“I plunge my blade into his heart”
Succumbing to bloodlust in DISHONORED 2
Ifeel the rage rise within my body, my sensations heightened, my palms sweaty. These mangy curs are not going to take me down and, even if they do, I’m taking them into the darkness of the Void with me.
I unleash a bolt from my crossbow into the belly of a guard trying to kill me, one who is milliseconds away from pulling the trigger of his pistol. The fleshy thud forces him to bend double, wincing in agony, but it’s not that which kills him, it’s my razor-sharp Folding Blade which, as I force the crumpling guard to his knees by crushing his right leg with my boot, takes his head clean off in a single stroke, his eyes blinking in disbelief.
Blood sprays over the floor and wall as, under fire now from the dead guard’s accomplice, adrenaline courses through my veins. The guard catches me with a round, though, and my vision judders, my consciousness slipping. Facing doom, I summon my dark gifts, as bestowed by the mysterious otherworldly character of The Outsider, and grab my assailant around the neck with a billowing mass of Void shadow. Dragging him across the filthy cobblestones by the neck, I slam him into a wall and then, as he scrambles to his feet, a look of terror on his face, I plunge my blade into his heart. I’ll see you in hell.
BLADE OF DOOM
Plenty of games pit you against hordes of foes who are looking to kill you, but there’s something about the Dishonored series that takes fighting back to a more visceral, engaging level. I think a large part of it comes down to the game’s story pitch, which is that you yourself have been wrongfully accused of crimes, dishonored and subjected to a stripping of reputation as well as humanity. You’ve had your way of life forcibly taken from you and, now, on top of that, you’ve got people trying to actually end your life. It’s the injustice of it all, I think, that burns most. And Dishonored 2, like its excellent predecessor, uniquely seems to beg the question, what would you do in the same situation and, even more critically, what lengths would you go to in order to survive?