Dishonored 2

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Dishonored 2

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“It’s happened again. Someone’s pulled the rug out from under you. An empire at your feet, and you’ve lost it all. Be honest, did you really deserve any of it? More important, what would you do to get it back?” —The Outsider

Dishonored 2 is a first-person stealth and action video game, developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It was released on November 11, 2016, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. It was first announced at Bethesda Softworks’ first E3 showcase, on June 14, 2015. The project was headed by creative director Harvey Smith, lead designer of Deus Ex and lead of Deus Ex: Invisible War. Sébastien Mitton returned as the Art Director of Dishonored 2. [1]

Contents

Story [ ]

Dishonored 2 is set 15 years after the events of the original Dishonored. The Rat Plague has long since been eradicated, but new problems have arisen in Dunwall. An unidentified serial killer known as The Crown Killer has murdered a number of political opponents of Emily Kaldwin, the reigning Empress of the Empire of the Isles, undermining her rule. She is soon overthrown in a coup led by the mysterious Delilah Copperspoon, who claims lineage to the throne, and Luca Abele, the Duke of Serkonos.

The game features two playable characters: Emily Kaldwin, the dethroned Empress, and Corvo Attano, the protagonist of the original Dishonored and father of Emily. Each character has their own set of unique abilities and dialogue. During the course of the coup, the Outsider’s Mark is removed from Corvo who loses his supernatural abilities. Depending on the protagonist chosen, either Corvo or Emily are turned to stone by Delilah. The other must then escape from Dunwall and seek to defeat the conspirators by setting out to Karnaca, the capital city of the isle of Serkonos, aided by Meagan Foster and her ship, the Dreadful Wale.

The mysterious being known as The Outsider returns, offering his Mark which may be refused if the protagonist so wishes. The protagonist must travel throughout Karnaca, which is plagued by large parasitic insects known as bloodflies and wracked by dust caused by the overmining of silver ore. To defeat the coup, key figures need to be eliminated and new alliances may need to be formed, all while deciding just how much blood to shed in the process.

Dishonored 2 features multiple endings that are, similarly to the original Dishonored, dependent on the chaos level, as well as the choices made throughout various points in the game.

Cast [ ]

• Erica Luttrell as Emily Kaldwin[2]
• Stephen Russell as Corvo Attano[2]
• Vincent D’Onofrio as Luca Abele, Duke of Serkonos[2]
• Rosario Dawson as Meagan Foster, Dreadful Wale Captain [2]

• Pedro Pascal as Paolo, Howlers Gang Leader [2]
• Sam Rockwell as Mortimer Ramsey, Dunwall City Watch[2]
• Jamie Hector as Liam Byrne, Vice Overseer [2]
• Robin Lord Taylor as The Outsider[2]

Gameplay [ ]

Dishonored 2 borrows many of the gameplay elements from the original Dishonored. Players define their own playstyle by blending immersive first-person action, assassination, stealth, mobility, and the game’s combat system. Combining tools at their disposal, players are allowed options to eliminate enemies, whether they choose to pursue them unseen or ruthlessly attack head on with weapons drawn. [3] The player can also eliminate key targets by arranging an “accident” for them to fall into, veering on the edges of poetic justice. [4]

Dishonored 2 features the same campaign style as its predecessor in which the protagonist must advance through a series of missions, using a creative blend of powers and weapons. [5] Emily has her own set of unique abilities while Corvo retains his now deepened and expanded abilities from the original game. The game features branching upgrade paths for its powers [4] but also offers the option to play entirely without supernatural abilities. [6] These abilities feature a lethal and non-lethal upgrade path. [7]

After playing the opening prologue of the game as Emily Kaldwin, the player will be faced with a permanent choice to play as either Emily or Corvo for the remainder of the game. Each character retains their own, unique abilities, with Corvo’s “Blink” being substituted with Emily’s “Far Reach”, along with several other original powers. [8] The game can be completed entirely without taking a single life in the process. [9] Dishonored 2 also features system for crafting bone charms. [10]

Each level in Dishonored 2 has a unique theme, whether in “fiction” or “mechanic.” For example, in one mission, players can extrapolate tensions between two rival factions to further their own ends, aid one in its fight against the other, or neither. Occasional dust storms hinder the AI’s sight and visibility, allowing the player to move by stealthily. Throughout missions, the player can come across random encounters with the citizens of Karnaca. For example, one instance involves a gang member threatening to expose a black-market dealer, and the player is offered the option to diffuse the situation. In-between levels, the player will take refuge on the Dreadful Wale, a ship where a player can rest and upgrade their gear. [11]

