The first Dishonored title was captivating with its visual style and multi route level designs. Playing as the masked assassin Corvo with his shadow powers was thrilling which ever way you played, either going full on sword swinging for a high chaos run or using stealth to achieve a low chaos ending. Dishonored had a rich story and gameplay that gave players a real choice in how they played and in the preview event for Dishonored 2 I experienced even more of the positives from the first game. It was finally time to get to grips with the full game, and it had a few surprises in store for me.
Dishonored 2 picks up the story fifteen years following the ending to the first game, with Emily Kaldwin now the Empress of Dunwall and Corvo serving as both her protector and advisor. Secretly Corvo has been training Emily in order to protect her from would be assassins and at night Emily goes exploring the rooftops of Dunwall to escape her royal responsibilities. Troubled times however overshadow Emily’s reign as a serial killer is busy at work, taking out anyone who has spoken out against the Empress leading to suspicion falling on Corvo and Emily as the nature of the killings and victims all look as though the Empress is wiping out her enemies. On the night of the annual remembrance of the former Empress Jessamine Kaldwin’s assassination, a surprise visit from Duke Luca Abele of Serkonos changes Emily’s life forever as he reveals a stranger with similar Void powers to Corvo who claims she is Delilah, the half sister of Jessamine and the true Empress of Dunwall by succession. Leaping to Emily’s defence, Corvo attacks the Duke’s men only to be stopped by Delilah who steals his powers.
Now the player finds the first clever twist to the game as the player can now choose who to play as during the game either Corvo once again or Emily. Whomever the player chooses will result in the other being turned to stone by Delilah and their choice of character will get the opportunity to escape Dunwall. From here begins a journey to unravel the conspiracy to take the fight back to Delilah, seemingly far stronger in Void power than Corvo was. Each mission will take on the objective of finding information to uncover more of the plot as well as taking out a target to try and weaken Delilah’s hold on Dunwall.
One of the most impressive things about the original game that has completely been enhanced for this sequel is the level design, the scale of which has grown more than I had expected. Just as before, the levels have a multiple route design allowing the player to find different ways to navigate their way around to complete the objectives. Each path option compliments a different style in whichever way the player chooses to tackle the mission. If you prefer to go guns to the wall then the level will place enough challenging enemies in your way to deliver a crazy battlefest for the player to fight through. If stealth is more your jam then the game offers even more ingenious ways to move around the area and buildings to reach your target. The level will tease routes to take just by taking the time to look around which is something I really admired about the design. Looking to see where enemy guards are patrolling in order to then look to find away to move passed them by either going around or under is a feature from the first game that returns.
For Dishonored 2 and being on current gen consoles, the level designs now include a new factor, verticality. Height is now an option to moving around with rooftops and walkways providing an extra dimension to levels which allow for players to craft how they use their powers to navigate around giving a real sense of freedom and player choice to the levels which is refreshing. This player choice also becomes an element into how the objectives are handled by the player. Levels will have a basic objective and target which normally requires getting into somewhere and dealing with the target. Where Dishonored 2 takes it to a new level is how exploring the mission and finding information about the target will allow the player to discover a different way of dealing with the target in a non lethal way for players doing a low chaos run. These options often require taking some time to set up the non lethal method by accomplishing the steps needed to execute it successfully.
Buildings also share the intricacy of design and in them is almost a whole new area in which to explore and navigate around. The most impressive of which is the Clockwork Mansion, the level I was fortunate enough to experience in the preview. This level is just exceptional in terms of design as switches activate transformations which literally will move rooms and change pathways throughout the mansion. Each main objective area is different requiring different tactics in order to tackle it and again will change depending on which character is chosen for the story. Corvo has his void abilities from the first game and in a very clever twist Emily has similar but very different Void powers to Corvo. If you have played The Darkness games then Emily’s powers will feel familiar. Emily’s Void powers are incredibly fun, from Shadow Walk allowing Emily to become a shadow creature to move stealthily to Domino, which links enemies together so the consequence of taking out one will effect each link in the chain. The Void powers give so much fun and range to the gameplay for either Corvo or Emily but the game will also allow you to go into the story without powers should you choose to refuse the Outsider’s gift.
Where Dishonored 2 immediately falls down for me came as a surprise, its visuals on Xbox One. The preview build I had played was on a high end gaming PC, and up to the point at which I was able to play the game myself, had watched friends streaming on PlayStation 4. When it came to playing it on Xbox One, I was surprised to see a dull greyness to the visuals which included a blurriness that was obvious. It just made the whole thing look like a very low level PC port instead of a bright and vibrant sharpness which the game has on PC and PS4. It proved an unwelcome distraction throughout playing and really took away from the experience for no real reason for it when you look at the remastered version of the first game on Xbox One which looks far superior to this one.
The combat has also been tweaked for this sequel which for me both improves it in some ways but also takes away from it by adding new frustrations to the flow of combat. In the original game, if you entered into combat you only had two ways of ending it, by either escaping or killing your target. Now if you were going for a low chaos run with as little to no killing at all, the combat spoiled it by only allowing you to kill the target if you couldn’t escape. Now you have the option to counter and knock out a target which protects the non lethal approach. Enemies are also more advanced in fighting, they can feint attacks to try and make you counter by mistake leaving you open to an attack and they can also shift position whilst attacking so whilst you think you are blocking an attack from the front they will and can hit you from the side. This gives the combat a really clumsy feel when tackling multiple enemies which will happen pretty much every time you are spotted and fail to escape. Being spotted will cause the guards to raise an alert which summons all guards in the area to that location. It is a punishment for being caught but at times it can really spoil the flow of the action leaving a sour taste during gameplay.
Overall whilst I enjoyed the story and exploring the levels and finding alternative ways of achieving the objectives, the visual downgrade for the Xbox One Version and the sluggish combat took away from my enjoyment. But as a sequel it adds on what the first game brought and has more than enough challenges to other multiple playthroughs especially with the option to play as two different characters. It is just a shame that the Xbox One version feels the weakest in terms of visual quality which so far Bethesda have acknowledged in their forums but have offered no solution in terms of an update to correct it.
Worth the wait but not the best experience of Dishonored 2 that I expected to have, but it is still enjoyable enough to continue the series on for fans.
