance. PS. I like the idea of easter-eggs in levels (Q. 7) like a "How did you get here?"
A question: Do you guys find it hard to organically include verticality in your game? The solution DH2 usually comes up with is pipes, lamp poles and some pillars, but isn't there ever the worry that the player might think the levels feel "scripted" given how conviniently those are placed?
Edited wording to make it clear I seek to understand the thought process: What are your thoughts on the Jindosh Riddle (the door puzzle)? I loved Dishonored 2 but that puzzle broke immersion for me so hard. Did developers want people to sit in front of one scene with pen and paper for 20 minutes solving this puzzle? There must have been thought process behind the puzzle that I don't understand. I felt forced by the game to take a break from exploring. But what bothers me is not that I didn't like it but that I didn’t understand why it was included in the game. I would like to hear your thoughts on it. Did you like the idea? Do you think it was a good idea to have it in the game? From a level designer's perspective, why was it added to a game focused on stealth and exploration? I know sometimes puzzles are added so that a player can have a break from action; was that the intention here? This is the original wording: What are your thoughts on the Jindosh Riddle (the door puzzle)? I loved Dishonored 2 but that puzzle broke immersion for me so hard. Did developers want people to sit in front of one scene with pen and paper for 20 minutes solving this puzzle? There must have been people on the dev team very much against it, right? And yeah, I know you could get through without actually solving it but there are people, like me, who when they see a riddle they want to solve it. I felt forced by the game to take a break from exploring. I would like to hear your thoughts on it. Did you like the idea? Do you think it was a good idea to have it in the game? From a level designer's perspective, why was it added to a game that was about stealth and exploration?
This is an extremely loaded question (“did you actually think this annoying puzzle was a good design choice or would you be willing to bad mouth a bunch of former co-workers?”) and you’ve already kind of given yourself the answer. Arkane was probably aware that most people don’t play Dishonored for a hardcore puzzle solving experience, so the game gave you an easy out but you decided to do it the hard way lol. Can’t really complain when you consciously made the choice to do it the intended way which was clearly meant to be a challenging experience. It’s a puzzle created by a genius inventor as a means of security. I would find it more immersion-breaking if it wasn’t at least a bit obtuse and hard to decipher.
@@JustynaDorsz doesn’t change the fact that your wording was essentially begging the question for him to agree with you and admit that the puzzle was a “bad” design choice, which is the root of the problem here.
@@ThePhobophile This surprises me because it would in fact be better for me if Steve thought the puzzle was good and explained why. I reworded my post, and left the original wording for reference. Thanks!
funny you bring up the COD example, tthe recent one have tried doing just that, by giving more open ended levels and they are pretty bad.. because it just doesnt work well outside of shooting.
Thanks so much for these insights, it's always awesome to hear how the creative process works! Random question that came up to mind regarding your gaming taste: have you played Outer Wilds?
Have you spent time playing VR games? Specifically, I'm wondering if you have ever played or heard about a VR game that you feel is designed in similar ways to the Dishonored franchise?
@@stevelee_gamedev No worries, thanks for the response! I am novice level designer currently working on a VR game, trying to build my skills and make some awesome levels. Your videos have been super helpful :)
Hey steve, my question is why do modern games take so long to develop? When i was a kid, I could play games from my favourite developers every 2 years on average. Now im lucky if i get to play one of them in a generation. And why are games so scared to innovate on their design? It seems like every triple a game is an uncharted, assassins creed, dark souls or call of duty clone. I miss the risk.
Dishonored was the LAST aaa game that didn't suck in one way or another. It was the last game where the devs actually made an effort, really delivered a timeless game, with endless replayability, more variety in gameplay than you can put in your drawer. Non-violent gameplay, a thing nobody knows how to do anymore. it's clea why. Cuz it's difficult. Designing proper stealh is hard. Nobody wants hard anymore. Look at the company, what do they do? Drop the franchise. Slap together a billionth dumb shooter which is forgotten in three hours. Forget about it. Wait till AI will learn how to build AAA games and just order what you want. Human studios are toast.
