“It felt like we had needed couples therapy”: Dishonored devs Arkane making Thief or Blade Runner games sounds ace, but might have sparked a creative director scrap
Dishonored co-creators Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith recently revealed the challenging creative process behind their acclaimed stealth game. During development, the two directors pursued competing creative visions—with concepts for both Thief 4 and a Blade Runner game eventually being merged into a single project that became Dishonored in 2012.
The process of unifying these disparate creative directions proved difficult for the development team. Smith described the working relationship during development as intense enough to require what he humorously called “couples therapy” by the time the project wrapped. Despite the creative tensions, the collaboration successfully blended elements from both original concepts into a cohesive whole.
Dishonored went on to become a critically acclaimed title, spawning multiple sequels and establishing itself as a successful franchise. The revelation about the game’s complicated genesis provides insight into how creative compromises can emerge from internal development conflicts, and how different artistic visions within a development team can ultimately produce successful collaborative work.