The majority of the game occurs on the tropical Isle of Serkonos, in the city of Karnaca. There, insects called “bloodflies” hatch in dead corpses, and act as a substitute for the Rat Plague present in the original Dishonored. Players are encouraged to hide bodies from these flies to prevent them from attacking him/her, but can also use them to harass enemy guards. [12] Players who kill more characters will notice an increased bloodfly count in future missions. [11]

Development [ ]

“It all started for us with thinking about Emily. We just imagined: what would Emily be like down the road, as an empress. What would she be like as a character to inhabit?” —Harvey Smith [[src]]

When development on Dishonored 2 began, co-director Harvey Smith admitted that creating a game that topped Dishonored and its hordes of accolades was a daunting challenge. [13] A number of ideas were bounced around on how to improve on the original while at the same time remaining true to it. The core idea was to introduce Emily as a playable character. [14] Corvo was intended to be voiced in the original Dishonored, but the idea came too late in the development process. [13] To this end, both Emily and Corvo were voiced in the sequel in order to bring greater emotional depth to the characters. [15] Depending on the player’s chaos level, the voiced protagonists react differently to the environment around them. [13]

As the developers began work on Dishonored 2, a complete re-work of the chaos system of the first game was envisioned. Realizing that some players killed based solely on what The Heart said, the team decided to make it a gameplay element. Different guards elicit different personality traits, ranging from sympathetic, guilty, or murderous. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Smith provided an example of the mechanic. “You approach a guard, and it can say he works double shifts to feed the family down the street.” Thus, killing that guard would give the player a higher chaos rating than killing a corrupt or immoral one. [13]

To address concerns that the first game was too easy, the developers increased the game’s difficulty dramatically. A number of settings are available to the player to toggle how hard it is for the AI to detect them. For example, whether or not guards can spot them leaning around corners. [8]

The development team was inspired by southern Europe when choosing the aesthetic style of the game. [4] The designers sought to make Dishonored 2 look like a “painting in motion,” and chose the game’s color palette and artistic look accordingly. To create a believable world, the developers used a “layered design process” to enhance world-building. Food, song, architecture, and climate are all based on the people living in the city, with special attention catered towards how people would organically inhabit the gamespace. Furthermore, development focused on the history of locales the player can visit, designing locations based on what a building had been used for before the player arrived, or by showing watermarks on the walls from past floods. [16]

Special Editions [ ]

Limited Edition [ ]

The standard edition of Dishonored 2 for pre-orders is the Limited Edition. It contains the game as well as a digital copy of Dishonored: Definitive Edition.

Collector’s Edition [ ]

The Collector’s Edition reveal and content.

Dishonored 2: Collector’s Edition was announced on June 12th, 2016 for PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One. It contains the game as well as several other bonuses:

• A replica of Corvo’s mask on a stand (13.5″ x 6″ x 5.5″).
• A replica of Emily’s ring with a display box.
• A full size poster for Empress Jessamine’s death anniversary on one side and a propaganda poster for Empress Delilah on the other side.
• A metal case for the game with the portraits of Emily on the front side and Corvo on the rear.
• The Imperial Assassin’s Pack, including exclusive Bone Charms, lore books, a musical instrument in-game and 500 coins.
• A digital copy of Dishonored: Definitive Edition.

Other editions [ ]

Starting mid-October 2016, GameStop retailers were giving away fake postcards sent from Karnaca to Dunwall. The front side featured Karnacan posters and the back side a signed handwritten note with an address in Dunwall. [17]

Trivia [ ]

