Arkane Dishonored 2 - Emily and Corvo's Serkonan Vacation

[Parabalus]

Finally finished this and it's a step up from Dishonored in pretty much every way, it's hard to imagine not liking this if you you were fond of the first game, well worth a buy.

Emily's new powers are brilliant, there is some really innovative level design and the game also seemed more difficult, guards spot you very fast and they reigned in the verticality a bit.

I didn't have any performance problems myself, but I dialed the graphics down from the start.

As a bonus, the guy who voices the penultimate villain plays Kingpin in the Netflix Daredevil, he's a joy to listen to.

 

[1451]

For me it seemed easier than the first game which I was playing on medium/normal while this I finished in hard mode. I remember reloading countless times after failures. In this one however, the bonecharms in combination with the powers made it easier. Not that it wasn't just as fun if not more, but it seemed easier to complete.
The time travel tool was good and I was disappointed they didn't use it more.

 

[RepHope]

I really enjoyed it. The gameplay, especially non-lethal, was a huge step up from the first. The levels were a lot of fun to roam around in, although Lady Boyce's party is still the best level in the series in my opinion. The only real downside was that the story was too close to the original, especially if you play as Corvo. Emily at least makes it a little different, since the aim is to take back your own power, not put someone else on the throne. Delilah didn't really interest me all that much, her "tragic" backstory just left me feeling bored.

I hope Arkane gets to make a third full game, looking forward to Death of the Outsider. Hopefully it will pave the way for the franchise to do something other than what's been done twice already.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Harvey already said in some interview that the whole story arc around Corvo-Emily-Billy-Daud-Outsider will find closure after Dishonored: DOTO. So if there will be a Dishonored 3, it will likely feature an entirely new cast and story premise.

 

[Drakron]

So if there will be a Dishonored 3

IF

Its going to be a Dishonored 3 and I am not going to say it will "feature an entirely new cast and story premise" because Dishonored 2 didnt, I would say its more likely it will reuse the same cast and overall story premise not because they want to do that but because they will be forced into doing that, just like Fallout 4 ended up being half-baked discarded ideas from Fallout 3.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

"forced into doing that" isn't the sense I got from all these years listening to Harvey.

Bethesda cares about the bottom line (profits), not about mingling in someone else's story.

 

[Zombra]

Eh, Dishonored 1 didn't exactly end on a cliffhanger. Unless this "closure" involves killing off the star characters, we'll see them again in any sequels.

 

[fantadomat]

Dishonored 3 you will take the role of the black incest tranny child of Corvo.Emily and the undead outsider.Fighting against yet another tyrannical white usurper that subjugate the working class minority.To be honest they are really crappy rulers,having two coup d'etat in 10 years is kind of lame.

 

[vortex]

I think either Corvo-Emily-Billy-Daud will become new Outsider.

 

[Drakron]

"forced into doing that" isn't the sense I got from all these years listening to Harvey.

And I long since learn to never believe what people say, its all about what is not being said.

"Forced" as in they arent going to keep Harvey for his handsome good looks or keep paying the studio salaries for no reason, they are going to keep producing games and when you have Fallout 4 were they used a discarded story concept from 3 by their own admission I dont think it was because they thought it was a good idea but rather because they had no choice but to come up with something to get the game development going.

Unless he pulls a Levine and walks out ... Zenimax isnt going to paying his "art" and I dont think Harvey have any illusions that Zenimax expects the studio to keep a output, not subsidize their digital arts projects.

Bethesda cares about the bottom line (profits), not about mingling in someone else's story.

I think you very deluded about that, something like what happened with Bioware Montreal aint going to happen with Arkane, of course nobody is going to say they had their arms twisted by their holder company into doing it but that happens, not that is bad because they arent going to continue to invest in a project without some oversee and control over it, how the fuck do you think Arkane ended up being a wholly subsidiary of Zenimax?

Eh, Dishonored 1 didn't exactly end on a cliffhanger. Unless this "closure" involves killing off the star characters, we'll see them again in any sequels.

My point, it was a self-containing story, none needed to return or anything to be expanded using Corvo or Emily, other characters could be used ... why they arent is simple, the fanwank appeasement that just makes what is a small world even smaller, were everyone ends to returning or being related to each other because of fear if they dont use then fans will not buy them as if Corvo or Emily were any kind of enduring or interesting characters in Dishonored.

 

[HoboForEternity]

did some of the jindosh puzzle varaition flawed? i tried to solve it, and found it impossbile and contradicting, till i tried to look it up, and the puzzle said natsiou is on the far left, but when i solved it, she should be on the second to left, and it turns out the position don't exactly matter in how you input.

i guess the puzzle generation engine isn't perfect or i am just dumb

 

[Darth Slaughter]

did some of the jindosh puzzle varaition flawed? i tried to solve it, and found it impossbile and contradicting, till i tried to look it up, and the puzzle said natsiou is on the far left, but when i solved it, she should be on the second to left, and it turns out the position don't exactly matter in how you input.

i guess the puzzle generation engine isn't perfect or i am just dumb

It's contradicting. I tried solving it and gave up. After i got the combination, it didn't match the text perfectly.

 

[HoboForEternity]

did some of the jindosh puzzle varaition flawed? i tried to solve it, and found it impossbile and contradicting, till i tried to look it up, and the puzzle said natsiou is on the far left, but when i solved it, she should be on the second to left, and it turns out the position don't exactly matter in how you input.

i guess the puzzle generation engine isn't perfect or i am just dumb

It's contradicting. I tried solving it and gave up. After i got the combination, it didn't match the text perfectly.

yeah, i tried to "unsolve" the puzzle by looking it up and reversing the process using excel like when i did the puzzle, didnt work too unless you move the position of one of the ladies

 

[Garrettt]

I think Death of The Outsider will be very telling of the series direction.

