Dishonored 2 (2016)

Like Hellblade, D2 is a game I started a long time ago but only managed to finish recently because of outside circumstances.

The game essentially follows the same tread as the first installment, with some minor differences in playstyle if you choose to play as Emily over Corvo. Like the first, the game stands to me as proof that you don't need hyper-realistic graphics in order for something to look gorgeous. Besides that, the gameplay itself is also a thrill, with a variety of powers to unlock and upgrade as you either steal your way or carve a bloody path through the map.

Thats the main loop. At the start of each mission you will be given a target, and planted at the first of three or so maps, which you must traverse and explore, getting all the while closer to your prey while deciding whether you wish to kill them and those who stand ready to defend them, or find an alternative solution.

To get a good ending, you need to do more stealth and non-lethal victories than kills (Low Chaos vs High Chaos).

I feel like in many stealth games, outright confrontation is both difficult and looked down upon via mechanics, and this is as true in this game as it was in the first, but gods is fighting ever so much more satisfying than sneaking! Not so much because the combat is some kind of complicated beast, but simply because it is very rewarding, with some very well done killing animations that make it extremely satisfying to start and end engagements, even if your powers also make it extremely easy to escape whenever things turn south.

The game also has plenty of interesting tidbits and lore to pick up in the form of collectibles, and generally rewards thorough exploration of every map you are in.

If we ever do get Dishonored 3 (and how would that work, I wonder, in the wake of everything that has happened so far in the story?) my hope is that Arkane wont feel like they have to aim for something hyper realistic in term of graphics and instead maybe focus on evolving the rest of the gameplay and making it so that fully-used powers don't trivialize the game.

Developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks, like them both!

I finished this late summer. Played the first game last year and enjoyed it. This game was more of the same but they’ve improved every bit of it. The story is good, equal to the first but the graphics, world design and gameplay make this sequel stand out.

The story takes place 15 years after the first game. After the opening sequence, you get a choice to play as Corvo or Emily. Last game you played as Corvo, so I choose to play as Emily.

This is also when you get introduced to Delilah, who takes power of the Empire in a coup. From here you escape Dunwall and heading for the city of Karnaca. Your goal is to uncover the truth of Delilah’s power and try to take back the empire.

Gameplay is the real highlight. Movement is smoother, abilities feel better, and the level design is great. Same as the first game you can take on the level through different ways and styles.

It’s a great stealth-action game and a fantastic sequel to the first one. I had a really good time with it. Same rating as the first game with 4/5 but I would rate it a bit higher though.

Rating: 🌲🌲🌲🌲

Played on Steam Deck

The second Dishonored entry is a stealth-action game that beautifully expands on the world of Dunwall. The game offers the choice to play as either the first game's MC, Corvo Attano or Emily Kaldwin, each with unique powers that open different approaches to missions. The level design is excellent, encouraging creativity in both stealth and combat, and the art direction is striking, with a rich, atmospheric Victorian-inspired setting, nothing new on this regard, very similar to the first title. The story is engaging, though sometimes secondary to the gameplay, and the game excels in giving you multiple ways to tackle objectives, whether through ghostly stealth, brutal force, or clever use of powers.

While it occasionally suffers from minor AI quirks and bugs, the overall experience is highly rewarding for players who enjoy freedom of choice and replayability, expanding upon the features and mechanics of the first title greatly. There are very few reasons not to play this one if you enjoyed the first entry, it is objectively a better game with more content and more story. And while I prefer the simpler approach of the first title, this one introduced better replay value since you have two characters to play this time.

On a mechanical level, it feels tighter and more ambitious, with standout missions that push the series’ design philosophy to its limits. Levels like the Clockwork Mansion and A Crack in the Slab are not only technical showcases but also clever experiments in spatial and temporal design, constantly encouraging you to rethink how they move through the world. The addition of more vertical, larger spaces, and optional non-lethal tools further deepens the sandbox mechanics, making experimentation both rewarding and intuitive.

Combined with strong sound design, excellent voice acting, and a moody OST that reinforces the oppressive atmosphere, this title stands as one of the strongest immersive sims of its generation. It respects your agency above all else, trusting you to shape your own version of the story through the choices you make and the chaos, or restraint, you leave behind, far more than choosing "guns-blazzing or not?". And this says a lot about the state of videogames at the time of this release, a standout not just when it comes to it's genre and the mechanics it is trying to implement.