Gamedev is really hard, and if you don't think basically all studios out there are "making an effort", then you've no idea what you're talking about. And your suggestion that AI will learn to magically make great AAA games and replace people is funny / tragic
@@stevelee_gamedev i didn't use the word 'magically', everything requires designers effort and ideas and clear design cocept. But funny/tragic? five years ago you wouldn't believe Replit or Cursor exist, now would you? I didn't mean studios aren't making an effort, maybe a lot of them are. But the collective corporate neurosis with penchant to try and f*ck with 1st law of thermodynamics (getting more while investing less) leads the market where it is now. Dumb cheap ass shooters that cost as much as good product would.
1:35 Hey that's me! Nice - and yeah we don't know how that specific dust district skip works either, and it took almost 7 years to get it consistent as we didn't even bother looking into it.
Seemed too random :).
This is so cool to see talked about, devs and players, specifically speed runners, talking and chatting in a positive environment.
To anyone who has not done a no powers playthrough of Dishonored 2, I cannot recommend it enough. You truly appreciate Arkane’s thoughtful level design when you cannot blink to where you need to go.
I'm doin this just now and it's quite incredible, there is always a beam or a ledge to jump on to reach high places you can normally just Teleport up to.
Feel free to ask more questions in the comments - if people enjoy this video I might do another one :)
You don’t have a secret identity as “Alex Yu” by any chance?
What innovations would you like to see in a title like Dishonoured? And what do you think you can do in future titles to push the envelope with your level design?
@@vHeart. Right! Good eye, on my god! Can't unsee Steve in Prey now! :)
Would be cool to learn another portion of your favorite games list.
Also, would be interesting to know your thoughts on level design for collectathons like Banjo Kazooe and others.
Man, I'm so sad that we might not ever get another Dishonored game. Dishonored 1 is my favourite stealth game of all time and it has the best atmosphere I've seen.
Dishonored 1 and 2 are two of my favorite games and the amazing level design, set pieces, and aesthetic play a big part in my love for them.
A question for a future video: how did your FPS level design experience apply to your work on Tactical Breach Wizards? I could imagine that Dishonored’s emphasis on varied tools is similar to promoting exploration and creativity in TBW encounters, but there are also huge differences in the “puzzle” feeling of the game and the obvious camera difference leading to different visual communication and architectural limitations.
Heyo, I love your videos and Dishonored 2 is one of my favourite games. So it's really cool having an inside perspective on that game :)
And your videos helped me a lot understanding Leveldesgin.
A Question:
Would it be possible for you to make another video of "watch me design a level" but just for stealth or even with a little bit more ways to get to the objective? I'd be really interrested in that, cause I'm working on something my own (Just some private game) and I want to give the Player some freedom.
I'm not sure if a video like that would be a bit to time consuming but I wanted to ask :)
So glad to see a designer talking about one of my favorite games. Thanks!
Another random question... How useful do you think it is to put two designers onto a task, rather than one deigner?
Or another way to ask maybe... when designing a level, how often do you think it's useful to bring in another designer to give feedback, brainstorm more ideas, give suggestions or critique, etc?
Late following this up from your Reddit post: but holy smokes #6 was my question! Thanks so much, Steve! I really do think about this when I am doing Jindosh Mansion and Stilton's Manor because they are so much fun to play and replay. I always try to run them in a slightly different way than I've previously done....and that's the genesis of my question.
Legend! You've worked on level design in a game which contains some of the best level design there is. Thank you for for contributing to one of the best immersive sim experiences 🙏.
Incredible video, great questions and great answers. Immersive sim will remains as my single favorite game genre.
Love the video! Your expertise is invaluable, and hearing about the design of D2 is always a treat. Funny how Paolo's power is good for an immersive sim in the same way that vampire antagonists are good for TTRPGs lol
I really appreciate your process in level design and the Dishonored series because I come from an architecture and design background. I can see plenty of similarity in architectural thinking and in your process of level design. When you say that there a process of a level design mechanic idea that becomes a story or a story idea that becomes a level design mechanic, this really resonates with me because in architecture you can have come up with a great functional space then you create a story of how that space is used or you have a story that drives the design and conception of a function space. I appreciate that in dishonored 2, you guys put in flushable toilets and other support items in the world to make it believable which goes along wit environmental story telling. Can they be made more functional rather than an aesthetic feature?
Thief 2014 had a small side-mission in a "clockwork" house with moving walls, but it probably didn't influence Dishonored 2 at all, considering how close their release dates were.
