Dishonored: Definitive Edition

Viktor Antonov hasn't built a world like this before.

Arkane Studios has confirmed that its superb first-person assassination series Dishonored is "resting right now", with no further instalments seemingly currently planned.

If you're looking for an expert on immersive sims, speak to Randy Smith.

There may be spoilers for the Dishonored series of games ahead.

Arkane co-founder Raphael Colantonio has expanded on his shock decision to leave the Dishonored and Prey developer, suggesting he's burnt out by years of triple-A development.

Arkane Studios founder Raphael Colantonio has departed the company he created back in 1999.

Let's Play videos can be appealing for a variety of reasons. Sometimes you watch them because you like the personality of the presenter. Other times you want to get tips or tricks and seek a video walkthrough. And often gameplay videos are engaging because someone is trying to pull off a particularly impressive challenge, like, say, playing Dark Souls 3 with a controller made from bananas, or speedrunning a title to near perfection.

Arkane Studios is known as the developer of "immersive simulations" - worlds you sink into, wallow in, made up of intricately interlocking systems tied to exotic abilities, which can be manipulated to resolve a scenario any number of ways. But perhaps it would be more accurate to describe the Lyon and Austin-based company's creations as "emersive" sims, frameworks you struggle to break free of, using tools that aren't quite under the designer's control.

Man, I love a hub in games. And so few get them right. A good hub can elevate a game that, otherwise, I don't really care much about.

Dishonored is a very good video game that Chris Bratt missed because he was too busy playing XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Go figure. The beauty of Late to the Party, however, is that we can go back and introduce people to games they missed the first time round - without getting told off for slacking.

Bethesda has released an all new Dishonored 2 gameplay video demonstrating just some of the ways you can get the drop on your enemies.

As seen above, you can transform into a shadowy monster and rip your opponents limb from limb like Jackie in The Darkness. You can parry a sword strike to behead an attacking guard. You can slide around robots and warp about until you get the right angle to mount them from above before snapping their shiny metallic necks.

Dishonored 2 lets players play as returning protagonist Corvo Attano or his surrogate daughter Empress Emily Kaldwin, whose life Corvo saved in the opening moments of the first Dishonored after the two enjoyed a playful game of hide-and-seek before all the parent-slaying and murder-framing kicked off the plot.

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With a sequel to Dishonored in the works, a remaster of the original game for current-gen consoles was all but inevitable - a release confirmed at E3 earlier this year. Dubbed the Definitive Edition, the latest version of Dishonored promises a substantial upgrade over the Xbox 360 and PS3 releases, featuring updated visuals and the inclusion of all the downloadable content. There are also improvements to frame-rate, but the boost only goes so far: we're still looking at 30fps, albeit with a higher level of stability in performance.

Coming up to its three-year anniversary, it's fair to say that the look of the UE3-powered title hasn't aged particularly well when viewed through a full HD lens, though the gameplay still captivates. Both consoles hand in a native 1080p image, bringing with it a substantial boost in clarity and sharpness over the 720p last-gen releases. That full HD presentation is backed by run of the mill anti-aliasing - and based on a comparison with the PC version, it looks like standard FXAA is in play on both PS4 and Xbox One.

Curiously, there does seem to be a small amount of variance in the overall coverage offered by the AA solution, producing a slightly sharper image on Xbox One with distant scenery lacking the mild softening effect that appears sporadically on PS4. However, shimmering around fine details is more commonplace across both near-field structures and those further away from the camera, while long edges lack the same level of smoothness compared to the other platforms. Here, the PC game offers the most refined presentation with the PS4 following behind. On PC we opted for FXAA for our captures, which provides a smoother image than the MLAA alternative, at the expense of a slight blur to texture clarity.

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UPDATE 22/07/0215 10.30pm: This upgrade offer will also be valid on Xbox One, a Bethesda rep confirmed to Eurogamer.