'Dishonored 2' is gaming's best argument yet against photorealism
Combine Havana, Barcelona and Mumbai, and you might find something like the sun-scorched, decaying splendour of Karnaca.
Known as "the jewel of the south at the edge of the world," the city setting of Dishonored 2 sprung from the mind of Sebastien Mitton, art director at Arkane Studios.
Speaking with Mashable at the gaming conference PAX in Melbourne, Mitton said he chose to take the first-person action game to "the end of the world" to contrast it with the London-inspired setting of Dunwall in the original 2012 Dishonored game.
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He also shared some conceptual work that helped define the game's look.
Beginning 15 years after the original story line, the art direction stays true to the former's alt-Victorian period. Helped by sketches from the illustrator Laurent Gapaillard, it imagines what colonial architecture would look among tropical foliage in a coastal city that has lost its way.
"We had inspiration from Mumbai," Mitton said. "It's British, but it has this distinct flavour. It's weathered by the sun and the rain that never happens in London."
Mitton sees cities as "organic matter," and so developing a two century-long history of Karnaca was vital to understanding its look. He decided there were natives on the island, and then settlers from the island Morley, followed by people from Gristol.
With the help of an art team that reached 70 at its peak size, he gave each section of Karnaca a distinct personality formed by class, industry and environment, all sandwiched between steep hills.
"I like to create a parallel world, an alternate world, where it starts with 'what if'?" he said.
Mitton imagined, for example, what Mumbai would be like if it had been industrialised within the city walls. From that seed, the Dust District emerged: a wind corridor through the working class district of Karnaca, with diamond-shaped buildings and pipes to funnel the gusts.
"There are silver mines at the top, close to the peak. And the more they dig to get silver, the more the hole opens and the more wind you have in this corridor," he said. "It's climate change."
There's also the sun. Mitton used photos he took in Long Beach, Los Angeles as inspiration for the hazy light.
The goal is realism, not photorealism.
He also had rendering help from the purpose-built game engine, Void Engine, which ensures the light fall correctly during game play.
"If you fail the lighting, you lose 50 percent of the quality," Mitton said.
Although the architecture and furniture takes a Victorian inspiration, the game also features clockwork soldiers with multiple blades for arms, as well as steampunk gadgets.
Calling them "alternate technologies," Mitton said the artists' main references were Tesla, but also Edison and the early stages of technologies we have today.
Like the city, the people of Karnaca are an unusual combination of the beautiful and grotesque. What else can you expect when a game's artwork is most inspired by the 19th century Russian realist artist, Ilya Repin?
"I'm really attached to characters, because [the players] really attach to them," Mitton said. "You have to make people think this is their city, that's why we think through the mind of the inhabitants."
The case against photorealism
The world of Karnaca, with detail down to the look of its Victorian arm chairs, is nevertheless a convincing argument against the gaming industry's endless trudge towards photorealism.
Mitton said his goal for Dishonored 2 is realism, not photorealism.
"I'm not against the human look," he explained, "but I think it's way more fun if you do things that you cannot do in reality. Sometimes reality is not fun or beautiful."
"I don't say that we are alone to do that, there are great games that do that like Overwatch or Journey," he added.
In many ways, the photorealism trend is a mistake, Mitton argued. He suggested games sometimes veer towards photorealism when they don't have a clear vision of what they want to achieve. "It's easy to take and apply," he said, "or it maybe makes their life easier. To me, it's less exciting."
At times, it's also about cutting corners, which can damage the overarching aesthetic of a game.
He argued against "batching" during development, for example, to save money. "I will never send my files to big studios because it's a totally different culture," he said. "I don't like this machinery -- I am for handcrafting. In French, we say 'artisan.' The people who create and love what they do.
To create the faces of Dishonored 2, for example, illustrations were first rendered in clay by hand before being sent to 3D modellers.
"If you send your files to people on the other side of the earth, and they don't have the same vision, you lose quality," he added.
If players get happily lost the world of Karnaca, he'll have proven his point.
Dishonored 2 comes out on Nov. 11 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
Ariel Bogle was an associate editor with Mashable in Australia covering technology. Previously, Ariel was associate editor at Future Tense in Washington DC, an editorial initiative between Slate and New America.