I watched right to the end. Thanks for the video, I love the entire Dishonored series.
Thank you for this look behind the curtains of game development!
And also thank you for making it as grounded and chill as you did, the format is perfect. If you get enough questions, I'd personally absolutely be interested in a part two!
(Also I appear to be one of the 30%)
Stealth in games like Dishonored is tricky! Balancing stunning visuals with smooth gameplay is a challenge for devs and studios alike.
One idea for a possible other video would be to "design a new Dishonored level" on the fly, thinking about the ingredients and values of Dishonored, and how to come up with an overall level concept / rough layout. Would be interesting!
Hey Steve! Thank you for another awesome video!
And btw, I do watch your videos right to the end. A few of them I even followed to a T to create my notes on game and level design, and your teaching is invaluable to me, someone who is learning how to make a game by himself.
Thank you, again, and can't wait for your next video!
Really interesting video, your explainations are clear and full of insights. Dishonored is my favorite series, which level design contributes greatly to. It always blows my mind how I can play these games 5 times, and on the 6th time still find new secrets or routes.
Thank you for making one of my favorite games ever
I am so happy the algorithm brought you into to my feed. I genuinely think Arkane are the best level designers on the planet. Thank you for all the greatness you brought to the industry, I am now looking forward to sitting through your videos.
Arkane's titles are insanely underappreciated for all that they did.
Dude that idea about a DOtO level where your target is another Daud trainee is awesome, too bad we never saw it.
Great stuff as always, thanks!
The things I would do just to go to the studio and just watch and listen. Arkane has always been a huge inspiration for me as an artist, so being able to experience the design processes and strategies is very helpful as I’ve spent a lot of time studying these games. Each level is like a painting, drawing the viewers attention, leading the eye to their goals and how to accomplish them. Seriously, masterful stuff, thank you for shedding a little bit more light on this beloved franchise
Loving this video, man. What an absolute treat and thank you for making it! Dishonored 2 is in my top 5 favorite games. I have over 100 hours in it, somehow. I am always trying to convince my gamer friends to give it a shot, it kills me that none of them have because of how great the game is. Thank you for helping make such a wonderful masterpiece!
Hello Steve, first of all thanks a lot for the content u make. I'm currently working as a vegetation designer in a game studio but trying to learn LD and hopefully make that my job in the future. Your videos were a great source of inspiration and knowledge.
I wanted to ask whether you got any plans to make a LD course or maybe more in-depth guides where you build a level from scratch, show the full process, etc.
Thank you once again!
Thanks for sharing. I love your channel!
Love dishonoured. I always hope a new thief game comes out.😊
I feel that the time limit vs experimental thing isn‘t really true. Look at Prey Mooncrash for example, where you are pressured to use whatever you have to solve the situation by thinking cleverly. Sure: You could explore and fight further to get a stun gun, an EMP grenade, or neromods for the electric power if you are the engineer. You could try to fight all the enemies. But these all are through the lense of time or death probability a higher risk than going back to get a power module, to power one very costly thing down, to use the power modules breaking EMP to get through a Typhon gate.
It‘s because of stuff like this that Prey Mooncrash is one of my favorite games.
I feel that some sort of pressure is always the best thing to make you play differently and with variety. In a stealth game triggering an alarm could be that as an example.
Have also worked on Prey a bit by any chance?
Re: time travel levels. Older games have done this plenty, like Link to the Past. Or recent metroidvanias, like Guacamelee. Everyone’s building on top of everyone else!
Hey Steve, love your videos thus far, especially your orthogonal design video.
What resources would you suggest to learn more about these kinds of game design principles?
Are there any resources that are well accepted amongst professional game designers?
There's an interesting conundrum in immersive sims. Play styles to explore is nice, but it's also a good idea to avoid dominant strategies in a game. If you give a player two guns, they spend the same ammo, but one is objectively better than the other, the weaker gun has no point existing.
I honestly don't know how to organize my thoughts on this. I love Dishonored! I never felt compelled to play as an action hero, because it was fun to stealth around. Maybe dominant strategy is only relevant when the strategies are too similar. If the weak gun makes a fart noise I might want to use it more, is me point.
Hi Steve. Great video ! As a level designer myself, I always recommand your videos to my students and colleagues.
