Dissecting Dishonored 2 — Part 1: Is It A Retread Of The First Game, Though?
When Dishonored 2 was released in November 2016, my anticipation was through the roof. I played the first Dishonored two years ago and was instantly hooked. I loved the characters, the worldbuilding, the level design, the sheer number of ways a mission could be completed, and the execution of the game’s themes of power and corruption. The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches, two-part DLCs for the game were even better, and made me very optimistic about the direction the series seemed to be heading in.
At the time, I did not have a PC that could handle the game, so I watched a nine hour-long Low Chaos run with Emily. I was really impressed with the game’s art direction, visuals, level design and the increased options for non-lethal playstyles. But ultimately, I came away feeling underwhelmed. At the time, I assumed that maybe I just needed to play it for myself and then it would all fall into place. In 2018, I was finally able to do so. The game is immensely fun to play, and I played it a lot. But I still mostly felt underwhelmed.
And despite this, I’ve played the game start to finish four times now. I’m probably going to play it again. I do like this game on the whole. But it is undeniably flawed, and it saddens me that the best way to enjoy this game in the series I love is to skip the story and enjoy the game. So, why do I think the game is disappointing enough to merit a piece like this? In this series, I’m going to go over the game, and discuss its themes, what I think the creators’ intentions were, how well I think its execution was, defenses of aspects of the game I initially disliked but now have come to understand and appreciate and some aspects that I think sink the game.
I’m also going to treat Emily as the de-facto protagonist of Dishonored 2. While the game does account for playing as Corvo in substantial ways, I firmly believe that this game is Emily’s story first and foremost, and will be writing these pieces with that in mind. Additionally, everything here is my opinion. I’m basing this on the text and subtext of the game, but fully welcome any disagreements of anything I say here. I love talking about this game and want to keep doing that.
In this piece, I’m going to break down the complaints that Dishonored 2 is a retread of the first game. The TLDR version is that I don’t think that this complaint is exactly valid, and I’d argue that the game might have been better if it borrowed more the first one.
The Story
For recap purposes, here’s a summary of the plot of Dishonored 2.
The game opens on the anniversary of Empress Jessamine Kaldwin’s death, the incident that kicked off the first game. Emily is deposed in a coup spearheaded by Delilah Copperspoon, the antagonist of the two-part DLC for the first game. After a brief stint of imprisonment, she escapes Dunwall, the capital of the Empire of the Isles and arrives at Karnaca, the Jewel of the South where all of Delilah’s most important allies are situated to piece together how Delilah escaped her confinement in the Void at the end of The Brigmore Witches and to find out how to defeat Delilah and reclaim her throne.
Delilah has accomplished the seemingly impossible feat of escaping from the Void, and is now seemingly immortal, and has removed the Outsider’s Mark from Corvo, something not even the Outsider, the embodiment of the Void, has previously done. Emily is also visited by the Outsider and has the choice of accepting or rejecting his Mark. Now empowered with supernatural abilities, Emily stalks the streets of Karnaca. The game follows a set pattern, similar to the first game. Each of Delilah’s allies holds a piece of the puzzle. Go to the level where they’re situated, investigate it and them and neutralize them.
Once Emily has worked out how Delilah escaped from the Void, what her motivations are (she wants to kill the Outsider and take his place), and how to neutralize her (she has essentially made this universe’s version of a Horcrux from Harry Potter), she returns to a dramatically altered Dunwall to confront Delilah in a reversal of the first level. Delilah must first be reunited with the piece of her she removed, to be made mortal again. She can then be eliminated lethally or non-lethally by trapping her in the enchanted painting she created in which she is the on the receiving end of adulation from scores of her subjects. Depending on the player’s chaos level and choice, Emily frees Corvo from his stony form and reassumes her role as Empress. An epilogue slideshow plays based on which targets the player killed or neutralized, and the credits roll.