Overall this is fun. It's better than the first in many ways. The maps are better (and have more of an immersive sim flavor) are complex, and are more detailed. the skills and character building dynamics are also better and more complex. However, the incentive to play as pure stealth still ha some of the same kinds of hang-ups that the first did. Enemy reaction time is very fast, and for the most part I found myself not finding any incentive to go for a pure stealth approach. However, you can mix it up between stealth and aggression and do it in a way that still feels overall satisfying. There are lots of routes and alternatives you can take, so it feels like a fully fleshed out immersive sim. Economy, looting and 'whalebone' is kind of a toss up. Improving your character and using the black market is also similarly quite thee toss up. You do get some benefits from all the upgrades but it seems combing over a map for any purpose other than curiosity and sake of exploration isn't quite 'worth it'. A lot of the skills feels stymied and stumped by other skills, instead.

There is a ton of reading in this game and I just wasn't willing to do that. I'm lukewarm on this setting and the politics and people. I neither love or hate it but I couldn't get invested enough in the lore to find myself that immersed in the setting.

Overall a decent game worth the time put in, and an improvement over the original. It's not my favorite Arkane series, But it's still plenty of fun to get sneeki-breeki-stabby-stab and bluderbussy all the same.

I'm giving this one a good five stars. However, I don't think it quite lived up to the first game. Perhaps that's my fondness for the first one speaking (Dishonored was how I discovered Arkane and was just SO drawn in, so that game sits nicely in my nostalgia bucket). The Clockwork Mansion and the timepiece in the Aramis Stilton level are just magical, upping the ante even further. Voiceover work is an added bonus. The level designs are so good, giving the player many many ways they could tackle things. It's amazing!

The Good

Level design

Many ways to play

It just FEELS so good

A couple of really unique and fun mechanics in specific levels

The Not As Good

Nostalgia factor for Dishonored 1 may be pulling it down for me, personally

Verdict

Just, play Dishonored, y'all. These games are so good.

It was a surprise to me that Dishonored 2 turned 5 years old recently. It still looks fresh and visually attractive with a lot of details. It has almost the same gameplay as the previous game, but more polished, and new skills made game more various. I enjoyed the story there, characters and dialogues were also very interesting.

Overall, this game feels like a great improvement to the first Dishonored and add a lot to its universe. Highly recommend, especially to everyone who likes stealth games, as we don't get a lot of them these days.

My one major complaint is that rune-crafting is completely pointless. It takes 9 runes to unlock it and then it takes 9 whale-bones to craft one rune. At best you might get a couple more powers this way, and only if you don't want to use any bone-charms. Maybe it's worth it for the lethal run, as a lot of the lower-cost passive abilities are more geared towards that. But I feel like a lot of the bone-charms are geared towards lethal too, so I don't know.

Other than that, though, the level design is great (shout out to Clockwork Mansion), the new mechanics completely change up the game (Domino is OP and I don't care, it's great), and most doors don't have swarms of rats behind them, which is a nice change. And there's a heist side-mission that I stumbled upon completely by accident. Very fun game.

Dishonored 2 - First Impressions

I played first few missions nonlethal ghost first and then after I found myself not enjoying myself at all I tried to do the lethal-do-whatever-the-fuck-i-want which was more enjoyable but I ended up feeling somewhat close to the same somehow once I was done with it.

I feel like I've located the problem I have with Dishonored 2, or several. Going to start with the first one, the game somewhat encourages ghosting/nonlethal with mission end screens showing both achievements for it first and that it gives you a good ending but nonlethal in D2 is incredibly dull. Ghosting is easy thanks to how busted Blink/Far Reach is, and while that may be a problem to Medium difficulty only just looking at the level design and how it works I don't think it's really designed in mind for you to have fun playing the game this way. Secondly, the game pushes a "play-your-own-way" style but locks all of your options to progression runes, which means that your enjoyment that you CAN have is ultimately limited at the start, and I found it wayyyyy too limiting to have that much fun even when I did try to experiment. Your options are abusing guard behavior, far reaching, or use of items which do combine in somewhat interesting ways at the start but not in any I found particularly enjoyable.

For my money, I wish Dishonored 2 threw out the whole D1 schtick and took a note from Crysis Warhead, have everything unlocked at the start and build the game around it. And really I don't care that it goes against the story this way in terms of progression, the story is NOT GOOD in the beginning and there is very little characterization here. I was incredibly disappointed that no matter if you're corvo or emily, you're monotone cardboard. Nor do I find the progression here to be very interesting, you're not making decisions that will impact whether or not you can succeed, you're deciding which experimental option you're choosing to let stay locked off. And considering how the next game Arkane made was Prey which allowed you to have practically all your interesting options from the start of the game and they built the levels around that just fine I don't think Arkane is incapable of doing so with D2.