• The working title for Dishonored 2 at the beginning of its development was “Black Sparrow” or “Blacksparrow”, as seen on some concept arts. The developers eventually dropped the subtitle when they considered how long the title of eventual DLC would sound with it. [18]
• Development on Dishonored 2 started while the developers were working on the DLC of the first game. The developers used them to experiment playing with a different character, giving him voice lines and introducing new characters and gameplay elements. [19]
• The song in the gameplay trailer released during E3 2016 is a cover of Gold Dust Woman by COPILOT (originally by Fleetwood Mac). [20][21]
• The song used in the live-action trailer is Take It All by Ruelle. [22] It was filmed in the streets of Žatec, in Czech Republic, [23] where developers from Arkane Studios spent 8 days with the filming crew. [24]
• The music used in the launch trailer is a cut version of Diabolical Clockwork, composed by Thomas Bergersen under the music label Two Steps from Hell. [25]
• Similarly to the original Dishonored, the game has a longer title for the German version: Dishonored 2: Das Vermächtnis der Maske (meaning ‘The Legacy of the Mask’).
• Dishonored 2 was a part of Bethesda’s showcase at E3 2017. The publisher teased the event with an illustration where each Isle is represented, with the Dreadful Wale sitting in the middle of them.
• The control scheme presented in the Dishonored 2 PlayStation 4 game manual does not correspond to the actual in-game control scheme presets.
• There are three dynamic themes available on the PlayStation store for free which are: Throne dynamic theme, Karnaca dynamic theme and Emily & Corvo dynamic theme.

Dishonored 2 review – a clockwork world of exquisite challenge

D unwall, the briny, whale oil-guzzling capital of the first Dishonored game was a city defined by Dickensian hardship. This suited Corvo Attano, bodyguard to the empress, for whose murder he was framed, allowing him to squeeze through society’s cracks and skulk unseen among the plague rats. For this sequel the setting has changed to the sun-bronzed (and in later stages, dust-blasted) Karnaca, an archipelago whose ports might offer an enviable holiday destination were it not for an infestation of murderous insects. You play again as Attano or alternatively, the newly monarched Emily Kaldwin, a choice that must be made in the game’s opening moments and adhered to until the final credits. Both are wrongfully accused of murder (although by the game’s end, all but the most patient players will have blood on their hands). Both must flee the charges and pursue their accusers in the dark. At least Karnaca’s high sun casts long shadows to hide in.

Whale oil continues to flow through the city’s veins (your base is now the Dreadful Wale, a paddle steamer helmed by Meagan Foster, a muted, laconic one-armed whaler, who ferries you between land and sea on a handsome skiff), powering its lamps and tramways. But Karnaca is a place that runs on clockwork as much as mammal-fuels. Lumbering human guards still present the most immediate menace to your safety. But the most deadly threat are the clockwork soldiers, progeny of the eccentric inventor Kirin Jindosh, who patrol the streets in service to the coup-masterminding Duke Luca Abele of Serkonos. Clockwork is an appropriate theme for this meticulous sequel – its mechanical parts interlock with a grand, delightful intricacy.

Lumbering guards and clockwork soldiers represent a menacing threat. Photograph: Bethesda The game sits in the tradition of the so-called “immersive sim”, games that emphasise player choice over directorial control. As such, each of the nine, expansive chapters offers a playpen for personal expression. Fundamentally, this means choosing whether you want to play as the lethal assassin, leaping from ramparts to deliver killing blows to those who stand in the way of your immediate goals, or that of a stealthily merciful outlaw, thoughtfully putting guards to sleep with a well-aimed dart to the neck. Will you, in other words, lock up your enemies, or bury them?

The more murderous your approach, the greater the “chaos” you bring to Karnaca and the more messy the story’s conclusion (a non-lethal approach, meanwhile, invites a more “optimistic” conclusion, in the game’s phrase). The grain of the fiction therefore encourages a quiet, gracious approach, even though, for players who want to make it to the ending without ever being spotted by a guard, this will mean frequent and boring loads from backup saves in order to undo indiscretions. Attano and Kaldwin share a talent for athleticism and a sense of style (black on black, generally) but play differently enough to invite a second playthrough. Attano has the power, if you invest the runes you find hidden in the nooks of each chapter’s labyrinthine layout, to freeze time and rig a room before unfreezing it. These runes, along with bonecharms – which offer slight improvements to your character, such as allowing you to hold your breath for longer underwater or to survive higher falls – litter each chapter. A contraption known as the eavesdropper heart – part muscle, part clockwork – offers clues to their locations and also allows you to tune in to people’s inner monologue and in this way gain a sense of their morality. Kaldwin, meanwhile, can link enemies together so that any misfortunes that befall one are simultaneously inflicted upon the others. She can create doppelgangers to use as decoys. Your choice of protagonist won’t force your hand one way or the other in terms of how you approach the story but it will alter, in the fine details, the telling.

