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Dishonored: Mission 7, "The Flooded District"

Having been betrayed by the loyalists, Corvo finds himself poisoned and left for dead, eventually retrieved by the assassins of Daud, who deposit him in a boarded over pit. You begin with your assassin's blade, crossbows, pistol and traps and so on taken away.

This is probably one of my favourite versions of the old trope in games where you get captured and all your stuff is gone. Reason being, Corvo can still use his powers, so if you've been finding runs you are a pretty big problem even without your gear.

This could go two ways. If you have an arsenal of powers, you might end up having a lot of fun finding new ways to use them. If you haven't been diligent in finding runes, this is going to be a challenging area. I remember the first time I played this mission it took me a long time to get my gear, for exactly that reason. This time it was done very quickly by possessing first Daud's assassins and then some hagfish to get past everything.

However, it is a pretty noticeable uptick in hostility either way. Making a point not to reload when things go south, the first half of this level was like going through an area in Dark Souls. You are frequently under attack, and should be assessing each street, corner and rooftop carefully. There's assassins on the rooftops, weepers on the streets, and the river krusts waiting to reduce your health to a pip if you're not careful when you exit the water.

The level's thesis seems to be to encourage you to constantly be adapting your playstyle as you are threatened from all directions, and with Daud's forces in play staying above the enemy is not as straightforward as usual. If you decide not to worry about blowing through some of your resources, this will be a much more rewarding experience too - blowing up the river krusts with grenades is quite a bit of fun. Then Daud's base feels like it is encouraging you to be stealthy and gives you plenty of opportunity to do so, followed by a more action-packed journey through the sewers.

The storylines of two central antagonists reach their denouement here, with Daud as the main target and an optional boss fight with Granny Rags. Stopping time to try and grab Daud's stuff only for him to say (in Michael Madsen's gravelly voice), "nice try, Corvo" and engage you anyway is an extremely cool moment, and he is a pretty tough cookie. He managed to kill me, and eventually I went and just grabbed his stuff and Blinked away - which feels more proper given the events of later games. Granny is a fun fight as well, as if you wish to take her down you'll have to stay on the move as she summons carpets of rats to harry you while you try and burn her cameo and banish her.

With this being a critical point in the story, starting in the streets of Dunwall and working back through the sewers to the Hound's Pits is a pretty good structure for the mission. Likewise the mix of wide open spaces where you can easily get spotted, and a few tight corridors and vertical areas to traverse keeps the play varied and generally challenging. For a seventh mission of nine, it certainly has the feeling of escalating in terms of what it is asking you to do, as compared to the previous one which was more of a playground for whatever style you preferred.

NB: Don't miss Campbell if you chose to get him branded earlier on...

Non-lethal solution:
Wait until Daud has finished talking and Blink behind him to take his pouch, and get the key from the desk before Blinking back out of sight before he turns round


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