*Minor Spoilers*

The original Dishonored caught me a little by surprise back in 2012. I had heard good things in the build up to its release, and I liked the art style, which was very similar to that of the original Bioshock; it was realistic yet still had a hint of cartoon surrealism. I had heard that it was inspired by Thief; the first person stealth game with supernatural elements set in a Steampunk universe. It turned out that Dishonored was just that!
Thankfully I think fans of the Thief series got a kick out of Dishonored, as it was a homage to it with its own twists and differences along the way. It suppressed their appetite for a new Thief game until 2014 when a terrible reboot/sequel hybrid was created, and when it did, people thought to themselves that it was just a poor man’s Dishonored. A classic case of the apprentice becoming the master. After that the Thief series was shelved until game producers decide to search the archives looking for what other abominations they can bring back to from the dead.

The original Dishonored game (damn you with your American spelling! Dishonoured has a U in it!) was fun. The story of revenge and redemption for a crime the silent protagonist didn’t commit, is a classic story we have all read, watched and played before, but Dishonored’s immersive world (with a rich and deep lore that you could tell the developers spent a lot of time on), and unique abilities that fit to your play style, complete with a cast of recognisable actors and actresses (Chloë Grace Moretz, Lena Headey, Michael Madsen and Susan Sarandon to name a few) made the game stand out from the rest. By the time the game was over, I was pleasantly surprised. More so by the fact that a good percentage of gamers that I know have not even played it! Which I found very disappointing.

The game suffered with a few issues here and there. It felt the developers couldn’t decide whether to make it an open world game or a linear one; as some levels really do feel big, even though there isn’t much to be found within them other than a few collectables.
The fact that you could complete the entire game without killing someone was a nice touch, regardless of if it was near impossible to do so, but if you worked hard at it, then the game rewarded you for doing so.

With how good the original game was, a sequel was all but assured. Fast forward to 2016 and one eventually graced our presence. I didn’t actually get around to playing this until April 2017. It was not that I didn’t want to play it (as it was always niggling at the back of my mind, reminding me that I still had this game to play at some point), it was just not a day one release for me. Perhaps I just had someone else I was playing in November 2016 (to be honest I think it was the remaster of Skyrim. I was playing that to death and really enjoying it that I couldn’t bare the thought of playing anything else. Moving onto another FPS right away never sits well with me).

When I finally did pick up Dishonored 2, I soon realised that it was exactly the same as the previous one in basically every aspect. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Some games have done this in the past and have been slated for it, often causing the end of the that franchise, where as others, this one included, reminded me how good the original game really was. Everything that was in the first game, good or bad, has transferred over to the sequel. Other than the graphics update on the environments (character’s still had the same cartoon feel as they did before), nothing else had changed much. The levels, while now bigger and offer a lot of different ways to approach the same result, still had a lot of what felt like empty space. To be fair on them the developers did try and fill up this space a bit more, which I will go into a little later.

So the first game the silent protagonist; Corvo, is framed for the murder of the Empress of the Kingdom of Dunwall. He must find the assassin who killed her and avenger her, whilst keeping the Empress’ daughter Emily safe, work along side the resistance group who are trying to overthrow the current ruling parties now that the Empress is dead, and clear his own name. He is also contacted by some otherworldly entity; the Outsider, who marks him and gives him the chance to unlock abilities (I say the chance as you can choose not unlock these abilities and play the game that way make it an entirely different game, as the abilities help you massively).
(Spoilers for the first Dishonored) It turns out that Emily is Corvo’s daughter, which is more of a factor in the second game, but I will keep that quiet for now, so if you have read this sentence then just keep that in mind whenever something story related is being mentioned.

Now we find ourselves a good fifteen years after the events of the first game. Emily is now Empress and Corvo is her Royal Protector (some kind of a high ranking guard I assume?). There is a killer on the loose who is targeting Emily’s enemies, making the people think she has something to do with it. Suddenly a new visitor from a far off Kingdom arrives; Delilah. Now I had no idea who she was and assumed she was just new for this game, but it turned out that in the DLC of the original game, Delilah is a very important character and plays a key role in the entire story. I never played this DLC and so I did feel a little punished for no having done so. I like it when games use elements of DLCs in sequels to help build the lore of the world, but using an entire key storyline and assuming that we have all played it does not feel like the best way to win people on your side.
Anyway, Delilah is accompanied by Duke Luca Abele, played by Wilson Fisk himself; Vincent D’Onofrio, in fact Vincent was doing exactly the same voice as he does for Wilson Fisk in Daredevil. I will mention now that like the original, Dishonored 2 has another all star cast. I won’t go into all the characters and the people who voice them, so I will just mention a few of them now. Rosario Dawson – again from Daredevil, Narco’s Pedro Pascal, Sam Rockwell – who is in the game for about twenty minutes, and Gotham’s Robin Lord Taylor reprising his role as the Outsider. Strangely Chloë Grace Moretz did not reprise her role for Emily, which is even more annoying due to the fact that Emily is now one of the main characters. Perhaps they could not afford her. Michael Madsen reprised his role in an audio log, which I thought was a nice touch.