Really interesting topic.
Cheers from France !
Merci bcp :)
Awesome stuff Steve, thanks for doing this topic. Really interesting. I'll be really interested to see what Harvey does next! Sounds like he's starting up a new project. :) I'd love to see some sort of super team, with all the different people who have spread far and wide, from Arkane, and Looking Glass, and stuff, all brought together. :D
Someone needs to get Doug Church back into the fold! He has disappeared for too long. :D
Hoping Harvey will basically make a super band of all the immersive sim folks he can find, and other talented folks, and make something incredible...
Did you see Ghost of Dunwall and Ghost of Karnaka videos? No powers, no kills, no detection, no knockouts? The fact that you and the team designed the game to make this possible blows my mind.
Definitely watching all the way to the end 😄 I also always love the practical "here's how I design levels" ones, there's so much you learn from seeing the problem solving process in "realtime." (Actually speaking of, do you ever stream when you work on like a jam project or the DOOM level videos and such? Just occurred to me that I'd totally watch the messy, unedited version of what the design process actually looks like in practice)
In response to 5: Applying constraints upon Dishonored playthroughs is the challenge.
Try beating the game with
a) no powers
b) not seen (ghost)
c) both of the above (in one playthrough)
What would be your dream game to make, and why?
Very interesting insights
D2 my all time favorite Dishonored title and one of the best (if not the best) stealth based game for me. Loved everything about it, played it 4 or 5 times since release, and still playing it and finding new ways to have fun around. Level design was just great, and it looks incredible at 5120x2160. Too bad Arkane will never deliver D3. By the way, i would love a video about Deathloop level design, since there's many similarities with Dishonored.
Hey Steve. I spent a lot of time in Dishonored 2. It's interesting to see the face of the person who created the spaces I explored.
Edge of the World was a memorable level. Seamless indoor-outdoor transitions (AC Unity), Rooftops (love traversal on roofs) Sunny... Clockwork Mansion must've been difficult.
Do you enjoy the 3Dness of Dishonored 2's level design? Must've been quite challenging to consider and incorporate Dishonored's playstyle elements into the level. I.e. Blink, jumping distance.
PS. I like the idea of easter-eggs in levels (Q. 7) like a "How did you get here?"
What educational material would you recommend for learning level design? Books, lectures, TH-cam videos?
yes, watched till the end 😊
A question:
Do you guys find it hard to organically include verticality in your game? The solution DH2 usually comes up with is pipes, lamp poles and some pillars, but isn't there ever the worry that the player might think the levels feel "scripted" given how conviniently those are placed?
Edited wording to make it clear I seek to understand the thought process:
What are your thoughts on the Jindosh Riddle (the door puzzle)? I loved Dishonored 2 but that puzzle broke immersion for me so hard. Did developers want people to sit in front of one scene with pen and paper for 20 minutes solving this puzzle? There must have been thought process behind the puzzle that I don't understand. I felt forced by the game to take a break from exploring. But what bothers me is not that I didn't like it but that I didn’t understand why it was included in the game. I would like to hear your thoughts on it. Did you like the idea? Do you think it was a good idea to have it in the game? From a level designer's perspective, why was it added to a game focused on stealth and exploration? I know sometimes puzzles are added so that a player can have a break from action; was that the intention here?
This is the original wording:
What are your thoughts on the Jindosh Riddle (the door puzzle)? I loved Dishonored 2 but that puzzle broke immersion for me so hard. Did developers want people to sit in front of one scene with pen and paper for 20 minutes solving this puzzle? There must have been people on the dev team very much against it, right? And yeah, I know you could get through without actually solving it but there are people, like me, who when they see a riddle they want to solve it. I felt forced by the game to take a break from exploring. I would like to hear your thoughts on it. Did you like the idea? Do you think it was a good idea to have it in the game? From a level designer's perspective, why was it added to a game that was about stealth and exploration?
This is an extremely loaded question (“did you actually think this annoying puzzle was a good design choice or would you be willing to bad mouth a bunch of former co-workers?”) and you’ve already kind of given yourself the answer. Arkane was probably aware that most people don’t play Dishonored for a hardcore puzzle solving experience, so the game gave you an easy out but you decided to do it the hard way lol. Can’t really complain when you consciously made the choice to do it the intended way which was clearly meant to be a challenging experience. It’s a puzzle created by a genius inventor as a means of security. I would find it more immersion-breaking if it wasn’t at least a bit obtuse and hard to decipher.
