Fallout: New Vegas served as a reference for the new game from the co-creator of Dishonored, because he's pushing for a more "freeform" RPG structure.
Earlier this month, Arkane Studios co-founder Raphael Colantonio unveiled his new game, described as a first-person immersive sim/RPG hybrid that's like Fallout meets Dishonored. Colantonio no longer works at Arkane, and this new project is being made at his new outfit, WolfEye Studios, but it certainly borrows from what its director describes as "Arkane DNA." That DNA means that this game - "the type of action, the type of mobility, and world design, level design" - is very much what "you would expect" from the people behind Dishonored. But it's also blended with an increasing push towards RPG ideas, and that's where one of its key references comes in.
"At the very beginning, when we started the game, Fallout: New Vegas came as a reference," Colantonio explains in an interview with 12DOVE. WolfEye has taken inspiration from "the structure, the size" of Obsidian's RPG spin-off, and while size doesn't really matter to a studio focusing more on density than sheer square-footage, there are other ideas it's taken from New Vegas too.
"We did like the free-form exploration of New Vegas," Colantonio continues. "We like the humor, we liked some of the possibilities - how you can go with this group or that group, and the story keeps going no matter what."
In talking about his new game, Colantonio makes it clear he's looking at ways to incorporate more of an RPG structure into his traditionally immersive sim background. 2017's Prey, he says, was more of an RPG than Dishonored, and this new game will be more of an RPG than Prey. "We know what we know how to make," he says, pointing back to the Arkane DNA, but he also says he's planning to give the player "more tools" in this new game: "Things that are more RPG - stats, dialog, dialog that's based on not only stats like speech, but also some of the things you might have done, or your background, or some trait or perk that was unlocked."
Eventually, however, WolfEye's New Vegas inspiration comes down to something a little more simple - "It's simply one of my favorite Fallouts," Colantonio explains. Given the series' unshakeable influence on the entire RPG genre, as well as the alt-Western setting of WolfEye's new project, perhaps it's no surprise at all that the Mojave's presence should be felt pretty strongly here.
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