Big questions of quantum physics underpin the world of Dishonoured 2

THE highly anticipated release of the Dishonoured sequel has imagined a pretty amazing world for gamers.

WHAT does scaling across the tops of rooftops to battle a saloon full of pistol-totting henchmen or sword fighting with alien robots have to do with mysteries of quantum physics? Apparently more than you might think.

At least in the context of the world featured in the soon-to-be-released Dishonoured 2.

The first player game the newest stealth action-adventure video game developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The much anticipated game is the sequel to the highly acclaimed first Dishonoured released in 2012.

It’s not due to be released in Australia until November 11, but one person lucky enough to get his hands on it and explore the gameplay is quantum physicist and head of Sydney University’s Quantum Nanoscience Laboratory, Professor David Reilly.

So we decided to ask what he thought given his unique perspective.

“As a quantum physicist playing the game, I found it to be pretty impressive,” he told news.com.au.

“It’s as if the creators of the game were inspired perhaps by some of the open questions in the field of quantum science at the moment.”

While the hero from the much-loved original, Corvo Attano, returns and is playable, the protagonist of the new game is a badass assassin named Emily Kaldwin.

The game allows players to teleport and transport between worlds and even dimension in time, all in a quest to avenge honour, exact revenge, and to generally wreak havoc. And in the process the game has employed some of quantum physics most unique theories to produce a narrative that is dripping with some of science’s most bold ideas.

For instance, “you see powers given to the characters that are reminiscent of quantum entanglement or quantum teleportation, or even the ability to warp time and peel back the layers of time to illuminate things of the past,” Prof Reilly said.

Transport between worlds and peel back the dimensions of time in Dishonoured 2.

Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs or groups of particles have an unbreakable bond and thus interact in such a way that they cannot be described independently of each other.

A common imagining is the ability to prick a doll and have your enemy feel the same sensation of pain — and it’s an idea used in the game.

“But it’s a lot more than that. It’s a connection between objects even though they’re separated by enormous distances. They could be separated by such a distance that even light cannot travel between them fast enough and yet there is some kind of affect on those entangled particles,” Prof Reilly said.

“We know that to be real, But as yet we don’t know how to turn it into a technology. We don’t know yet how to use it to give ourselves powers beyond what we have today.”

Of course the beauty of gaming allows us to take such concepts and imagine their limits and possibilities.

“What you seen in the game is it sort of imagines that we have perfected our technology to include some of those aspects like entanglement and we’re starting to exploit them or harness them for various purposes,” Prof Reilly said.

It remains to be seen if that day ever comes. But until then you can always play Dishonoured 2.

Dishonoured 2 is out on November 11.

Originally published as Big questions of quantum physics underpin the world of Dishonoured 2