"Dishonored 2" Review

Those of you who are longtime readers may remember that I was mostly lukewarm about the original Dishonored, but tended to lean more towards the positive. There were some fundamental flaws in the gameplay that prevented it from being a remarkable stealth experience, and the writing and story were also lackluster, so all in all I shouldn't have enjoyed it as much as I did. To this day, I still don't know why I played through the original Dishonored so many times nor how it was possible to do so given my overall opinion of "meh." All of that is a preface. I'm not about to answer that question because, like I said, I still don't know. What I do know is that Dishonored 2 is a superior game to its predecessor in almost every way, but there are still some areas where Arkane studios haven't really improved. Lets get started.
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In Dishonored 2, it has been 15 years since the rat plague. Emily Kaldwin, the child empress, has grown up and ruled the empire of the isles benevolently. Corvo Attano: her father, lord protector, and the protagonist of the original game, has trained her throughout the years. Lately, a killer being called "The Crown Killer" has been taking out Emily's political rivals to try and tarnish her reputation. On the fifteen year anniversary of Empress Jessamine's death, a woman claiming to be Jessamine's older sister and therefore the rightful Empress arrives, escorted by the Duke of Serkonos, the southernmost island. From there, you choose which character: Emily or Corvo, you will play as, and whoever you don't pick is imprisoned. Whoever you choose then heads to Karnaca, the jewel of the south and the home of the Duke of Serkonos, to track down the Crown Killer and find out how this person is connected to the coup in Dunwall.
If I did video reviews, this would be where I'd start laughing.
Look, I'll just come out and say it: Arkane Studios shouldn't quit their day job to become writers. Writing has never been their strong suit and neither has storytelling. Their worldbuilding is actually pretty good, but oddly enough the parts that make up that whole typically are not. The way I like to describe their writing is that it is what it would sound like if I wrote a fantasy novel with as thoroughly built a world as this one. It is a good problem to have because it implies a lot of passion, but it is still not good writing. It is a little difficult to describe, so let me give you an example:
"Character 1: My father was Emperor Euhorn Jacob Kaldwin, and Jessamine Kaldwin was my younger sister. I have come to relieve you of your throne.
Character 2: Watch your tongue! Emily Kaldwin is the daughter of Jessamine Kaldwin!"
That excerpt is not verbatim, so don't quote me on it, but it should get the point across. To give another example, an excerpt from the original game:
"Announcer: Attention Dunwall citizens. Corvo Attano, the assassin behind the death of our beloved Empress Jessamine Kaldwin and the abduction of lady Emily, the heir to the throne, has escaped state custody."
The writing in Dishonored has always come off as "look at this! look at this world that we built! We thought of everything, can you tell?" Like I said, there are worse fates than to have your writing be bad as a direct result of enthusiasm surrounding the topic, but it still comes off as corny. Like, people living in Dunwall would definitely know who you were talking about if you said something about "Lady Emily." The player knows that Emily is the heir as well, so it just seems like unnecessary exposition. Come to think of it, people living in Dunwall would probably know who you were talking about if you mentioned Corvo Attano (given what a fixture he was in the royal court) as well. Really, that announcement should have just been:
"Announcer: Attention Dunwall citizens. Corvo Attano has escaped state custody".
Likewise, everybody present at the anniversary of Jessamine's death would know the Kaldwin name well enough that the two characters I quoted wouldn't need to use the name "Kaldwin" as many times as they did. Maybe I'm nitpicking but it is something that has struck me as odd from the very beginning. It just means that the developers are really proud of what they've made and really want to share it with us, and its hard to fault anybody for that, but it still needs to be said.
Beyond the writing, the story is just kind of ok. I've played through as both Corvo and Emily, and with the exception of different powers and bonecharms, their stories are pretty much the same. Granted, I suppose playing as Emily makes the overall narrative more fluid, but the in-game story is unchanged. I would say that the story in Dishonored 2 is actually less good than in the original. The original wasn't a storytelling behemoth by any stretch of the imagination, but it had palpable stakes and goals that one could connect with. In the original, despite not loving the story, I wanted to rescue Emily from the brothel. I wanted to take revenge on the Lord Regent. The key to getting past a weak story is to have goals the player wants to accomplish along the way. In Dishonored 2, there at least aren't any completely boneheaded nonsensical plot twists like there were in the original, but there also aren't any real stakes or goals you want to accomplish. Part of the problem is that the plot takes place on the opposite side of the world from where the actual conflict is. It is hard to feel any sense of urgency when you are that far removed from the conflict. In addition, there just weren't any particularly hatable villains. The developers later do a much better job of fleshing out the main villain, but beyond that everybody is only partially involved in the plot. The villains in the original were terrible, but you at least knew who most of them were and what kind of people they were when you went to kill/remove them. There were, of course, targets who you would learn about right before heading out to kill them, but they were in the minority in the original. In contrast, the targets you seek out are almost always people you hear about five minutes before you set out to deal with them in Dishonored 2. The developers can tell me that the Grand Inventor has been electrocuting a character for a while all they want, but if he has only been brought up once before and didn't really do anything in the coup, I have a hard time really feeling motivated to take him out of play.