The saving grace so I've been told is some of the later levels' level design, which is why I'm not dropping the game. I'm certain it improves and there's enough word of mouth. And though I'm harping a ton on the game right now it's definitely competent and offers a large amount of freedom, it's alright. When I did go loud and experiment I certainly enjoyed myself enough to keep going I'm just pushed off by the identity crisis the game has.

Gameplay: 4.25/5 Story: 3.5/5 Presentation: 4/5

Basis:

Story= plot progression, intrigue, characters, world

Gameplay= Mechanics, gameplay options (freedom), repetition, goals, difficulty

Presentation= graphics, animation, environment/character design, Art direction, Script, music

Another great game filled with many paths to take and many choices to make. The stealth gameplay was kind of weak as enemy detection times were super fast and even when you were out of their cone of vision they could still detect you sometimes. So I took the path of killing anyone who causes you problems and avoid the rest. Each mission consisted of entering a public zone and entering a private zone. The size of both zones are very large. Arkane Studios similarly to Eidos(Deus Ex: Mankind Divided) was able to create an intricacy to the level design that made what may seem small feel very large and explorable. Some gadgets you get later in the game were super cool and fun to play with SPOILER: (specifically the time device).

The art style that blends between realistic and toon shaded is great. The world is beautiful in a dystopic feel. By far I was most impressed with the level designs. So many cool and unique levels as you get into the meat of the game. The mix between future victorian and steampunk gives this series such a unique feel.

The story was not very deep in that it really only felt applicable in the descriptions between missions and when you would collect runes from ritual shrines. Other then that it felt pretty mechanical. Not sure how my actions influenced the ending of the game, but I ended in the High Chaos state yet the monologue at the ending didn't make it sound like things were too bad in the empire. I will have to give it another playthrough this time as Corvo making very different decisions to see a contrast.

I was really hoping they would do away with some of the mechanics from the original game that felt annoying and antiquated. I genuinely dislike the "chaos" system (if you kill a lot of enemies the game gets harder). Because of the finicky nature of first person stealth, sometimes you just get caught when you really, really, felt like you were hidden. And, after a long sequence, it's easy to just go "uuuuugh fuck it" and stab through a bunch of enemies. They also give you more combat options than non-combat options, so it feels like you shouldn't get "punished" for playing high-chaos.

I get that playing stealth is the "right" way, and I can admit that maybe I'm not playing as intended. But the same phenomenon happened in the first game and its accompanying DLC: The beginning of the game you don't have many options. If you get caught, you have to fight your way through it, or try to escape which can be hard. Because of this, the first few missions always end up being high chaos. But then, once you get enough upgrades, stealth becomes not only easier, but more fun. So it makes sense to stealth around more, and is more enjoyable. HOWEVER, because of the reckless nature of my first couple missions, I'm fighting an uphill battle. My overall chaos level is high, even though I'm then completing missions in low chaos.

I hope that made sense. Essentially the sins of your first few missions carry pretty far, and aren't so easy to undo. Perhaps this is game the requires multiple playthroughs to really click in that regard. It's still an alright game with a cool world, though. I don't hate it, I was just hoping to not be punished for playing how I'd like.

Edit: I'm only like 3 missions in btw. so maybe it'll change!

Even though I received Dishonored 2 as a Christmas gift last year, it took me until this month to finally play through it. This has been quite a year for gaming! Since Dishonored 2 is quite similar to its predecessor, I'll mostly just be giving a quick overview of points of contrast here:

• The new setting for Dishonored 2, Karnaca, is a little bit more vibrant than the previous game's Dunwall, but it still has a generally similar dark steampunk aesthetic.
• Of the game's nine missions, there are two stand-outs: the clockwork mansion and the time-travel stage. Each of these introduces new mechanics that manipulate the level layout and allow the player to explore in new ways. I wish that these interesting new features were further explored rather than confined to their own maps. The remaining stages, while well-designed, are fairly similar to those in Dishonored 1.
• Playing as the new protagonist, Emily, doesn't feel significantly different than playing as Corvo (the first game's hero) since most of her abilities are analogs to his. The main exception is that compared to Dishonored 1, there are more options for non-lethally eliminating enemies head-on. In the first game, if Corvo was spotted, the non-lethal options were to use one of his precious few sleep darts or run and hide. Emily, on the other hand, has the option of blocking enemy sword attacks and the delivering a knock-out counterattack. This makes taking the non-lethal route much more forgiving in Dishonored 2.
• I found the story to be a little bit less engaging than in Dishonored 1, but that be due to the fact that the first game was an introduction to a whole new world and Dishonored 2 is just building upon that.

