Dishonored dev says industry lacks variety

The industry lacks variety, claims Dishonored artist and Half-Life designer Viktor Antonov. Speaking to Eurogamer, the artist plainly stated, "there have been too many sequels, and too many established [intellectual properties] that have been ruling the market."

He said many of these are war games, and while he praised these titles for being "great," he said there is a "lack of variety" in the industry today.

Antonov went on to claim games that break the mold by attempting new things are often misunderstood.

"So, when you step out of this established genre, people cannot grasp it, or the press tries to find a match," he said. "There's a place for thousands of different sub-genres and genres."

Lastly, Antonov lamented the associations people are drawing between Dishonored and BioShock. He said the false similarities being drawn between the two franchises are a result of a dearth in variety in the market.

"We're doing a historical piece, a retro-futuristic piece, which has pretty much nothing to do with BioShock except for the fact that it doesn't take place in the far future, but has references to the past. And, unfortunately, BioShock and Dishonored are the only two games that go into that fiction for the past…how many years?"

Set for release on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on October 9, Dishonored is a first-person action game that puts players in the boots of Corvo, an assassin tasked with protecting the empress of a stylized steampunk city known as Dunwall. However, the empress is soon murdered, with Corvo framed for the killing, and sinister forces grant the accused assassin supernatural abilities to pursue his revenge.

For more on Dishonored, check out GameSpot's latest preview.