At this stage I would like to point out that Corvo now talks, so in the original game he was just being rude to people when he didn’t answer them.

So anyway, the Duke and Delilah execute their plan to usurp (love that word) the throne of Dunwall. It is after a brief prologue scene, where you play as Emily, where you must now choose which character you wish to play as; Corvo or Emily, while the other becomes the very reason of why you want to complete the game.
Both characters play exactly the same other than their other worldly abilities. While a few of them are similar (see: Emily’s: Far-Reach and Corvos’s: Blink – both used to get you to a higher location or to teleport a short distance in front of you), the rest of the abilities are completely different from one another.
It is stated that Corvo’s abilities are designed more for action, whereas Emily’s are more stealth based, but I noticed Corvo has pretty much exactly the same abilities as he did in the first game, and I played more or less the entire game stealthy. So in my eyes this was not a factor. However, because Corvo’s abilities are the same as he had in the previous game, I decided to play as Emily.

The game is probably best played twice; once as each character, perhaps doing a run through stealthy and doing another aggressive, but I didn’t have the time as I wanted to get onto something else once I had finished, so maybe I will do a Corvo run through another time. A good reviewer would have done both, and if I got paid to do this, then I would have, but I have a day job to do and a baby to look after, my Xbox time is limited.

So in my story, Emily, now on the run herself, travels to the other kingdom to find the secrets behind Delilah’s past and save Corvo and Dunwall. The story I was pretty invested in. While feeling similar to the original game, it did a good job of sucking me in and making me care about what happens.

Each level has a similar setup. You are given a largish map and a target (either a location to get to or a person to kill/not kill). The level has various collectables; bone charms which give you added bonuses when equipped, Runes – which are effectively skill points you use to upgrade your abilities, as well as side side missions to complete to unlock more of the above / keys and other door unlocks / ammo or other weapon items / blueprints for upgrading weapons / information on the target (usually on how to defeat them non-lethally) / events that will work towards defeating the target non-lethally.
Now defeating the target of the level without killing them is a large chunk of the game in my eyes. I would have gotten through the game so much more quickly if I had decided not to try and take out each one of them the other way. It would have been too easy for me to run or teleport up to the guy sitting behind a desk and stab him in the neck. But that is what I do to normal guards patrolling the halls and streets, so I wanted to do something more to them. Especially since they were the people that Emily wanted to extract revenge upon in the story, so they deserved a little something extra.

One such example, I could have attacked this infected doctor with a drop down stealth attack from the catwalk above, but instead I decided to pursue the side mission to obtain a cure for her, and in which doing so lead me to finding more secret items and audio-logs. As well as having that character hanging around in the game’s central hub, which you would return to to learn your next mission (a feature I thought was also irrelevant in the original game).
I felt as if the game wanted me to take down these targets like this and just threw in the opportunity to kill them, purely because they wanted another option open to players. Which is good in theory, but I find whenever there is an option to kill someone, or an option to do something else which will clearly lead to that character being in later scenes (leading to more information, character development, side-missions, etc), then nine times out of ten I will always pick that option. The killing option just cuts the storyline dead (funny that) and does not go any further. There is just not enough of a reward for outright killing them.