Karnaca, the stunning archipelago, where game’s action takes place. Photograph: Bethesda The jewel in Dishonored 2’s crown, and one that exemplifies its game design philosophy is set at its midway point in a chapter dubbed The Clockwork Mansion, a reference to Jindosh’s Rubick’s cube of a stately home, which you must infiltrate. The mansion’s rooms can be rearranged into all manner of configurations, while its architect watches and comments sarcastically on your progress as you move to confront him (unless, that is, you manage to slip into its hollow walls, and make your way unseen up and over its cogs and pulleys). As well as providing a vivid scene, a delightful contraption and a character-deepening look at one of the game’s stand-out antagonists, The Clockwork Mansion holds a mirror up to the craft and obsessions of game designers themselves, and the standoffish relationship they often have with the players who attempt to crack their puzzles. The intricate world-crafting extends far beyond Jindosh’s domain. Dishonored 2 is both luxurious and consistent in its set dressing. Every virtual item demonstrates its own kind of wondrous craftsmanship: the taut leather, the sunny brass. Each room is a varnished memorial to some hollowed-out forest. Dishonored 2 has the scent of a high-class antique shop, a world of forgotten elegance filled with more props and trinkets than even the best-funded film production could ever muster. In most cases these aren’t mere set-dressing either. The misty glass tumblers can be thrown to distract enemies momentarily; the creaking carriages can be commandeered to whisk you between districts; the gleaming pistols can be lifted from the holster’s of oblivious guards then turned against them.

Your choice of approach dictates the scale of the game’s challenge, which is tallest when tackled by a player hoping to roleplay exclusively as the silent interloper. Enemies are ceaselessly vigilant. Make a noise or cast an unexpected shadow and they’ll race to investigate. Unlike the buffoonish guards that patrol most video games, suspicion escalates to confrontation in a split second. Still, approach a guard with pad-foot calm (crouching quietens your movements, while stowing your weapons quickens them) and you’ll be able to lift the keys from their belt and pass on, spectrally. There is meaningful choice here, in these crammed parishes, but perhaps not as much as there first appears to be. To be seen or not to be seen: this is the fundamental question upon which your approach hinges. Less meaningful, but more engaging is the choice offered by these messy, complicated streets, which offer dozens of different pathways to each goal. Will you scale the building and steal through an open window, or possess a rat and squeeze through a sewer pipe? In literature, these would be the less interesting questions for the work to pose. But in Dishonored 2, herein lies that game’s true wonder – along with the gathering appreciation for how this exquisite clockwork world fits together. Bethesda; PC/PS4 (version tested)/Xbox One; £45; Pegi rating: 18+

Everything You Need to Know About Dishonored 2

Four years after Corvo first blinked onto our screens, Dishonored is back with more reasons for revenge, more paranormal powers, and more honour being dissed.

But while an assassin’s occupational hazards never change, a whole lot else certainly has. To bring you up to speed on the next chapter in the Empire of the Isles’ history, here’s everything we’ve learned about Dishonored 2.

Dishonored 2 is developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda

Just a year after Arkane Studios whipped the cloak off the first Dishonored game, in 2013 it teased a new project that “will have similar features to Dishonored” and “multiplayer.” It wasn’t for another two years that we found out that the new project was Dishonored 2, with the news first unintentionally broadcast live over Twitch by Arkane Studios’ Harvey Smith and Ralph Colantonio who thought their conversation was private.

A day later the Dishonored sequel was officially unveiled during Bethesda’s E3 2015 conference. There we got a reveal trailer, of which Smith later said, “everything Emily does in this trailer, you can do in the game.”

In May we learned the release date – that Dishonored 2 will launch on PC, PS4, and Xbox One on November 11th 2016.

Story Time

The original Dishonored had two endings depending on your play style, leaving the city of Dunwall in ruins or squinting in the sunlight of a golden age.

Developer Arkane Studios opted for the “low chaos” conclusion as Dishonored’s canonical ending, and the sequel sets off from there. In that conclusion, bodyguard-turned-supernatural-cutthroat Corvo saves royal orphan Emily’s life (who, coincidentally, is heavily implied to be his daughter), she ascends the throne as the new Empress, and Corvo spares the life of Daud – the man who killed Empress Jessamine.

15 years have now passed, and a grizzled Corvo can be seen in this character portrait for Dishonored 2. Meanwhile, Emily is a 25 year old woman trained in the arts of assassination by Corvo himself. This familial bliss is rocked when an otherworldly usurper seizes the throne, and ousts Emily from power. A propaganda poster included in the Collector’s Edition of the game names a certain new “Empress Delilah Kaldwin,” suggesting that the witch Delilah Copperspoon may be the thorn in Corvo and Emily’s side.