Why It’s Not Exactly A Rehash of Dishonored
A common complaint of the game is that it is a rehash of the revenge story of Dishonored with the antagonist of the DLCs, right down to the ‘trapped in a painting’ non-lethal solution for dealing with her. I’d argue that this isn’t entirely true, for a few reasons. Firstly, and not to be too pedantic, but Dishonored isn’t really a revenge story, but more of a critique of a quest for revenge. Simply put, the first game’s tagline is ‘Revenge Solves Everything’, but the game’s message is the opposite. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Dishonored 2 isn’t a revenge story, does it?
Dishonored 2 Is Not A Revenge Story
I think Dishonored 2 is much more explicitly not a revenge story than the first game. A good point of contrast between the two games to illustrate this is the non-lethal elimination methods. In Dishonored, the non-lethal eliminations were often grislier than a quick death, and were all poetic justice in one way or another. Hypocritical religious figure High Overseer Campbell gets branded as a heretic and is cast out onto the plague-ridden streets. The corrupt and debauched Pendleton twins are kidnapped, have their tongues removed and are forced forever to work in the salt mines they own amongst their slaves who work there. Hiram Burrows, the Regent and architect of the game’s events simply has his crimes exposed and is arrested for them. It’s like a twisted fairy tale.
The nonlethal eliminations in the second game are more restorative, about fixing something gone wrong, than revenge and are on the whole generally less cruel. The Crown Killer is neutralized by curing her condition. Breanna Ashworth has her supernatural abilities taken away, and while she is distraught about this, she is otherwise alive and unhurt. Duke Luca Abele is framed as his double gone insane, and is replaced the more down-to-earth body double. Knocking out Aramis Stilton vastly improves conditions in the Dust District and prevents Billie Lurk from losing her arm and eye. Even the cruelest neutralization, wiping Kirin Jindosh’s mind clean with electroshock, comes across as more preventative than personal revenge. The final target, Delilah herself gets a very kind fate, all things considered, unknowingly trapped in a painting that realizes all her dreams.
Lighter Versus Bleaker
Another point of contrast between the two games is the overall tone of their settings. Dunwall is not so much a city on the brink of collapse as it is a city that is in the process of that collapse. Karnaca, by comparison, is doing a lot better. There isn’t a complete breakdown of law and order. Very few houses are abandoned because of the dust storms or bloodfly infestations. The harbour is wide open at the beginning of the game and continues to be, unlike the blockade in the first game. The crises befalling Karnaca during the game are much milder too. Unlike the rat plague of the first game which was specifically introduced with the goal of causing death, the bloodfly infestation in this game is just ‘worse than usual this year’. The Dust Storms in the Dust District are a regular occurrence too. Neither of these problems seem posed to become an existential threat to the city. Even the worst endings for Karnaca where all the key figures are eliminated and the city descends into chaos doesn’t seem as visceral and precarious as Dunwall in the first game.
I believe that this lighter-and-softer approach was intentionally realized to throw the actions of corruption and malfeasance in the game into sharper relief. Officers of the City Watch in Dunwall extorting citizens for health elixirs was relatively understandable, given the severity of the plague outbreak in the city. In contrast, members of the Grand Guard abusing their power seems a lot less sympathetic. Two of the ills plaguing the city are entirely man-made and preventable: the dust storms in the Dust District and the misrule of Luca Abele. The player themselves can get in on this: robbing the Black Market shops, and specifically the one shopkeeper in [district] who you see being threatened by the Howler Gang.
That’s not to say that I think that this lighter tone was well-executed. I do appreciate the intentions behind this decision and think it complements the story well. But I think there are also some problems here with conflicts in this tone that I will cover in a later part.
Loyal Allies and No Climactic Mid-Game Confrontation
Another element that makes the story of Dishonored 2 less cynical than the first is that Emily isn’t betrayed by her allies halfway through the game like Corvo is in Dishonored. In Dishonored, this leads to the Flooded District level, and the confrontation with Daud, the killer of the Empress which in my opinion is the high point of the game. Daud is the only target in the first game for whom the non-lethal elimination is a genuine act of mercy. I genuinely believe that the choice to spare or kill Daud does more to characterize Corvo’s arc through the game than any voicework could. And I believe that Dishonored 2’s lack of confrontation with a Daud-like figure, the executor of the main villain’s plan, or indeed the lack of such a figure hamstrings the game. Emily does have some back-and-forth with Delilah later in the game, but it doesn’t have the same immediacy and impact that Corvo and Daud’s confrontation had. Corvo has a very immediate, very personal reason to want Daud dead. Since Delilah doesn’t really kill Corvo, that same anger isn’t there. The lack of a Flooded District-type level in Dishonored 2 is a definite point of contrast from the first, but unlike the change in the tone with respect to revenge or bleakness, unfortunately Dishonored 2 doesn’t look good coming out of this one.
