Speaking to us at Gamescom 2011, Co-Creative Director at Arkane Studios and Lead Designer on Dishonored, Harvey Smith - also known as the co-creator of Deus Ex - listed some of the influences he and fellow Co-Creative Director Raphael Colantonio took into consideration in the making of their forthcoming stealth FPS.

"We're both huge fans of BioShock, we're both excited for the upcoming Deus Ex, we both love Skyrim; the Elder Scrolls games, we love the Fallout games," Smith told us. "We go back way far. We've been making games for eighteen years, both of us, and we both love Thief and we both love System Shock 1&2."

Those are some really great games, but what other titles did Smith and Colantonio draw inspiration from? "STALKER is a great example and we love Far Cry 2," Smith continued. "There are games that are close to our values, like Mirror's Edge that have all these features that we love, so I would say that all of those games that we've just named, if you take those... and you know, the work that Raf has done on Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah - and I'm best known for working on Deus Ex - if you take the values of all those games, you'll find Dishonored is somewhere in there."

We were suitably impressed with our first look at Arkane's Dishonored at Gamescom too, loving the look of the stealthy gameplay with combinations of spells and supernatural abilities, as well as the olde London-inspired backdrop of Dunwall. Check out our recent preview for the full skinny, then keep your eyes peeled for the full video interview with Smith and Colantonio in the next few days.

Dishonored is out in 2012.