BitSnark

Bethesda Softworks today blew the lid off of their behind-closed-doors E3 gameplay demo of  their highly anticipated title Dishonored, with the release of two director commentary gameplay videos.  Due to arrive in October, on PS3 360 and PC formats, Dishonored casts you as a supernatural assassin driven by revenge in a Victorian-inspired world merged with nightmarish science-fiction.

Broken down into two parts, each of these videos successfully conveys the primary lure of Dishonored; the freedom to creatively eliminate your targets with a hugely flexible combat system allowing you to combine supernatural abilities with a myriad of weapons and gadgets at your disposal.  Boasting a dynamic mission structure that alters throughout depending on the choices you make, Dishonored is equal parts Thief, Deus Ex and Bioshock; combining the key aspects of each of these notable genre alumni into a cohesive whole, that while perhaps not so technically impressive amongst its contemporaries, nevertheless looks to captivate and enrapture with it’s complete freedom of approach to completing missions and objectives.

Everything from skulking in the shadows and dropping down for a gory kill, through to teleportation and possessing anything with a heartbeat (even a fish!) combined with the creative fusion of a hugely dynamic arsenal of weapons and powers is showcased in the two videos embedded below.

With commentary by Co-Creative Directors Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith, each video represents the same mission, but differ in the manner by which the mission is tackled.  The first video shows a more stealthy approach; leveraging a select number of  powers in addition to the traditional stealth genre tropes (hiding in the shadows, hiding bodies from sight etc.) to get things done quietly and undetected. The second video as you might reasonably infer, instead shows a total balls-to-the-wall approach – where the shadows are left behind and the entire supernatural arsenal of the player is brought to bear in full-on confrontational combat.

Personally, I would much rather prefer the stealthy sort of gameplay myself at this early juncture.  The game appears to function much stronger in this regard and like last year’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the game seemingly has it’s most rewarding and satisfying moments when it is played in this fashion.

Enough of my prattle though, have a look at the footage below and see which approach you would favour in what looks to be a dark horse contender for Game of the Year:

 Dishonored is due to be released on 360, PC & PS3 platforms on October 12th, 2012.