In summary, Dishonored 2 is a very good first-person stealth game that doesn't deviate much from the formula established by its predecessor. I'm glad I played this game, but in my opinion, there doesn't need to be a Dishonored 3. If you loved the first game and are craving more, you'll be satisfied with what Dishonored 2 has to offer. Newcomers will definitely want to start with Dishonored 1 in order to get introduced to the characters and world and then decide from there if they want to proceed to part two.

For more content like this, check out my blog: Tales from the Backlog

I've not played Dishonored 1, so maybe that makes me less apt to rate this one, or maybe it gives me a view unbiased by it's predecessor. I remember mixing Dishonored 1 up with Thief & neither really appealed to me. I was interested in Dishonored's sequel cause the setting looked much brighter, being in the Mediterranean-esque Karnac, and I'd rather deal with bloodbugs over plague rats. Dishonored 2 felt like a mix of Bioshock Infinite's world and feeling that the game was almost open world, but not & the darker sentiment of Metro Last Light.

The world of Dishonored 2 is what drew me in the most. I like the sorta Steampunk aesthetic, or in this guess it'd be Whalepunk, which is probably a real Steampunk off-shoot. The mix of whale oil technology, Victorian sensibilities, & occult witches. There were a lot of gorgeous levels that I really enjoyed exploring through, mostly all the mansions. The architecture of the Duke's Palace felt modern in the otherwise Victorian era world.
The notion of a clockwork mansion was fun, as well the time-altering mansion. Honestly I'd've loved to see more of that time-changing mechanic in the game. It gave the game some uniqueness. It did feel as the levels got easier as the game progressed. I don't know if it's because I was getting better at the game's system or if the level designs complexity helped open up new paths. The one "dark power" I used the most was Emily's Far Reach, basically a magic grappling hook. It didn't always stretch as far as I'd like, but even with only one point in the skill you can hit the high ground and avoid plenty of enemies.

Speaking of enemies, those clockwork soldiers were complete jackasses when you play a character who is stealth, non-lethal heavy. Luckily, the in-game story says the robot soldiers are too expensive to mass produce and the gameplay matches it, you only encounter them a few times & in small numbers.

I tried to play the game non-lethally, to get the good ending and it made the assassinations much more entertaining. And besides the last level, you can assassinate all the big targets without any forced boss battle scenarios. The non-lethal playthrough leads to my biggest complaint, the load times. When you get spotted in this game it's usually game over unless you want to start wholesale slaughtering guards. So, I had to reload saves a lot, which means most my gameplay was spent watching a loading screen.

The story was serviceable. One odd thing that bugged me the most, after altering time, Megan Foster gets her arm & eye back and Emily NEVER mentions it. Even if it was just a quick joke where Megan thinks Emily's crazy for thinking she lost an arm, though humor is not what this games strives for. And I found it cheap that they freeze off Corvo at the game's beginning, losing any chance for a good father/daughter story. It also seems like Bethesda borrowed some of the voice actors from Skyrim for this game, and Garrus.

All in all, I did enjoy this game, especially towards the end when the levels felt less structured and more fluid for any type of play.

9/10

It plays a lot like the first one, especially if you use the same character. But there is a second character with some different abilities. The story is still kind of meh and the game is really broken on PC.

However, Dishonored is still awesome when it comes to its gameplay. Sneaking around, or assaulting everybody (or a mixture of both) is still really engaging, with a world full of secret things to find and secret places to go. You can truly approach situations in plenty of ways, and the freedom is really rewarding. This has a level or two that I wasn't a fan of, such as the Clockwork Mansion, and I don't recall hating levels in the first one (but my memory is terrible), so I mean, on a completely personal level, this one does have moments where I wasn't enjoying myself as much. It has higher highs and lower lows, certainly, whereas the first one was just a great experience in every level. Maybe I'm alone in feeling this way, or maybe nostalgia and my poor memory has confused me.

Still, they're about equal to one another, ultimately. Still awesome.