So, we have established that the writing and storytelling are weak in Dishonored 2, but the worldbuilding is actually solid, as I've come to expect of Arkane Studios. Throughout the game world, there is plenty of lore, plenty of community-centered posters, plenty of audiographs with important information, and plenty of subtle visual details to make Karnaca feel alive. There are even some bands scattered throughout the world who play local folk songs. Anybody who knows me knows that I am passionate about folk music, and normally folk music in videogames is cringeworthy. It is a direct result of modern society legitimately believing that indie-pop acts like Mumford and Sons, Ingrid Michaelson, and Foy Vance count as folk music, but don't get me started on that. The point is that videogame folk music is almost always a breathy Zooey Deschanel-sounding woman singing along to four chords on a guitar. Skyrim was a breath of fresh air in this regard, as many of its singers were terrible. It made it so much more authentic to not have some processed indie singers who can't move their tongues while singing vowels doing it. Dishonored 2 is not quite Skyrim level refreshing, but the folk music that is sung in it is definitely a step in the right direction. The point is that it adds to the worldbuilding in a positive way.
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Unfortunately, the story and writing aren't where the negatives end for this title. Dishonored 2 opens up with one of the worst opening levels I've ever experienced. It isn't quite as bad as Dragon Age: Inquisition's opening level, but it is close. Really, until you've already played the game once or twice, the opening level is the hardest level in the game, and that is wrong for so many reasons. You may think I'm exaggerating, dear reader, but I'm not. I've played through Dishonored 2 three times at this point, and I'll concede that once you've played enough to know the layout of the level like the back of your hand, getting to your goal without being seen and without killing in this mission is child's play. But until then, it is unforgivably difficult if you're trying to be stealthy. That is to say nothing of how boring it is. This was a problem that the original suffered from throughout, and I'm starting to believe that it is a problem unique to Dunwall. Dunwall is just an uninteresting city, it seems. From this opening level, the difficulty becomes much more balanced if a little on the easy side. However, the sheer boredom doesn't go away until the fourth mission, almost halfway through the game. My first night playing, I caught myself actively thinking the words, "Wow. I'm really bored" during the second mission (the first one that takes place in Karnaca). Dear readers, that is not an insubstantial problem. Karnaca is an interesting city, so it could have been a lot worse, but the first few levels are so bog standard that even an interesting city fails to inspire. That is such a shame because some of the later levels are the most expertly designed, fascinating levels in gaming this year.
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Because of Dishonored 2, I've decided to create a "best level design" award in my end of the year lists this year. That is how compelling the level design in later stages is. Unfortunately the best levels were the ones demoed at E3 this year and last year, but believe me when I say that even if you know what these levels are going to be like going in, they are still incredibly entertaining to play through.
Take the Clockwork Mansion, for instance. It is a mansion that can be rearranged many different ways depending on which rearrangement lever you pull, and we know that much because of the demos. However, the experience of actually trying to navigate the various shifting forms the mansion takes all the while being taunted by Kirin Jindosh (one of the better, more Bioshock-esque villains in this game) defies explanation. Likewise, actually going up against one of the game's "Clockwork Soldiers" adds a whole new kind of challenge. The game still isn't very challenging with this new kind of challenge, but it is a welcome change nonetheless.
Another aspect of the level design in Dishonored 2 that I feel inclined to touch on is the verticality. Verticality isn't something that a lot of developers take into consideration, so I have to give props to Arkane studios for the sheer level of it that they put in. Every level has an astonishing sense of scale, with most building having multiple stories and multiple entry points. If you ever feel like you have no way to sneak past enemies on the ground level, all you need to do is look up and you are bound to find somewhere to go. Likewise, there are sometimes enemies going through these vertical places, so it makes the verticality feel more organic. Unfortunately, the downside to this verticality is that it takes away from the already meager difficulty.
