Raphael Colantonio founded Arkane Studios in 1999 and spent more than 18 years there, including co-creating and directing the original Dishonored with Harvey Smith. Colantonio also directed 2017’s Prey. He left Arkane that year and now heads up the independent studio Wolf Eye, which launched Weird West in 2022. Now, he and the team are cooking up something new that he believes will make fans of Dishonored and Prey happy.
Speaking to GI.biz, Colantonio said, “People who loved Dishonored and Prey are going to feel very at home. It’s uncompromised.”
Not much at all is known about what this game actually is, but Colantonio teased that it will involve player freedom and choice through its RPG elements. The developer said it’s the “perfect project” for him and the studio at this point.
While Colantonio specifically mentioned Dishonored and Prey, no one should expect the team’s new game to be similar to those games necessarily. “Right now, I’ve been mentioning Fallout, and Prey, and Dishonored, because in my vision of the game, I know why I’m saying this. But when you play it, you might think of something else. It’s a way to try to communicate what it is,” he said.
Weird West, meanwhile, stood apart from the kind of experience some expected from Colantonio. He said after leaving Arkane, he “didn’t exactly know what I wanted,” but he was sure he wanted it to be a “smaller” project. Weird West was Wolf Eye’s first game, and he said it represented a “necessary phase” for the company.
After spending many years working on first-person, expensive, complicated games, Colantonio said it felt nice to make something with “less pressure.”
“Our games are always risky on the money side. We do them [out of] passion. Weird West was in that same spirit, except that it was with much less money, and a smaller team,” he said.
The only glimpses of Wolf Eye’s new game so far came in the form of off-screen video footage (above) and the concept art above. Officially, Wolf Eye is calling the game a “first-person action-RPG in a retro sci-fi setting.” Keep checking back with GameSpot for the latest.