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Could any power cooler than Blink in Dishonored? Initially positioned in one spot. Flash! Instantly you appear there. It felt like magic at the time, and in the 13 years since Dishonored introduced gamers to Blink’s capabilities, I’ve held firm in one thought: This thing should be in every game.

Superb Player Experience

Debuting for PlayStation 3, Windows PC, and Xbox 360, Dishonored was perhaps the game that put developer Arkane on the map. You embody a man named Corvo, wrongly accused of murdering an empress he was pledged to defend. From a first-person perspective, you traverse the city of Dunwall — modeled after industrial-era London — on a mission to eliminate your enemies and also possibly rescue the empress’ daughter. To achieve your aims, Dishonored gives you an creative covert arsenal, including supernatural abilities that allow you to peer past obstacles or momentarily possess others. But each of these powers are rooted in Blink.

Skills as Stories

Blink was revolutionary in its simplicity. Holding down the cast button for Blink causes you to generate a small aiming cursor. Releasing pressure on the cast button causes Corvo to teleport to wherever you’ve pointed. Just like that!

The opportunities opened up by Blink are restricted solely by your imagination. Platforms that previously look out of reach are instantly just a quick warp. Vaulting over rooftops goes from a daredevil feat to a basic maneuver. Blink can allow passage through courtyards packed with guards or give you a swift departure from a mansion full of rich elites who want nothing more than to kill you. Becoming skilled with Blink is like mastering board sports, then starting to see the architecture and structures of the world not as basic design but as a platform for innovation.

Blink is so fundamental to Dishonored’s toolkit that some record-seeking gamers got in the habit of contesting who could beat the game by using it as infrequently as achievable. Other players took the contrary method, using Blink for total mayhem, combining it with Dishonored’s distinct movement physics to create authentic Spartan Kicks.

Adaptability and Timeless Attraction

The absolute versatility of Blink has helped it distinguish itself as one of the coolest-ever abilities in games. Consider this brief scenario: Over a decade since the release of Dishonored, picture Blink in upcoming popular titles. It mostly fits! Blink is a ideal inclusion in immersive perspective titles where it would provide complexity to current sophisticated stealth components. Fast-paced titles already have comparable movement skills, so it’s a sensible inclusion there, too — let’s just go all the way! Players would perish much less frequently were Blink in combat titles. If characters could Blink in various games, then narrative conclusions might have been changed. Sure, it’d be totally redundant in carefully paced puzzle games, but have you also considered the opposite perspective: that zipping around environments would be incredible?

While the preceding is obviously exaggeration, that it’s so easy to picture Blink in a wide range of games is a proof of its lasting influence. I’m not saying Blink should be in every game, to be clear. I’m saying it could. Particular mechanics — sprinting, leaping, climbing — are so basic in video games as to be second-nature to players; you master jumping in Mario, you know how to jump in every game. We’ve learned how to Blink in Dishonored; now let’s teleport in other games.