Developer: Arkane Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Rrp: £29.99 (Steam and the Bethesda Store)
Released: 11th November 2016
Available on: Steam and the Bethesda Launcher
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard
Approximate game length: Depending on playstyle 12 hours to 20.
Serkonos! The shining jewel in the Empire of the Isles crown. A place of warm weather, vast beaches and exiled monarchs (or their protectors). It’s from these shores that many a good is traded, for some that means fish, whale oil or silver. In our case what we want is to trade our revenge for the crown that we lost.
The Dishonored franchise is back! Set fifteen years after the events of the original game Emily Kaldwin sits upon the thrown and does what she can to guide the Empire. However this wouldn’t be a Dishonored game if something didn’t happen to upset that. How about a coup? Yeah, that would do it.
As with all sequels there are a couple of pertinent questions to ask. Does this game live up to its predecessor and does it add anything to the franchise?
At the beginning of the game you get to chose between playing as Emily Kaldwin, the Empress or Corvo Attano, her father and Royal Protector. Each of which have differing powers that force you to change the way you play. For my first playthrough I chose to play as Emily since I’ve already been Corvo and wanted to see just how different her powers are.
The game takes place mostly upon the isle of Serkonos and generally within the city of Karnaca. It must be said that the scenery upon display is gorgeous, the city has a real feeling of energy and life as opposed the the somewhat static feeling that I found Dunwall exuded.
For Dishonored 2 Arkane Studios dropped the Unreal Engine 3 and replaced it with its own ‘Void Engine’. Meaning that the caricature-like character models are gone, replaced with ones that fit into the world much better.
The level of customisation for how can experience this game is impressive. I’m not normally one to bang on about options menus but this is the exception. You can disable the displaying of the objective markers and interactable object highlights right through to removing the HUD entirely. Personally I found it quite disorientating to play with no HUD but at least the options there if you want it.
So how different is this from its predecessor besides being more graphically demanding? Well for starters, the AI has clearly been improved, with enemies being more aware and faster to react than the previous game, even on lower difficulty settings. They even notice when guards disappear from where they should be and start to look around.
However it should be noticed that the games AI does have some… interesting quirks. A great example being that sometimes the guards will remain hostile even after you reloaded the game. If that does happen though the fix is easy… let them kill you, then reload.
Some of the levels while small are quite complex and interestingly made forcing the player to think differently than they have throughout the rest of the game. This isn’t to say that all the other levels aren’t creative, every single one has multiple ways of being tackled and is well worth exploring to the fullest.
Just like with its predecessor there is always a way to eliminate your target without killing them. Although in some cases I actually think death would have been far kinder.
The combat has also had something of an overhaul as opponents can now be knocked out during combat if you manage to create an opening through blocking their attacks. This means that if you wish to try a ‘no death’ playthrough but don’t have the patience to avoid detection (or simply don’t care) then you can.
Interestingly this game follows on from the ’Knife of Dunwall’ and ’Brigmore Witches’ DLC’s from the original game. Admittedly with a fifteen year gap but the stories are certainly linked. Thankfully you don’t need to have played those two DLC’s to know what’s happening but it adds some extra flavour.
This game is most definitely an improvement on the original and a worthwhile inclusion into the franchise as a whole. If you enjoy stealth… or just stabbing people a lot then I highly recommend playing this game!
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