A Lack Of Urgency
Dishonored 2’s main objective each level has you piecing together how Delilah escaped from the Void, and why she’s now apparently unkillable. In Dishonored 2, the events you’re investigating have already happened. Delilah already escaped from the Void and has deposed Emily. On the surface, this is similar to the first game. That game has Corvo dealing with the fallout of being framed for the Empress’s murder, something that happens right that the beginning just like Dishonored 2, but there are some key differences.
Firstly, in the opening of Dishonored, Emily is taken away, and rescuing her is the driving force of the first two main missions. The analogue of this in the second game would be dealing with the Crown Killer, but the game puts nowhere near the game effort in getting the player invested in that storyline. Another distinction that I’ve noticed is that in Dishonored, excluding Lady Boyle and Daud, all the other targets have only recently come into their new positions of power because of the Empress’ death. This makes neutralizing these targets retribution for the game’s opening in a way that Dishonored 2 cannot do. In 2, the positions of power the targets hold have nothing to do with Delilah deposing Emily, which means that taking this power away from them doesn’t have that same sense of justice.
In the first game, the aim of neutralizing most of the targets is for your allies to take their place, supposedly to make it easier to restore Emily to the throne. The consequences of your eliminations are felt. In the second game, once a level is dealt with, the consequences of your actions there are not brought up in any tangible way whatsoever outside of the epilogue. The Aramis Stilton level is the only exception.
Once again, the lack of a mid-game plot twist like in the first game robs Dishonored 2 of a sense of urgency. I don’t mean to say that I wish that Dishonored 2 outright copied every element of the story of the first game, but the absence of this development is felt in 2 as much as its presence would have been remarked on, in my opinion, making me wonder if it might not have been better to simply add that plot development too, perhaps subverting it like the game does with the other elements it borrows from the first game. Dishonored’s final levels felt urgent and climactic because Emily’s life was at stake. Dishonored 2 doesn’t have high stakes like this in its final confrontation. Emily confronts Delilah at the end of the game now knowing how she returned from the Void, and how to render her mortal again, and that’s that.
Conclusion
In this part, I wanted to look closely at the complaints many people had (including me) that Dishonored 2 is a retread of the first Dishonored. I think that while there’s no denying that Dishonored 2 has the exact same premise as the first game, it is also a subversion of the first game in its tone and approach to its targets, something that I’ve come to appreciate. There’s also the fact that Dishonored 2 doesn’t go far enough in being a retread of the first game, lacking the mid-game plot-twist that the first game has, the absence of which in 2 I’m conflicted about. The lack of a mid-game confrontation with a key figure highlights the absence of weight in the story. The game’s overall lack of urgency and high stakes, especially in the late-game is I think an unambiguously negative thing.
So, what choices could the developer have made to change this. It’s easy for an armchair analyzer like me to suggest fixes, which is why I’m hesitant to do so, but I think that this game is at its best when it acts as a response to the first game, mirroring it but with a different tone. I think it would have been interesting if Dishonored 2 had borrowed the structure of the first game completely, while also subverting character motivations and archetypes from the first game. The mid-game betrayal could be well-intentioned unlike the first game where it was motivated out of pure self-interest, for example. Emily could decide at the end that she doesn’t actually want her position back, perhaps. It’s very easy for me to suggest changes without fully understanding the development process of this game, but it might have made Dishonored 2 not just a retread of Dishonored, but a response to it.
In the next part, I’m going to be breaking down the comparisons between Dishonored 2 and the Dishonored two-part DLCs.
(Edit: Psych! It’s actually about Emily, and you can find it here)
