Dunwall Diaries

The Dishonored series has a great track record of reusing levels and adding fresh context, challenge and narrative import. We've seen Corvo go back to Dunwall Tower and find it has become a darkly brooding hulk of militarised authoritarianism rather than the stately venue for painters and courtiers it was on his visit at the beginning of the original game, despite it being the same architecture. We've then seen it become a raucous house party for the Brigmore Witches, who moved in and treated it with the respect a horde of teenagers would their hapless friends' parents' house the weekend after finishing their GCSEs. But I don't think there is another example in the series of a location feeling as defiled, as violated as the Royal Conservatory does here. To be fair, it was already in a state of takeover when Emily Kaldwin visited and eliminated Breanna Ashworth in Dishonored 2. But the witches had made it a sort of home and hangout, after a fashion. As bloodthirsty a...

The Bank Job is Death of the Outsider's centrepiece and maybe its most famous level. Having cased the joint in Follow the Ink, Billie is ready to break in and steal the only weapon capable of killing the outsider. She leaves Daud aboard The Dreadful Wale, sat on deck in the spot where Billie, as Meagan Foster, once conspired with Aramis Stilton and Emily Kaldwin to take down Luca Abele . Then it's off to the Dolores Michaels Bank, already sighted and possibly visited during Follow the Ink , for a mission that recalls the classic First City Bank and Trust from Thief II. The choice to re-use the entirety of the map from Follow the Ink, right down to the same black market (featuring a new shopkeep if you robbed it on the previous visit) has the effect of arming you with environmental knowledge and being comfortable with traversal, so you can approach the bank with confidence. This reminded me of Thief II also - a brace of late-game missions literally called 'Casing the Joint...

The Outsider is the only true assassination target in this game, and is uniquely able to immediately take an interest in Daud and Billie's mission and talk directly to them. He appears in Billie's cabin, taking her eye and right forearm from her again and replacing them with a Sliver (of what will become clear later) and the Black Shard Arm respectively. These gifts grant Billie the powers she'll use for the rest of the game. Displace is her version of Blink, Foresight is an out-of-body version of Dark Vision, and Semblance lets Billie disguise herself as any NPC she can get close enough to, for a time. The Black Shard Arm communes directly with the Void, removing the need for Billie to refill her mana with Addermire Solution or Piero's Spiritual Remedy and regenerating it after a short time instead. This contributes hopefully to a faster paced and more experimental approach, as players no longer need to worry about resource management where powers are concerned. Daud h...

While their actions catalyse the events of the main games, the Dishonored DLCs and this expansion-priced stand-alone tell the stories of who Daud and Billie Lurk are as people, from their perspectives. You can see how they became the people who would change the fates of Dunwall's royals forever, but you see that only after the fact. Daud sets the events of Dishonored in motion by assassinating Jessamine Kaldwin - then we see a path to redemption for him in The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches, when he saves another Empress without her ever knowing. Billie Lurk was his accomplice as well as becoming involved with Delilah long before the coup, and is a crucial ally to Corvo and Emily under the guise of Meagan Foster. Only after Delilah has been defeated once more and the Kaldwins restored to power in Gristol are we put in Billie's shoes and offered a chance to see the world from her eyes.  A street urchin who fell in with Daud for survival more than anything else...

Dishonored 2's final level's central message is not subtle. At the beginning of the game you descended from a great height, perhaps as a whirlwind of vengeful bloodshed, perhaps as a shadow flitting from doorway to doorway. Now you'll climb back to where you started, and again the choice of violence or evasion is yours. You might find your playstyle causes you to consider how your approach has changed. Did you take care to avoid casualties when leaving Dunwall, only to have found by your return that the most straightforward route to victory really does lie along a blade? Did you leave bodies in your wake before, but come to shun collateral damage after seeing how much misery had already been allowed to build up throughout the Empire of the Isles during the Kaldwins' reign? Death to the Empress actually contains a version of the map for A Long Day in Dunwall as well as a new rendering of the Return to the Tower map from the original game. On this visit the tower and su...

After his appearance on the anniversary of Jessamine Kaldwin's death to bring Delilah's coup to fruition, Duke Luca Abele has been a near-constant presence throughout Dishonored 2. His voice is heard from loudspeakers as you explore Karnaca's streets, and the advanced state of dereliction in several areas is made clear to be due to his mismanagement of the country's economy. The protagonist has walked through choking dust in the streets of Batista as the Duke, via the loudspeaker, extols the land of riches he perceives as he looks out from his mansion. As corrupt and negligent as he is vainglorious and egocentric, he personifies the truth that in every hungry country you will find a well-fed king. The wages of Delilah's coup and the instruments she has used to make it happen are among other things the further empowerment of the hollow, self-centred man that is the Duke. A note found earlier in the game even reveals Delilah's delight at Luca Abele's penchant ...