"BIG MARSH" truji

s.p.l.i.t

dishonored is almost 11 years old as I'm writing this, and while dh2 is newer they're both a bit aged in terms of fandom lifetimes. this is not a criticism, to be clear — age and quality are not causative, and many of my favorite things are older than i am. that said, it's odd to me that it still gets regular art, fics, posts about it, etc when the stuff for prey and deathloop seem to have dried up (save a few intrepid souls persisting, some of whom i am lucky enough to be personal friends with, whose work i adore, y'all know who you are). to me, prey in particular has just as much to chew on, just as much impact, and just as much of... all the things that make arkane games special as dishonored does, and yet there's a marked difference in how much presence each has in the present in discussion and creative works. for deathloop it's even starker, though i suspect the more linear, pared-down world and experience in that game plays a role.

again this is not a condemnation or complaint, i love dishonored and i am very glad there seems to be a steady stream of people discovering and falling in love with it, or returning to it, or having never left it. it's nice that it keeps space in the mind like that, and it holds a place in my heart and has since i visited its display at PAX 12 prior to release. however with that said, it leaves me wondering: why don't its younger siblings, and why is the disparity so apparent? what is it about dishonored (and its fanbase) that differs so greatly in impact? i'm aware there's some overlap - i love DH, Prey, and DL all at once myself - but it's a real headscratcher regardless.

I know it sounds like I'm messing with you but I'm not. I am reminded of this post, which basically posits that if a story is tightly written, there's not much room in the universe to add fanfictional stories. Every loose end is tied up, everything fits together, so trying to expand on any of it just... doesn't mesh well, unless you make it a complete AU (but again, if characters' dynamics are intrinsically connected with their environment and plot, then an AU won't really work well.)

@gallusrostromegalus sums it up pretty well in part of the post:

My personal theory is that if Media is REALLY good, there isn't really... space, if you will for fans to add or change perspectives on it. Too dense, too complete. Like how coral won't grow on plastic because it's too smooth

Whereas some half-baked hot garbage has got ALL KINDS of plot holes, incomplete characterization, warped timelines, missing worldbuilding and other Spaces for fans to colonize, like coral growing on a sunken battleship.

The reason something like Harry Potter had such a huge fandom is that it kept hinting at this massive world, but with zero consistency and almost no explanation, so fans had ample opportunities to fill in the gaps with their own ideas. Prey is so self-contained as a story, it's hard to imagine what else you could put in it. (The biggest open question in it is what the state of the world is in the present, but that has such little detail given to it - basically just a couple lines in the epilogue - that there's not enough for fans to work with.)

There's also the fact that the majority of Prey is about one person wandering around an abandoned location. While there are NPCs, they don't get a ton of screentime, and almost all of it is cutscenes.

Compare that to something like Dishonored: While it's a great series, I'm not afraid to say it's not as well written as Prey. But it is a more diverse, populated world - both environmentally and socially - full of memorable NPCs who constantly have impactful actions (and interactions! with each other!) outside of just cutscenes.