I finished Dishonored 2.
It’s a good game. I think it was made by a number of the people that worked on the original Thief games. It’s mainly a stealth game, but they give you a lot of options to just run around and slaughter everyone directly.
Focusing on the negatives, there were so many items and powerups, I felt like I rarely used them. It’s much more fun to sneak up and stab/choke someone. You have to find and steal money/valuables and then you can buy items and powerups. So it kind of feels like a pointless cycle. Most of the time I spent on the game was looking for loot, which was really only useful for buying stuff I didn’t use.
The problem with games like this as tech has advanced is that everything looks good. In old games, it was easier to pick out what items you could interact with. This game, everything looks realistic, so you spend a lot more time scanning the envrionment.
The game had a couple of really interesting levels. One was a house that had switches that re-arranged the rooms. Another highlight was a level that used time travel. But the game was bogged down by a lot of street levels. Most missions involve walking from the street to the actual destination. The streets felt bland, with random windows and doors that would open and others randomly closed off. The actual destinations felt much better and toughtfully designed.
One aspect that they did worse than the original Thief games was knowing when your character was exposed. Thief used the ‘visibility gem’. In this game, you never were certain that you were actually hidden. Being at a higher level usually was enough. Often it felt cheap when you were sitting in broad daylight a few feet above a guard and they couldn’t see you.
While the game controlled well, there were also some weird physics glitches. You want to hide your bodies, but if you dropped a body anywhere near wood or glass it seemed like it would shatter alerting all nearby guards.
But it really was a good game. It’s quite old, releasing in 2016. I think there was one expansion, but otherwise I haven’t heard if they’re doing anything more with the series.
