At Eurogamer 2012, I went hands-on Bethesda’s upcoming dark revenge title Dishonored. The game is a welcome throwback to the glory days of Deus Ex and Thief, mixing aspects from the stealth, FPS and survival horror genres in this steam punk dystopia.

As I queued up to play the game I was informed by one of the booth attendants that all the abilities were unlocked and available from the start of the demo, although I was assured that this couldn’t be achievable on a normal play through of the game.

The mission was quite far into the game, I was tasked with infiltrating the house of character called Sokolov and abducting him. The mission started in an alley with three guards patrolling the area around Sokolov’s house and guarding a couple of prisoners behind and electric field jail. I quickly negotiated my way past the first two guards by going around through a derelict building, I then possessed the remaining guard and walked towards Sokolov’s house, this is when I found out that death comes fast and is unforgiving in Dishonored. As the guard “repossessed” his body two new guards stationed outside the house spotted me and killed me almost instantly.

After I got the hang of most of the abilities I spent about 19 minutes of the 20 I was allocated exploring the surrounding area to see how my ways I could infiltrate Sokolov’s house. From the little I’ve seen there’s a lot going on in Dishonored. The environments are dark and moody, the world seems well put together and the gameplay is in-depth and a welcome breath of fresh air from the usual annual shooter updates.

While the hands-on experience of Dishonored was short and sweet, it left me wanting more. If you’re in the mood for possessing fish and hanging around with a rat pack, then look no further then Dishonored, scheduled for release on the 12^th October in the UK.