I went into Dishonored expecting an action adventure title
heavily focused on stealth mechanics. What I found was a game full of possibilities,
with a series of focused missions and beautifully crafted levels including
whole mixture of gameplay throughout.
Set in the steam-punk city of Dunwall, the game opens with
your return to the city. You had been sent out by the Empress to find a cure
for her citizens who have been blighted by a mysterious plague. However things
quickly go wrong; as you report in, the Empress is assassinated before you. As
her bodyguard, your left helpless by the assassin’s magic at the scene of the
crime to be framed for her murder.
Thankfully a group of Loyalists are all too aware of the foul
play and help you escape prison, which doubles as the game’s tutorial zone. The
mechanics for stealth and line of sight are fairly straight forward. Crouching
reduces the chance your chance of being seen and clear areas of light and dark
highlight the best places to hide. If a guard detects your movements or an
unexpected noise, his alertness is clearly displayed. So you can react before
being discovered. And with the basics explained, you begin your mission to
escape to the Loyalist hideout. You quickly learn that you’re the key to
restoring the young Lady Emily, daughter of the Empress to the throne.
Right from the start you can choose your approach to the
game. Each enemy can be stealthily knocked unconscious or assassinated by a
swift blade to the throat. Equally, you can go toe-to-toe with guards and lock
swords, using brute force to progress.
The sword mechanics are kept simple with just a swing and
parry. Deflecting an opponent’s blow gives you the opportunity to land a killer
lunge. And if you’re overly aggressive, you
leave yourself venerable to counter attacks, as well as further guards
responding to the disturbance. The AI is smart enough to fight you at both
close and long range, so a group of enemies can quickly become deadly. As you progress through the game you acquire
an array of weapons and gadgets to hold in your other hand, which range from a
versatile crossbow to grenades. Either looted from the bodies of your victims
or bought from Piero, a friendly engineer who can also craft you upgrades.
But not everything in Dunwall is as it seems. On the night
of your escape, the Outsider reveals himself. A supernatural being, that looks
like he is part of a rebellious boy band from another dimension. Having taken
an interest in your activities, he bestows you with a number of gifts for your
journey. This includes the ability to blink across large distances. Allowing
you to scale tall buildings, adding a vertical element to every level. You also
gain heart fused with whale bone. An odd creation allows you to find runes and
bone charms belonging to the Outsider. Runes can be spent on unlocking extra
powers such as time manipulation, while bone charms give small passive bonuses.
You can also listen to the voice trapped inside the heart, as it reveals hidden
truths about the world.
Rather than being an open world, the story provides the
framework for a series of missions. Each is set in a lovingly crafted level,
with multiple routes and secrets to find. There are often side quests to find
and interact with. Some span multiple levels and give you further insight into
the city of Dunwall. The story is well paced, with three distinct acts. It did
use a few typical plot elements, although these weren’t the ones I was
expecting. The characters are well
defined in the main story, and there are plenty of additional conversations you
can have which add to the richness of the world.
How you approach each mission is entirely up to you, and to a
point defines the difficulty of the game. It’s possible to evade a lot of the
guards in the game, leaping from one shadow to another. Alternatively, you can
go in with the goal of assassinating every guard in murderous revenge. The game adapts to your play-style with minor
adjustments. As I chose to kill any guard in my way, I found in later levels that
guards discussed my lethality and doubled their patrols. Your actions also
define the ending in a similar manner to the original Bioshock; with small
changes to the ending cut scene, but unlike Bioshock. Dishonored keeps you
updated and the end of every level on the chaos you’ve caused. So you can track
your progress if you want to aim for particular conclusion.
The design of Dunwall is fantastic and the team behind it
deserve some praise. Each level is a distinct area of the city and provides the
variety needed for the gameplay choices. The colour pallet used is eye
catching. Rather than using the shades of grey and brown that has been a staple
of the generation. There’s excellent use of sunset yellows and oranges which
makes the game stand out from the aesthetics of other games.
Depending on your approach to the game, it can be a lengthy
title or rather brief. Again this is defined by your approach to the game, so the
choice is yours. It is a wonderfully focused adventure and Arkane Studios have
created a fantastic world in the city of Dunwall. The only faults of the game
are a lack of combat options for non-lethal play, and slightly awkward climbing
if you use blink to reach a ledge. I found I didn’t always grab onto roofs as I
expected and ended up having to re-load or use up more mana elixirs to avoid
some nasty falls.
There’s plenty of scope for expansion to the existing story,
and Arkane have already been busy working on DLC. My hope is they use the world
they’ve created as the setting for future titles, as there are plenty more
stories to be told in Dunwall.
