As the first mission proper of the game and with tutorials out of the way, this is a very strong thesis statement. The Distillery District is decently sized, with optional sub-worlds you can stumble upon or be sent to as part of a side-quest, with an emphasis on verticality and an open approach to how you reach and complete the objective. It supports heavy usage of even powers that the first-time player might not find appealing as an early purchase, such as Possession. As an introduction to the world of Dishonored and the series it is a success, right down to the mix of grimy, rat-infested side streets, brutalist but opulent halls of power, and the disease and inequality afflicting Dunwall.
The subtle, but major change in how you
are playing the game (beyond getting your powers from the Outsider)
is that your direction of travel is reversed. You’re no longer
trying to get out – now you want to get in. In other words the
process of player and avatar empowerment that is often presented in
immersive sims begins not only with you getting new verbs with your
power set, but in the way you are interacting with the world – as
an aggressor and instigator rather than reactively as an escapee. And
of course combining the powers aids the sense of mastering a space
which is important in these kinds of games – Blinking into a dog
pen, flicking the door release, possessing the resident dog and then
just running (as the dog) past the guards outside to escape is one
high point.
This shift to ingress and instigation
is fundamental to the push and pull between the player and
the game. I have a lot of choices in where to be pulled towards.
Toward the Wall of Light and the guards on duty there, the Bottle
Street guys outside Granny Rags’ house, or in the case of my most recent playthrough, up along the rooftops and into the window of Granny’s house.
She asks for my help getting rid of those same “gentleman callers”.
Another small pull. The push is then me knocking out one of them from
above and causing enough of a ruckus that the guards run over from
the Wall of Light and get into a lethal fight with the street toughs,
while I Blink away and let the guards do my work for me. I’ve
pushed the game’s systems and AI into resolving my side quest in a
way that feels completely incidental and all my own.
The level leads you to one building – in fact, one room. But it has a great many large streets and routes across the roofs that can be your path there. These paths vary greatly in terms of their verticality, the stories told along them, how challenging you might find them, the tools, abilities and approaches you might feel are suitable, and in the treasure you find along the way. You can explore everything or pick one route, sneaking or fighting your way through the streets.
A highlight was the fact that doing
this today felt almost like a new level compared to my first time
playing the game. With only Blink and Dark Vision, the first time
felt quite challenging. It consisted of me learning about walls of
light, powering down or rewiring whale oil-based security systems,
avoiding alarms and dealing with guards, and meanwhile Dr. Galvani’s
house had no context as I had not found Granny Rags further down the
street. This was followed by some pretty challenging stealth to get
past John Clavering Boulevard.
This time there was none of that. I Blinked along the rooftops, over most of the area save the trip to Galvani's, helped Granny poison a still and made a break for the High Overseer’s compound when the nearby guards got into a fight with some rats. After that, having Possession made it much easier to get to the Overseer in the form of a rat myself.
The elimination itself is very important, as it represents how the key targets in these games can be dealt with. You can either kill them with your knife, gun, crossbow, some kind of mine or device or one of your powers, or arrange for an even more grisly fate by combining your abilities and the level itself - or the old favourite of waiting until they shoot at you then possessing them and walking them in front of their own bullet.
Or you can pursue a "non-lethal" alternative. This is usually the way to get the most out of the level and see the stories of the characters play out in interesting ways. They usually take the form of side quests which you can have as objectives on your HUD if you want. You might arrange for someone to be condemned, or made destitute, or shipped to another country in an unconscious state. None of these options are gentle or kindly, and it would almost always be more kindly to give the target a quick death (with a couple of notable exceptions in Dishonored 2). The non-lethal option for Thaddeus Campbell involves rendering him unconscious somehow and using the Abbey's Heretic's Brand to strip him of his office and make him a pariah to all of society. If you do this, you will be able to see him in a later level - it transpires that he eventually caught the plague as a result of being outlawed.
One of your new friends at the Hound Pits pub, Callista Curnow, has asked you to spare her uncle who is a captain in the city watch. When you arrive in Campbell's suites you will be able to observe Campbell attempting to poison Curnow. I had switched the glasses so he fatally poisoned himself instead of Curnow the first time round, but this time I wanted to go the non-lethal route of branding him a heretic. However I ended up finding out that if you Blink behind Campbell as he reaches for the drinks and choke him out, the attendant Captain Curnow will panic, pull his pistol and fire, assassinating the High Overseer currently in your chokehold for you.
It reminded me that while you can play
Dishonored a bit like Portal – relying on that signature ability
(Blink instead of the Portal gun) to traverse spaces and get to your
objective – the game is often at its best when you just roll with the punches and see what weird stuff happens. Because often, the developers thought of it and have a treat in store for you - or the very sophisticated systems powering the game will enable some kind of wonderful emergent solution.
Significantly, while the tutorial level
may give the impression of a stealth game like Thief which was
referred to as a major influence by Arkane, the assault on the High
Overseer seems built to demonstrate how many ways there are to
complete the missions.
Non-lethal solution:
(Optional: Overhear overseers talking about branding heretics)
Pick up the Branding Instructions from the library or interrogation room
Knock out Campbell
Place him in the interrogation chair and brand him
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