The Evolution of Raphaël Colantonio: From Dishonored to New Sporting Adventures

Raphaël Colantonio and his team at Wolfeye Studios have not disclosed significant details regarding their forthcoming game. A handful of teaser images have been released, and a brief glimpse of gameplay was shared on social media, yet the game remains an enigma beyond that.

Two indisputable facts are that it is a single-player action RPG set in a retro-futuristic universe, and it draws inspiration from Colantonio’s experience as a creative director at Dishonored and Prey developer Arkane Studios.

Colantonio characterizes this as “the ideal project for the team,” whose members include Christophe Carrier (the lead level designer of Dishonored) and Joackim Daviaud (the lead level designer of Dishonored 2), among other former Arkane developers. He anticipates that enthusiasts of their earlier works will particularly appreciate what Wolfeye is crafting, which is a stark contrast to Weird West, the top-down action RPG that marked Wolfeye’s inaugural title.

“Those who enjoyed Dishonored and Prey will feel very much at home,” he informs GamesIndustry.biz. “It’s uncompromising… We’re diving deep into that type of game [in] how we construct worlds and the freedom we provide to players. I believe there will be even more choices this time due to the RPG layer. We’ll present various methods to approach challenges.”

This seems like a perfect fit given the team’s expertise. If this new title is “the ideal project,” why embark on Weird West first, a venture that is a considerable departure from their familiar territory?

“After Arkane, I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted,” Colantonio confesses. “I realized I wanted to create something smaller. I think Julien [Roby, Wolfeye CEO and another Arkane veteran who served as executive producer] shared the same perspective. We had to pursue something smaller because we were a new company, and we needed to bootstrap. Recruiting talents is challenging, and they need to bond. You can’t simply gather 50 people and hit the ground running. So, it was an essential phase for us.

“Part of it was purely creative. After so many years of focusing on first-person experiences, which were very costly and complex, we thought it [would] feel great to create something with a bit less pressure, more straightforward to recover costs. Because our games are consistently volatile financially. We develop them [out of] passion. Weird West was in that same spirit, although it was done with significantly less funding and a smaller team.”

“Weird West was the first occasion we had revenue sharing, kept the IP, managed to create something with limited resources, and that felt rewarding. It was grounding, and we needed that to recalibrate.”

Colantonio adds that Wolfeye believed Weird West would be easier and quicker to achieve – it turned out not to be the case. In fact, it was just as complex as previous projects they had worked on. Therefore, upon wrapping up that project, the team yearned to pursue something more aligned with the titles they were more passionate about, that fans wished them to create.

That being said, Colantonio emphasizes that the triumph of Weird West made the current project feasible. While it did not exactly make the studio wealthy, it covered its expenses and allowed Wolfeye to assemble the required team.

“We had a blast with Weird West,” he goes on. “It was the first instance we implemented revenue sharing, we retained the IP, and managed to create something with limited funds, and that felt good. It was grounding, and we needed that to recalibrate.”

The only glimpse of gameplay we’ve seen from Wolfeye’s new title, teased by the studio’s X account in August, indicates that it will be played from a first-person perspective and that weaponry will play a crucial role in combat, although Colantonio is keen to avoid labeling it as a straightforward first-person shooter.

Dishonored focused on stealth, whereas Weird West’s action was interspersed with slower-paced segments of exploration and dialogue with characters. The suggestion that this upcoming title will function more like a shooter implies a fresh approach for the team, and while Colantonio is eager to stress that this project carries RPG elements, he acknowledges that shifting to shooter-style combat opens up different gameplay possibilities.

“There’s something about real-time decision-making, in contrast to everything being dictated by stats, that makes us feel more engaged, more engrossed,” he states. “I’m surprised that the combination of RPG and first-person shooter hasn’t been more prevalent.”

“[Players] appreciate that they can manipulate the game through the systems by engaging in unconventional strategies that were not anticipated by the designers.”

He points to Bethesda’s Fallout games as a prime example of how merging the two genres can succeed, where players can navigate the world fluidly in the first-person mode, yet the optional VATS system – which pauses gameplay and allows them to organize attacks based on damage probabilities – adds an extra layer of depth.

While Fallout, Dishonored, and Prey have all been mentioned in relation to this new project, Colantonio emphasizes that they