The new game from Dishonored and Prey director Raphael Colantonio probably won't be opting for ultra-realistic graphics, because stylization looks better in the long term and takes way less time. Speaking to GamesRadar+ after the reveal of his new project - a Fallout: New Vegas-inspired RPG/immersive sim hybrid - Raphael Colantonio, co-founder of Arkane Studios as well as more recent venture WolfEye Studios, said he wasn't daunted by making a game like this, despite a smaller team. "It's more than we had on Arx Fatalis," he says, referencing Arkane's 2002 release, which had a main team in the single figures.
Helping Colantonio and his team keep their workload in check, however, is that "when you commit to doing these things, you also commit to a certain level of execution. The higher the level of execution, the more expensive, the more time, the more daunting it is." That means that for its new game - a first-person immersive sim with RPG elements that's set in an alt version of the Old West - WolfEye is opting for a more stylized approach.
This kind of decision is one that's always made early in development, but Colantonio seems to have a pretty baked-in philosophy on this front: "Are you going for ultra-realism, which takes forever and ages really rapidly, or are you going for stylized, which gives you a little bit of a shortcut from a production standpoint and also ages gracefully?" Dishonored, Colantonio suggests, still looks pretty good. Its exaggerated, caricature-style.