I really should know better than to lose my gourd over a game before it even has a gameplay trailer, but the first peeks we've gotten of Arkane's Blade adaptation already have me excited. In addition to the brief teaser at The Game Awards, Arkane Lyon art director Sebastien Mitton recently shared three pieces of concept art for the upcoming action game.
This first image shows the Daywalker looking over an open Parisian plaza, and it gives me strong Dishonored vibes. You've got that distinctive 19th century European architecture contrasting with harsh industrial tech—it's practically screaming artist Viktor Antonov's iconic designs for Half-Life 2 and Dishonored.
The perspective also gives me hope that Arkane's open-ended, vertical level design will find a home in this change of genre (or at least perspective, from first person to third). Given the setting, I also can't help but think of Arkane's canceled pre-Dishonored project, The Crossing, an experimental shooter that was also set in Paris.
The sign in the distance roughly translates to "breaking curfew is prohibited," which lines up with the teaser showing us Paris shutting down at nightfall. You get this picture of Paris combatting a full-blown vampire insurgency, with Blade brought in to deal with it. I'm also wondering if this curfew might tie into a day-night cycle of some kind, with more non violent activities in the daytime.
The next piece shows Blade getting swarmed by a cloud of bats while listless vampires look on from a nearby subway car. This one doesn't quite have as many details to pluck out, but come on, if you're making a neo-noir vampire fantasy, you're probably going to have a subway/sewer level or three.
The last bit of concept art is the one that most intrigues me: it shows Blade sneaking up on a (presumably vampire owned and operated) nightclub, with a gaggle of weirdos in baroque outfits lined up at the entrance and bathed in violet light.
First off, I'm taking this as a strong indication that Blade will still have Arkane's trademark stealthing, maybe in a similar ratio to its previous actiony immersive sim, Deathloop. Second, this is just giving off such a strong Y2K, nightclub with the blood sprinklers energy that I really crave from modern day vampire stuff. It's part of what I loved so much about Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, and I really can't wait to see these ideas in action.
We don't have anything close to a release date for Arkane's Blade, but I think this will be one to watch going forward. For now, it joins Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree as a game I'm unreasonably excited about off concept art and developer reputation alone.
