Arkane to present something at Bethesda’s E3 event, audio suggests

An accidental (or maybe “accidental,” you never know) open mic on Bethesda’s Twitch test run for E3 has confirmed that Arkane will be presenting something at the event.

The mic blooper features the voice of Arkane’s Raphael Colantonio, and makes reference to Harvey [Smith, also a co-creative director at Arkane]. Another voice (possibly Bethesda’s Todd Howard, though I’m not sure) is apparently co-ordinating an E3 skit where Colantonio opens the presentation in French and Smith interrupts him. The problem being, Colantonio’s intro isn’t quite long enough for the interruption gag to seem natural.

That’s interesting from a ‘behind the scenes of E3’ type way, but the notable part is Arkane having such a hefty presence at Bethesda’s event in the first place.

Parent company ZeniMax has been taking down YouTube versions of the audio, but the one at Kotaku seems to still be up if you fancy hearing it.

That site (and others) have gone right ahead and decided this confirms Dishonored 2, which … it may, though that title is not mentioned at all in the clip itself.

An HD remaster (or similar) of Dishonored has been rumoured (and apparently rated in Brazil as Dishonored: Definitive Edition) for announcement at E3, so Arkane may just be showing up for that.

The Dishonored 2 assumption seems to be based on a couple of thoughts: (1) That Colantonio and Smith would only be there for something more important than a remaster, and (2) Hey, it’s about time Dishonored 2 was announced, right? And maybe this time it’s actually real – unlike the hoax Dishonored 2: Darkness of Tyvia mock-ups which did the rounds before previous trade events.

An outlying possibility is that Arkane are there to (re)announce Prey 2, a project they reportedly took over from Human Head and Bethesda then apparently canned in 2014. Hell, maybe it’s a brand new game entirely.

Or, again, it could simply be Dishonored for PS4 and Xbox One. All the audio confirms for sure is that Arkane will be presenting something. Bethesda’s E3 show will be shown at 7pm Pacific on 14 June, so there’s not a whole lot of time to wait in order to find out.