Dishonored 2 Saved Arkane Despite Costing More to Make Than Skyrim and Struggling for Sales, Former Dev Says

Dishonored 2 cost more to make than legendary role-playing game and fellow Bethesda title The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and struggled for sales, but it still saved developer Arkane according to a former employee.

Julien Eveillé, who worked in quality assurance on Dishonored 2 and as a designer on sequel Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, told PC Gamer that the game underperformed financially but saved Arkane by providing a “seal of quality” that “would maybe be considered the most refined games of the whole Bethesda catalogue.”

Bethesda questioned the series’ viability in the wake of disappointing sales of Dishonored 2 and Death of the Outsider, Eveillé said.

“It was a bit strange and weird. I think when Bethesda was looking at the numbers, they thought, ‘Okay, Skyrim sold so much. And it cost less than Dishonored 2 to make.’ So they were asking questions,” he said.

“From an executive spend standpoint, it makes sense to ask those questions of, ‘Why should we keep going with you?’ But we knew that we had a kind of seal of quality protection, making what would maybe be considered the most refined games of the whole Bethesda catalogue.”

This “kind of saved the studio,” Eveillé added, noting that focusing on this kind of game instead of chasing trends like live service games was critical to the “future success of the studio.” This pedigree continued on to Deathloop, deemed a masterpiece by IGN, and fans will surely hope the incoming Marvel’s Blade will have that quality too.

This is a tale of two Arkanes, however, as Arkane Austin infamously went down that path of chasing trends when it developed Redfall as a live service title, though this was reportedly at the request of upper management and not the actual developers creating it.

Redfall launched without that Arkane “seal of quality” but instead with “bland missions, boneheaded enemies, and repeated technical problems,“ according to IGN’s 4/10 review. Bethesda owner Microsoft later shut down the studio in a devastating round of lay offs.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.