I started the game completely stealth and not killing anyone. Similar to the original game, the world evolves around you if you kill too many people. In the first game there were a zombie like enemy that would be more common if you killed too many people (to show that the plague was spreading), where as in this game you have bloat flies which lay nests in empty rooms or in hard to reach places (normally where secrets, hidden passages, and collectables hide). The flies are said to be drawn by corpses, so killing too many people will attract more of these buggers and you find more nests on your journey. This is a really nice touch in my opinion. It does make you want to knock out enemies instead of killing them, but that means you will need to  be behind them without them noticing, or if you get lucky during combat, in order to subdue them (until you unlock the ability to use during combat).
Using Emily’s abilities really did come in handy for this. Her best power by far is one called “Domino”. This allows you to link enemies together telepathically so that when you kill or knock out one, the rest will fall (ah… Domino, I get it). You can upgrade this to link more enemies together, and it was brilliant to take down a guard, only to have another notice me and then suddenly die when his buddy was killed. It is a really cool ability that I did get the most out of.
Other than Far Reach (used to teleport to higher places or in front of you) the bulk of Emily’s powers are combat/getting out of trouble based. “Mesmerize” is used to distract enemies, and “Doppelgänger” allows you to create a copy of yourself to run off and lure enemies away from your position. This can be killed, making the enemy think that they have defeated you and so they return to their post. The power can be upgraded to become more useful, but to be honest, other than Far Reach and Domino (Shadow Walk was a strange power that I never really used other than to get through small places), I mainly spent my skill points on my normal human upgrades. These include things such as more health and quiet running. These are what you would use if you played through the game not using any powers whatsoever (which is another way to play this game. Harder, but you are rewarded with achievements for doing so).

Anyway, so as I said, I originally started this game non-lethally, but by level three, this became boring. There was all these cool weapons and gadgets I couldn’t use, as well as awesome lethal take-down animations I wouldn’t see and fighting techniques that I couldn’t use. Nearly every enemy I would have to go up behind and knock-out, or shoot them with my sleep dart gun. It was dull. I originally wanted to get the achievement where I completed the game non-lethally and didn’t kill a single person, but that was for another play through. It is clear to me now.
On level three I went for it. I slit throats and cut of limbs. I saw Dishonored 2 in all its gory combat glory. Blood splattered against walls and heads literally rolled. It was great fun.
I am sure you have seen on videos on YouTube of people doing amazing Dishonored runs, taking down enemies left, right and centre. If you haven’t then you really should, as it shows the great potential a person can achieve if they really took the time and mastered the game. The Dishonored franchise is good like that, you can play as much or as little as you like. You could smash through the story of the game in about five or six hours if you just went for it and ploughed through, but much like I felt after the first two levels, you would be missing so much of the content. Dishonored and it’s sequel has so much to offer, and you can rest assure that I will be returning to it once the quiet period of summer appears.

It is a great thing to see; a linear game with so much re-playability. It is level based so you can easily access them and you will return to that moment but with all of your equipment and upgrades.
Another nice re-play touch is the fact that you can start a new game plus, but play as the other character. All of your skill points are reset, allowing you to put them into the other character however you like.
For me that seems like a third play through option. I would like Corvo to have the same disadvantages that Emily had on my first play through. Sure I am more experienced, but that suits the character down to a T (although by spending them all on him would explain why Corvo doesn’t have to relearn the ability Blink again. Which on first time around he would do, despite mastering it in the first game. Maybe he lost his touch in the fifteen years since then).

The game does a good job of throwing new enemies at you. There are some more magic based ones who are quite scary to face against, so it is nice to teleport to the top of a chandelier and plan your actions from there. There are also the Clockworks, these are probably the most difficult enemies to face in the game, and fighting multiples of these is never a good idea. The Clockworks are the equivalent of the Stilt-men from the first game. Although not as tall, you were always cautious not to take them head-on. However, unlike the Stilt-men who had one major weakness and you would exploit at every opportunity, the Clockworks do not have this. You can get weapon upgrades and items which help you deal with them more efficiently, but they are always a threat, even in the later stages of the game when you are well experienced and better equipped.
The Clockworks themselves are large humanoid robots with strange English accents, which, when heard, instantly make you jump up high, or find a good hiding spot.

There are no real bosses in the game, other than the final one. You will never find yourself stuck on an enemy and having to resort to looking online for help. You may need to do that if you were trying to complete the game 100% and needed to gather all of the collectables, as some of these are in near impossible places to find. It was good as each level had a good amount of collectables and passageways that were like this, so it did feel rewarding when you did explore the map, however trying to do this without the Blink or Far-Reach abilities would have been near impossible (although I am sure the developers would have thought about this and created a key hidden on the map, further rewarding exploring).
Along with the above, the game also had a lot of puzzles to solve. There were codes to crack and places to reach in order to proceed, but you needed to take the time and learn the area, or find the solution/item you needed, before moving on. This was a good move as it broke up the rest of the game which is either hiding and moving stealthily around the map, or running around decapitating guards. I did really feel as if the level designers and the game developers took the time to get their game to the best quality that they could, and I don’t mean in terms of graphics, but in the environment itself, making the player want to explore and giving them multiple routes to the same path.

