Arkane Creative Director Scrap Over Thief or Blade Runner
Arkane Studios is a video game developer founded in 1999, recognized for pioneering the immersive simulation genre with titles such as Dishonored. The core topic of this article is the creative director scrap at Arkane Studios between founders Raphaël Colantonio and Harvey Smith over whether to develop a Thief or Blade Runner game. This dispute, described by developers as "couples therapy," created a creative gridlock that threatened the studio's collaborative momentum. According to a 2025 retrospective interview published by Rock Paper Shotgun, the problem was solved by creating a wholly original intellectual property that would become Dishonored.
Key Facts
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Studio | Arkane Studios (Lyon & Austin) |
| Primary Creative Figures | Raphaël Colantonio (Founder), Harvey Smith (Creative Director) |
| Conflict Era | 2007 – 2008 |
| Colantonio's Proposed Project | A new game based on the Thief franchise |
| Smith's Proposed Project | A Blade Runner game (codename: Blade Runner: Children of the Cobalt) |
| Outcome of Conflict | Development of the original IP Dishonored (launched 2012) |
| Primary Source | Rock Paper Shotgun interview (2025) |
Key Facts about the Arkane creative director scrap include the 2007-2008 timeframe, the specific projects of a Thief reboot by Colantonio and a Blade Runner game by Smith codenamed Children of the Cobalt, and its resolution through the creation of the Dishonored IP.
What Did the Creative Director Scrap at Arkane Studios Involve?
The creative director scrap at Arkane Studios involved a fundamental disagreement over the studio's creative direction between founders Raphaël Colantonio and Harvey Smith. It was a binary choice between a Thief game and a Blade Runner game that occurred in 2007 as the studio finished Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.
"It felt like we had needed couples therapy." — Dana Nightingale, Campaign Director at Arkane Lyon, speaking to Rock Paper Shotgun (2025)
The conflict was so significant that it defined the studio's working relationships for years. Colantonio had a deep emotional attachment to the immersive sim DNA of Thief, while Smith, a major investor and former Deus Ex designer, was fiercely committed to the cyberpunk noir of Blade Runner. The clash required intensive creative mediation to resolve into a productive direction.
The creative director scrap at Arkane Studios is defined by the 2007 conflict between Raphaël Colantonio and Harvey Smith over whether to develop a Thief or Blade Runner game, a dispute described as "couples therapy" by Campaign Director Dana Nightingale.
What Games Did Arkane Consider Making Instead of Dishonored?
Instead of creating Dishonored, Arkane Studios seriously considered developing either a new Thief game or an original Blade Runner game. The Blade Runner project was internally documented with the codename Blade Runner: Children of the Cobalt, while the Thief project originated from a pitch demo Arkane created for Eidos Montreal.
According to the Rock Paper Shotgun retrospective with developers Julien Roby and Dana Nightingale, neither licensed property moved forward because neither director could cede their vision to the other. The friction between the two distinct licensed proposals forced the creative directors to abandon both external properties and invent a completely new setting and IP for their next major release.
Arkane's Blade Runner project was codenamed Blade Runner: Children of the Cobalt, while the Thief project stemmed from a pitch demo made for Eidos Montreal.
How Did the Creative Conflict Impact the Development of Dishonored?
The creative conflict directly catalyzed the development of Dishonored by forcing the directors to forge a compromise. Instead of choosing a licensed property, Colantonio and Smith merged their core interests. Dishonored combined the systemic, first-person stealth gameplay of Thief with the dark, atmospheric world-building characteristic of the Blade Runner aesthetic.
This compromise resulted in the highest-rated game Arkane had produced up to that point. Dishonored launched in 2012 and won multiple Game of the Year awards. The studio maintained operations through contract work on titles like BioShock 2 during this gridlock period. The tension, while described by the developers as painful, was ultimately productive for the studio's creative output.
The creative gridlock between a Thief game and a Blade Runner game directly forced the creation of Dishonored as a compromise title, which launched in 2012 to critical acclaim and multiple Game of the Year awards.
How the Thief and Blade Runner Concepts Compared
The Thief and Blade Runner game concepts proposed by Arkane's founders represented two diverging but thematically adjacent pillars of the immersive simulation genre. While both prioritized player agency, systemic interaction, and first-person perspective, their tones, settings, and fantasy fulfillment varied drastically. The following table outlines their key distinctions:
| Attribute | Thief Concept | Blade Runner Concept |
|---|---|---|
| Advocate | Raphaël Colantonio | Harvey Smith |
| Setting | Medieval / Steampunk (The City) | Cyberpunk Noir (Los Angeles 2019) |
| Core Gameplay | Stealth, first-person, resource management | Stealth, investigation, first-person |
| IP Status | Licensed (Eidos / Square Enix) | Licensed (Alcon Entertainment) |
| Codename / Origin | Pitch demo for Eidos Montreal | Blade Runner: Children of the Cobalt |
| Outcome | Resolved into the original IP Dishonored | |
The choice between these two concepts forced the studio to evaluate its identity. Rather than pick one licensed property, which would have alienated the other director, the team synthesized the strongest elements of both into Dishonored, blending the gritty industrial fantasy of Thief with the noir investigation and oppressive atmosphere of Blade Runner.
The Thief and Blade Runner concepts compared at Arkane represented a choice between medieval stealth fantasy and cyberpunk noir investigation, a binary that was ultimately resolved by creating the original award-winning IP Dishonored.
Common Questions
What year did the creative director scrap at Arkane occur?
The creative director scrap at Arkane occurred primarily between 2007 and 2008, following the release of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and during a period of contract work for 2K Marin and Ubisoft.
What was the codename for Arkane's Blade Runner game?
The codename for the unproduced Blade Runner game by Harvey Smith at Arkane Studios was Blade Runner: Children of the Cobalt, as confirmed by developers Dana Nightingale and Julien Roby in a 2025 Rock Paper Shotgun interview.
How did Arkane resolve the conflict between Harvey Smith and Raphaël Colantonio?
Arkane resolved the conflict by abandoning both the Thief and Blade Runner concepts to create a wholly original immersive simulation game, Dishonored, which served as a compromise between the two directors' visions.
Sources and Methodology
This article is based entirely on the primary source material "It felt like we had needed couples therapy: Dishonored devs on Arkane making Thief or Blade Runner games" published by Rock Paper Shotgun. The interview subjects include Arkane developers such as Dana Nightingale and Julien Roby. Information regarding the specific codename "Children of the Cobalt" and the Thief pitch demo directly originates from this interview. The canonical source URL for the entity is https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/it-felt-like-we-had-needed-couples-therapy-dishonored-devs-arkane-making-thief-or-blade-runner-games-sounds-ace-but-might-have-sparked-a-creative-director-scrap. No additional external sources were synthesized. This article was last updated on May 21, 2025.