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It is a little bit jarring how Dishonored 2 starts off so difficult and ends without much difficulty at all. I played through the game three times, three ways: 1) with powers on normal difficulty, 2) no powers, perfect stealth on very hard difficulty, and 3) with powers, perfect stealth, no killing on normal difficulty. One would expect the difficulty to skyrocket in those last two runs, but it really didn't. No matter how you play, the enemy AI (while astonishingly able to alter their routes if they become suspicious) is remarkably unaware and there are enough high places for you to be able to avoid enemies altogether even without powers. For a stealth game to lack challenge is quite a misstep, but I can't deny that it was still thrilling regardless.
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There has been a lot of negativity in this review thus far, but the topic that logically follows at this point is something that Dishonored 2 actually does quite well: the gameplay itself (I mean, if you have to choose one thing to get right...). As I've made a point of saying, I've played through Dishonored 2 as both Corvo and Emily, and what character you'll want to play as will depend on how you want to play, as there aren't any significant differences in the story depending on the character. Corvo has the same powers he had in the original game, so if you are familiar with their operation, you will feel comfortable in his shoes. However, in a pleasant turn of events, Corvo seems to have much greater freedom of mobility in Dishonored 2 than he did in the original. This is due in part to the added verticality, but power usage feels much smoother as well. I could never really feel excited about using powers in the original, but in Dishonored 2 I had a great time leaping from great heights, having time stop as I aimed my blink power in midair, and landing without a scratch thanks to my careful execution. I cannot say for sure whether or not this same sense of mobility was present in the original because I never felt that there was a chance to really test it. In Dishonored 2, however, there are plenty of opportunities to experiment with using your powers to get from one area to another.
With Emily, there is less sense of mobility, but it is easier to handle enemies on the ground level. Your powers are as follows: Far Reach, Doppleganger, Mesmerize, Dark Vision, Shadow Walk, and my favorite: Domino. Far Reach is essentially blink albeit with significantly less range and much slower. Doppleganger summons another you to distract enemies, and I wouldn't know if it is useful or not because I didn't even use it once. Mesmerize takes over the attention of nearby enemies, allowing you to walk freely without being noticed by them. Dark Vision is the same as the Corvo version. Shadow Walk lets you walk in plain sight and assassinate/knock out enemies provided you don't get too close. Lastly, Domino links the fate of up to four enemies. This means that if you kill one enemy, the other linked enemies will die as well. If you knock an enemy out, then if you have any enemies linked, they will also lose consciousness.
Let me say this: If you are planning on using powers and playing stealthily, play as Emily. If you are planning on using powers and playing with kind of a mixed style, play as Corvo. If you are planning on eschewing powers altogether, it is better overall narrative if you play as Emily, but I would still suggest you play as Corvo because he is the better character and voice actor of the two.
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Arkane Studios really seems to have a knack for recruiting a combination of bad voice actors and well-known celebrities who say two lines. It was an issue in Dishonored (as really the highlight of the voice acting was Chloe Grace-Moritz as Emily, and this was in a game with the likes of Susan Sarandon and Lena Heady) and it is still an issue here. Corvo is now fully voiced by the man who played Nick Valentine in Fallout 4 and the likes of Lucan Valerius in Skyrim. He isn't incredible in this role, but he does his best with the lackluster dialogue he is given. Emily on the other hand...*exhales through clenched teeth*...she is just generic. Not necessarily bad, just generic. I suppose one can argue that Corvo's gritty voice is just as generic. The difference, however, is that he doesn't sound like other gritty voice actors. Emily's actress cannot say the same of her performance. Like in the original, there are also a few well-known actors who have two lines apiece. Vincent D'Onofrio, The Kingpin from the Netflix show Daredevil plays the Duke of Serkonos, for instance, and Pedro Pascal (Oberyn Martell from Game of Thrones) plays Paolo, the leader of the howler gang. I hear that Sam Rockwell is also a big deal, but nothing he has done comes to mind. He is in the game for something like two minutes anyway, so if he is a big deal it doesn't mean anything to Arkane. The only noteworthy performance out of this ensemble was D'Onofrio, as he actually did a somewhat decent job in his role. Moving right along.
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One thing that I didn't particularly enjoy about the original but did find somewhat endearing was its art style. Nobody can say that the art style in Dishonored wasn't unique. I didn't really like it, but I appreciated the effort that Arkane studios put in to make their game world look unlike any other. In Dishonored 2, Arkane studios eschews the canvas painting art style of the original and instead introduces a new art style that is simultaneously more realistic and more vibrant without sacrificing the world's unique appearance. Rest assured that characters in Dishonored 2 look just as odd as they did in the original.