One last thing I will touch on is something that was in the game for the entirety of one level but was truly amazing. If you do not want to know then maybe just skip this section and jump to the final thoughts.
On level seven (I believe) you are exploring an old run-down mansion. It is overgrown with sections destroyed and collapsed. However, at one point in the level, you obtain a key item. It is similar to the heart item (which I have not gone into in this review), but instead it is a type of clock. If you press one button you bring up this awkward screen of crystals in front of you which allows you to see the exact location behind the crystals but in a different time period. If you pressed another button then you would teleport and find yourself in that period of time, and then the crystals would show you the original time-line.
It allowed you to get past debris as a doorway might have been blocked by a fallen wall in one time, but in the other it was clear but the hallways was swarming with guards, meaning that you needed to use the crystal screen to watch and wait for the perfect time to jump back in time. It was an incredibly idea in my eyes. More good uses of it; you travel back into the past and shoot some of the key supports for this balcony. You then travel to the future and the balcony has collapsed creating a pathway up to the floor above. It was a truly fantastic game mechanic. One the likes of which could have easily been an entire game all in itself. If you think about Portal for a moment. The game is based entirely around the portal gun and creating two doorways which connect together. A sequel was made which was a full length game, and they were both amazing and fantastic games.
Another great moment of it was when you got to the owner of the mansion. He existed only in the past, when the house was in its prime. The story is that he was murdered by the antagonists of the game, which lead to the events that unfolded. It was inevitable so no matter what you did, the game events would still unfold, however, they could unfold a little differently. When I finally got to the guy, I had three options; I could leave him alone and let everything unfold the way it did, leaving the mansion in the same destroyed state as it was in in the future, I could kill him, effectively resulting in the same fate, but I am sure the game developers had an option for why this would be different to the antagonists killing him and what effect it would have in the future, or I could knock him out and hide his body, in effect changing the events of the past, which would subsequently alter the future. I naturally chose this option. With that, when I teleported to the future, the house was still in its prime, but he was no longer in league with the enemy, so there were no guards walking around, only cleaners and maids. The house looked different as well, which was a great touch. There were rooms I could now access and overall I felt as if I had made the right decision with this (again the game really does cater to you if you only do it non-lethal).
This was a brilliant part of the game, but unfortunately as soon as the level ends, the clock is taken off of you and you never use it again, nor had you used it at any point in the game in the build up to that level. Which was a real shame. I mean at first I was annoyed at the developers for adding in a mechanic so late into the game, but at the same time I was pleased as to how awesome this mechanic was.
I can understand the developer’s choice for only including it into one level, as there were technically three different presents that there could have been for once location, plus the past one (effectively four maps for the same place, with half of them not even being used on one play through), and so the thought of having to do that for every single level, would increase the development time and costs.
But think of how amazing it would be. Imagine the portal gun in a normal FPS. Enemies firing at you so you shoot a portal below them and one somewhere else and send them flying. Or shoot one behind them and move through it to flank them. Think of the possible tactical advantages that would offer a game.
Well the same can be said for this. A game could be solely built around this time travel mechanic. Going to the same part of the level in multiple times and changing them to alter the future would make a fantastic game. It could be a puzzle based FPS, which multiple different enemies in each time. An instant and innovative hit in my eyes.
So needless to say I was very disappointed that this item/game mechanic only existed for one small section of the game, but it did open my eyes to the possibilities that it could have on a sequel or an entirely new IP.

So, overall I really enjoyed Dishonored 2. While being pretty much the same game as the original, there is enough here that does make it feel different. The time spent away from Dishonored did help me get into this one. If I had jumped into it straight away, then the similarities (especially playing as Corvo) would have made it feel a little repetitive, but I guess that is the same for all games that are similar to their predecessors. The new mechanics and abilities are great additions to the series and even help envision what the future might hold for this series.
Its a shame that the game does hold so much back for multiple playthroughs, because, as sad as it might sound, but the modern gamer nowadays plays one game and then moves onto the next. I am guilty of this and it is only a few games close to my heart that I go back to if I ever have quiet spells.
Of course this is great for re-playability. Dishonored 2 offers a lot in that aspect and I will be sure to get back on it when I get the chance and dive back into the world of Dunwall.

 

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