Dishonored 2
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The most dismissive thing I can say about Dishonored 2 is that it’s a lot like Dishonored — one of my favourite games of all time. The second in the series offers a similar experience to its predecessor, which is to say, it offers hours of extraordinary firstperson stealth and action. Frequently, Dishonored 2 does more than that. While the moment-to-moment experience is broadly the same, the whole thing is elevated by both small, crucial details and big set-piece missions. Put simply: it’s brilliant.
Set 15 years after the events of the first game, Dishonored 2 follows either Empress Emily Kaldwin or her father, Corvo Attano. Emily is deposed, on the anniversary of her mother’s assassination, after a coup by the Duke of Serkonos. You, as either Emily or Corvo — a choice made at the start of the game — must escape Dunwall and travel to the southern city of Karnaca, the home of the Duke’s cabal of conspirators... to murder. All with the goal of taking back the throne.
As in Dishonored, your targets are people of means. They’re protected, and getting to them requires either a lot of sneaking, a lot of stabbing, or a lot of stopping time, possessing the guard who just tried to shoot you, and walking him in front of his own bullet. Emily and Corvo have magical murder powers, granted by the mysterious Outsider.
Abilities have their rules within the world. I played as Emily, whose power set feels tailored for sitting and thinking through the possibilities of your approach. Her best power, Domino, lets you link multiple characters together. What happens to one then happens to them all. Choke out one, and the others fall asleep. Stab one, and the others drop dead. Emily also has a power called Mesmerise, which, when fully upgraded, can hypnotise up to three people, letting you pass by unseen. Another power, Doppelganger, enables Emily to create a clone of herself that distracts guards. It, too, is a physical humanoid entity, and so it, too, can be linked with Domino. That’s bad news for any linked guards that catch up to and shoot the clone. While each power has its own, basic use, the implications of the systems create so many possibilities when they’re used in combination.
SEE EMILY PLAY
In addition to powers, Emily and Corvo have a multitude of weapons and tools. Many will be familiar to players of Dishonored, from the pistol and crossbow, to the spring razor mines that shred any enemy unfortunate enough to get near. The crossbow gets a couple of additional bolt types, and like many of Dishonored 2’ s changes, they’re designed to give more options to non-lethal players. Howling bolts blind and deafen enemies, while stinging bolts cause them to flee in agonising pain. More than ever, Dishonored 2 realises that stealth and non-lethal options aren’t one and the same, and takes steps to provide tools that cater to both methods.
You can kill silently, sneak by undetected, burst into a room and render everyone unconscious, or murder everything in a cacophony of grenades, guns and rat swarms. This is reflected in direct combat, too. Swordplay is no longer a fight to the death. Parry an attack, and you have the option to disable your opponent with a chokehold. It won’t work if you’re surrounded,