Delilah was the main antagonist in Dishonored’s DLC stories and leader of the Brigmore Witches Coven who, despite her claims on the poster, bears no relation to Emily or the royal family. Now you must work to take back what’s Emily’s, helping her once more assume the throne as Empress of the Isles.

A Tale of Two Killers

In Dishonored 2, you can either do this the old fashioned way with Corvo – no longer silent, brought to life with the dulcet tones of Thief’s Stephen Russel – or assume control of new playable character Emily Kaldwin (voiced by Erica Luttrell). This means there are two different perspectives on the plot, and your decision on who to play at the beginning of the game will carry through right to the end – there’s no switching and no option for co-op play.

While this is one of the most dramatic decisions you’ll have to make, there are plenty more: Who you let live, who you kill, the sympathy level of the NPC you assassinate, whether you play using your supernatural powers, or whether you reject them entirely and use only the steel of your sword – all these decisions influence your path and the eventual outcome of Dishonored 2’s story.

However, morality is no longer black and white. As the 2016 E3 trailer hinted, you’ll be faced with decisions dappled with grey, and your actions affect the stability of the world around you much more than in the first game.

A City by the Sea

Speaking of which, that world has changed. Our first demo of Dishonored 2 took us to the city of Karnaca, a dazzling coastal outpost on the fringes of the Empire’s map that holds the key to restoring Emily to power.

If Dunwall was the diseased heart of an Empire, Karnaca is what lies at the edge of the map – a colonialist endeavor that trades Victorian cobblestones for Tuscan tiles, and weepers for blood flies.

Each level in this sun-soaked metropolis can be navigated in a non-linear way. Do you choose to go in the front door or search for the secret entrance down the street? Every mission follows the Dishonored tradition of placing a high-value target in a defended location, but now each level contains its own gameplay twist.

Crack in the Slab allows the player to move dynamically back and forth between two time periods, between a mansion in ruins and the same house three years ago on the night of an opulent party. Our gameplay preview of the Clockwork Mansion allows you to change the configuration of each room like a rubix cube, pulling on levers to find yourself in a whole new area entirely. The Royal Conservatory sees you navigating a massive museum with taxidermy animals, entrenched in the Victorian fascination with natural philosophy and science. Each level is unique, and each pulls back the curtain on a new portrait of life in Emily’s Empire.

You’ve Got The Power

Your base of operations here is a boat, and your weapon loadout the same whether you play as Emily or Corvo, including a pistol, sword and crossbow. Instead, Smith explained to us that it’s the upgrades and the powers that will truly define the lines between your playthroughs as either character, playthroughs that should take between 12 and 20 hours.

You can dive further into those abilities on our Dishonored Wiki page that lists each one. For new kid on the block Emily, her supernatural powers are slinky, sharp, and suited to stealthy sweeps of enemy-packed locations.

Take for instance Shadow Walk where she transforms into a torrent of shadow and flows across the floor unnoticed, or Far Reach that allows her to pull herself up to inaccessible places or incapacitate a guard standing metres away in one fell swoop.

Playing as Corvo will be slipping back into the familiar boots of the last game. He uses the rat swarms, possession, time stops and other skills you’ll remember, but the extra 15 years make him feel heavier and more brutish than the sprightly Emily. Still, his powers have been buffed and beefed up, like how Bend Time can also now fast forward time, or possession can now be chained between creatures.

Of course, you can choose to play Dishonored 2 without your powers according to Smith. Doing so will unlock a trophy, and you can check out the full list of in-game achievements here – though beware of spoilers!

So that’s it for our round-up of everything you need to know about Dishonored 2. A Corvo whose chiseled features the sands of time have worn, a grown-up Emily with an arsenal of awesome powers, new exotic locations, and a cornucopia of imaginative levels with clever gameplay twists have our interest piqued. Arkane Studios has claimed you’ll only see about 20% of the game in one playthrough, but between now and the game’s launch on PC, PS4 and Xbox One on 11 November, you’ll find 100% of your Dishonored 2 updates right here at IGN.

Alysia Judge is a video host at IGN, where she reckons shadow walk would be a fairly useful way to avoid late-to-work detection. Follow her on Twitter.