@@ThePhobophile One can talk about differences of opinion without bad mouthing anyone.
@@JustynaDorsz doesn’t change the fact that your wording was essentially begging the question for him to agree with you and admit that the puzzle was a “bad” design choice, which is the root of the problem here.
@@ThePhobophile This surprises me because it would in fact be better for me if Steve thought the puzzle was good and explained why. I reworded my post, and left the original wording for reference. Thanks!
Greattt video
Yes, I do watch till the end. No, I didn't fall asleep. 🙂
How did the things that landed in the artbooks relate to the level and asset design process?
Question:
Would a Dishonored level design fit with a day-night cycle?
Or what if you have a ability to switch between day and night? Would that be possible?
Isn't that just "DEATHLOOP"?
Based on what he said about time limits being the enemy of exploration, I would think that that would not work.
Indeed I believe that I kinda fell asleep at the end
funny you bring up the COD example, tthe recent one have tried doing just that, by giving more open ended levels and they are pretty bad.. because it just doesnt work well outside of shooting.
Thanks so much for these insights, it's always awesome to hear how the creative process works!
Random question that came up to mind regarding your gaming taste: have you played Outer Wilds?
Absolutely - one of the all-time best indie games :)
@@stevelee_gamedev the GOAT if you ask me personally! Thanks for the reply and your videos!
Hello i want to go in level designing but there are so many things that i am confused on were to start?
At least *I* am not asleep at the very end of the video. :P
Have you spent time playing VR games? Specifically, I'm wondering if you have ever played or heard about a VR game that you feel is designed in similar ways to the Dishonored franchise?
Not a VR guy to be honest, sorry!
@@stevelee_gamedev No worries, thanks for the response! I am novice level designer currently working on a VR game, trying to build my skills and make some awesome levels. Your videos have been super helpful :)
Is there a reason dishonored two guards don't ask to gather for whisky and cigars?
20:37 yes, I do.
sir you look like morgan yu from prey
IT WAS YOU
Why is the word "reasonable" at 18:20 in your subtitles spelled "reaaasonable"?
Haha, at the time of writing them I think I just thought that’s how I would’ve said it in real life
Hey steve, my question is why do modern games take so long to develop? When i was a kid, I could play games from my favourite developers every 2 years on average. Now im lucky if i get to play one of them in a generation. And why are games so scared to innovate on their design? It seems like every triple a game is an uncharted, assassins creed, dark souls or call of duty clone. I miss the risk.
Make dark messiah open world elders scroll like version but better
What level did you worked on for Bioshock Infinite?
I didn't know he worked on that game. I've recently purchased it in a Steam sale to do a second playthrough.
Mostly some of the early Town Center levels (introduction of the skyhook, skylines before the level you find Liz, etc)
answering your question: the fact that I write this comment already answeres your question. ;)
Nooo, you changed your way of saying "linear" 😭
Dishonored was the LAST aaa game that didn't suck in one way or another. It was the last game where the devs actually made an effort, really delivered a timeless game, with endless replayability, more variety in gameplay than you can put in your drawer. Non-violent gameplay, a thing nobody knows how to do anymore.
it's clea why. Cuz it's difficult. Designing proper stealh is hard. Nobody wants hard anymore.
Look at the company, what do they do? Drop the franchise. Slap together a billionth dumb shooter which is forgotten in three hours.
Forget about it. Wait till AI will learn how to build AAA games and just order what you want.
Human studios are toast.
Gamedev is really hard, and if you don't think basically all studios out there are "making an effort", then you've no idea what you're talking about. And your suggestion that AI will learn to magically make great AAA games and replace people is funny / tragic
@@stevelee_gamedev i didn't use the word 'magically', everything requires designers effort and ideas and clear design cocept. But funny/tragic? five years ago you wouldn't believe Replit or Cursor exist, now would you?
I didn't mean studios aren't making an effort, maybe a lot of them are. But the collective corporate neurosis with penchant to try and f*ck with 1st law of thermodynamics (getting more while investing less) leads the market where it is now. Dumb cheap ass shooters that cost as much as good product would.
谢谢