Part of why I enjoyed this new art style better is that it allows for better lighting. In the original, I remember all of the environments looking flat despite obviously being rendered in 3D. Something about that canvas style made it so that the in-game depth perception left something to be desired (which is one of the reasons why I still hold that it couldn't be considered a great stealth game). You may be wondering what lighting has to do with this. The answer is simple: lighting affects shadow and these two working together makes up the world's perceivable depth. Without the contrast everything appears to be a single surface. Now, obviously I'm exaggerating a little bit about the original. I don't mean to say it actually looked 2D, but the fact remains that the canvas style produced incredibly flat lighting that had a negative impact on the visuals. The art style in Dishonored 2 produces lighting that reaches varying distances and that has varying degrees of intensity, and the world feels much more real as a direct result.
Earlier I made a snarky comment about characters looking just as strange as in the original, and anybody who has played the original knows exactly what I'm talking about. This is one area in which I have always given Dishonored credit: Not a single character has a conventional look. Every character you meet has an unusual face of some kind and body types can be borderline cartoonish in certain cases. Neither men nor women meet conventional standards of beauty, and I find that fascinating. It adds to that unique aesthetic that Dishonored has always had. Even with this new art style, characters still have a unique look to them.
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There is, however, an area in which Dishonored 2 sometimes surpasses its predecessor and sometimes is inferior: its performance. The original ran like crap almost all the time. There were framerate drops constantly, textures wouldn't load sometimes, issues like that. There are definitely framerate drops in Dishonored 2, so don't get me wrong, but they occur much less frequently. In addition, with the possible exception of a series of posters I happened to see, textures never once popped in for me. In areas like this, Dishonored 2 is absolutely an improvement over the original. However, I don't remember the original ever crashing on me. I have heard reports of people experiencing quite a few crashes, and I experienced two myself. Autosaves are frequent enough that they were never actually anything other than a minor annoyance, but I still think you ought to know that going in.
Another odd technical curiosity is Dishonored 2's sound design. The sound of your sword is fantastic; it is sharp and sudden when it clangs against metal, there is a realistic rubbing sound as you lock swords with an enemy, that kind of thing. However, that is about the only bit of sound that is done well. Your gun, for instance, sounds completely muted, which makes it hard to get excited to use it. Footsteps are also oddly designed, which is a serious misstep in a stealth game. If you sit and listen to footsteps while you're in a building, you have no way of knowing whether or not the steps are coming from above you, below you, your same floor, or even a building next door. After a while you get used to not using the sound of footsteps to make plans, but you shouldn't have to disregard sound in a game like this. There are also more minor audio glitches that don't affect gameplay, but do take away from the immersion factor, such as dialogue and music suddenly stopping when you turn your head away from it and cutting back in when you turn your head once again.
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It feels like I've been saying this a lot in my reviews lately, but I went into this review with no idea of what kind of score I was going to give Dishonored 2. On one hand, it is definitely more enjoyable than the original and does many things better. On the other hand, however, there are also aspects of it that are unforgivable. I started writing this review a few weeks ago and decided to put it away to let my thoughts settle before I went into scoring. Having done that, I am sad to say that, despite its many victories, Dishonored 2 is not a game that gets better the more I think about it. On the contrary, the more I think about, the more little nitpicks and flaws I come across and the lesser my overall opinion becomes. Let me be entirely clear: I believe Dishonored 2 is worth your money. I believe that if you enjoy stealth games like I do, you are in for a good time with this game provided you give it the time it requires. If the negatives I've listed don't really bother you all that much, then by all means, go out and buy Dishonored 2 as fast as you can. I can guarantee that if these flaws don't turn you away then you are going to have a great time. If you are more like me, however, I would say to hold off until the price drops. Even if its as small as drop as to $50, that is worth it. Dishonored 2 is fun and despite its flaws I got three runs in. There is something to be said for a game that pulls that kind of thing off. If Arkane Studios is reading this (hahaha), then this would be my advice for Dishonored 3, if such a thing is going to happen: Keep on investing time in level design and world building, but also invest some time in the story. Try and craft a conflict that the player actively struggles against throughout...and please take some dialogue writing classes.
At this point I have calculated the score...and I am disappointed. Here is the thing: I've been developing a set of rules for my Game of the Year award this year. One such rule I've come up with is that a game is only eligible to be on my actual GOTY list itself, meaning the final and most important list of them all, if I gave it at least an 8 (the lowest score that earns a game the rank of "good"). I've tried to arrange the point subtractions for Dishonored 2 many different ways, but every way I've tried that is still honest puts it below an 8. Therefore, I am sorry to say it, but Dishonored 2 will not be on the final list.

Let us review:
Weak story and writing - 0.5
Technical Issues (including audio)- 0.8
Lack of difficulty - 0.5
Terrible first few missions - 1.0

The final score for Dishonored 2 is...
7.2/10 - Ok
Maybe next time, Arkane Studios, maybe next time.