The supernatural action-stealth adventure game returns.
What Is It? The original Dishonored is a first person action stealth game with supernatural powers rounding out the mechanics. The game weaved an intricate tail of betrayal, revenge, and the like, wrapping itself in a wonderfully unique visual style. Fans of the first can rejoice, Dishonored 2 follows all of those same basic beats.
The game starts with the protagonist from the first, Corvo, at the side of his now queen daughter Emily. After a quick bit of betrayal, the player gets to choose if they want to play this game as Emily or Corvo. The characters have differences in their stories, abilities, and so on but the overarching story and gameplay objectives remain the same. For the record, I played as Emily for my playthrough.
A first person stealth game, Dishonored 2 is built around fluid movement. Running, sliding, climbing, ducking, warping, and everything else all feels very strong for a first-person game. The combat isn’t quite up to typical first person shooter standards, but it absolutely gets the job done.
You will quickly become armed with a sword, pistol, crossbow, and your supernatural abilities. Being a stealth game, you can choose to make your way through the game as quietly as you’d like. Emily has a handful of unlockable powers which center around distraction and crowd control. A personal favorite of mine was the ability which linked human enemies together so that when I knocked one of them out, or killed them, the other(s) would suffer the same fate. She also has abilities centered around drawing attention away from her, hiding, or distracting enemies. Powers are unlocked using runes, which are hidden throughout each level. Depending on how you play, you can unlock a lot of different powers for your character, or very few. It is worth noting that the only power you absolutely need, a warp ability, is given automatically.
The physical weapons all feel good. Sword attacks can be parried to open up enemies for a quick kill or to knock them out if you want the less violent choice. There are a wide variety of crossbow darts ranging from incendiary to sleep. Weapons can be upgraded by finding or purchasing blueprints.
All of the above adds up to a lot of customization. If you want to go through the game and totally ignore runes, you can wrap the game with a limited set of powers, but still have a great time. If you want to use the rune finding device to seek out everything, that is an option as well.
The unique art style, specifically around the human models, will stand out immediately. It lands on some strange line between realism and cartoon. I don’t quite have the words to describe it, but I instantly recognize a Dishonored face model when I see one. The landscapes are extremely important as they have to allow for a wide range of playstyles. So many times in this game I would turn down a random corner to hide only to find a door which led to stairs which allowed me to find a back alley and sneak around the side to my objective. It’s impossible not to wonder how different a given level would look if I didn’t find that one doorway.
A single playthrough can be finished in under 10 hours, but that can fluctuate wildly depending on how much exploration, not to mention trial-and-error, the player elects to perform.
The Best Part: The sheer range of potential paths in this game. The game is played across nine missions, each with a few objectives along the way. Many of these objectives have different potential outcomes depending on your choices. One particular late game mission, for example, requires you to assassinate a duke. However, you will learn that he has a body double that may be influenced into helping. When you approach the Duke, you have to decide if you want to kill him or speak to him and hope he’s the double.
The Worst Part: There are a lot of enemies in this game. In stealth games large swaths of enemies typically present a fun challenge for how to sneak by, but there were a few different times in Dishonored 2 where this crossed the line into something I simply wasn’t able to crack. I would inevitably end up blasting my way out, which was certainly fun enough, but that broke my immersion a bit. Perhaps I just didn’t see the alternative path in these cases, I certainly wouldn’t put it past me, but I don’t remember having this issue in the first game.
The Verdict: Dishonored 2 is a wonderful sequel. It takes what made the first great, adds to it in meaningful ways both on the gameplay and story fronts. It is a game you can fly through under 10 hours and never touch again, or you could play through with each of the two characters and try for high/low chaos runs, different power load-outs, and choosing different objective solutions. If you are into it, there is easily over 50 hours worth of content here, which is amazing for this type of game.
I’m a big fan of Dishonored 2, I definitely want to play through it again as Corvo to get the rest of the experience. It stands up to the giants of the 3D action stealth genre such as Metal Gear Solids and Hitmans.
How to Play: PlayStation 4*, Xbox One, PC
*console played on for this review
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