After it's released and getting a sense of it's scope and story it could tell us that either "Zenimax doesn't think this series is profitable so here's a last ditch effort to cash in and close off the series because they wont let us make Dishonored 3" or "Zenimax does see a market for this style of game and wants to continue making more".

Remember Zenimax wasn't planning on making a sequel, they only shifted their minds after Dishonored 1 exceeded their expectations. https://www.destructoid.com/bethesda-dishonored-sales-exceeding-expectations--239407.phtml

 

[Zep Zepo]

did some of the jindosh puzzle varaition flawed? i tried to solve it, and found it impossbile and contradicting, till i tried to look it up, and the puzzle said natsiou is on the far left, but when i solved it, she should be on the second to left, and it turns out the position don't exactly matter in how you input.

i guess the puzzle generation engine isn't perfect or i am just dumb

It's contradicting. I tried solving it and gave up. After i got the combination, it didn't match the text perfectly.

I thought so too at first. But there are 1 or 2 groups of people (i forget) with the same last name.

Once I knew that, my puzzle made sense again.

Zep--

 

[udm]

Feminist Frequency paved the way for a playable female protagonist in Dishonored 2

Unlike the original Dishonored, which featured two different male protagonists (one in the main game and another in the optional DLC campaign), Dishonored 2 allows players to control either returning protagonist Corvo Attano or his adult daughter, Empress Emily Kaldwin. According to developer Arkane Studios, the decision to make Emily a playable character in the sequel was based off of negative feedback it received for the first game.

More specifically, Arkane co-creative director Harvey Smith said that it was critic Anita Sarkeesian’s analysis of Dishonored, which she offered through her web series Feminist Frequency, which promoted the studio to re-evaluate how it portrayed women in the series. It was only after Dishonored was released that Smith and his team realized the game contained a very limiting portrayal of women as a whole:

“At first you take some criticism and you go, ‘Wait a minute,’ and then you go look and it’s like, ‘Wow, every woman in Dishonored is either a servant, a prostitute, a witch, a queen, a little girl, or a mistress. We had a mistress. That was not our intention.”

Smith said as much in a recent E3 interview with Sarkeesian, and he also confirmed that it was one of her Feminist Frequency videos, one in which she analyzed and critiqued the common trope of making women into disposable background characters, that led Arkane to eventually make Emily Kaldwin into a playable character in Dishonored 2:

“We internally sat down. ... Your comment I will always remember, and I will take it to my grave. It was something like, while Dishonored is a game that does many things very well, the roles that it has for women are very narrow.”

You can watch the full E3 interview between Sarkeesian and Smith below. Arkane also just recently announced that a new standalone title called Dishonored: Death of the Outsider is coming later this year. It too will feature a playable female protagonist.

Spoiler

https://www.gamecrate.com/feminist-...layable-female-protagonist-dishonored-2/16476

 

[HoboForEternity]

At least emily and billie lurk is awesome, esoecially billie. Kinda worried their motivation arr backed by bunch of deranged "crusaders" instrad of wanting to develop good characters despite of gender

 

[HoboForEternity]

Inside stilton manor now. Great level. I thought i couldn't be surprised after the clockwork manor.

Dust district is great too, had fun tryin a way to take down both paolo and the arby or whatever his name is.

 

[udm]

Dust District was fun, but in my playthrough, it was somewhat glitchy.

Spoiler

I chose the optimal outcome, and had schizophrenic Howlers who couldn't decide if they wanted to attack me or tell me to piss off.

 

[Sentinel]

I'm thinking about buying Dishonored 2 after trying the demo, but I wasn't impressed so I'll ask here:

Does the game get better after you deal with the Crown Killer? From what I played so far, it's literally Dishonored v1.2 with worse characters, and there doesn't seem to be any difference at all between Emily and Corvo playthroughs in terms of story. Also 90% of the powers and bone charms are ported over from Dishonored 1 and they turned it into a bone collector simulator, what the fuck?

Anyway, I also read online about massive performance issues in the clockwork mansion mission and in mission 5 (from 60fps to 15). Have these been fixed?

 

[Ash]

Feminist Frequency paved the way for a playable female protagonist in Dishonored 2

Yeah I've noticed a bunch of ex-LG devs appear to be raging feminists. They never fail to disappoint these days.

So having played every Arkane game except Dishonored 2 I bet this game is much worse than PREY, which itself is a moderate letdown (but still good in places, just far from meeting its true potential). Dishonored 2 better than Dis 1, perhaps, but that game was utterly boring. I'll pass. Not that the viewpoint of a Immersive Sim fan will bother them, Anita's opinion is where it's at and they're showered with praise by the low standards mass market and Bethesda gives them their fat paycheck so they're content no doubt.

 

[Ash]

8:50, brags about sequence-breaking in prey by going into a level through an airlock first instead of the normal entrance.. how long ago was this recorded?

"How Arkane Mastered a Genre"

Fuck right off you sellout motherfuckers.
More like "How Arkane capitalized on the dumbed down mass market mimicry of a once great genre"

To think I emphasised with Arkane's struggle...

How can you think your bland stories, dumb gameplay, and immersion-devoid designs match up to the classics?

 

[DeepOcean]

So having played every Arkane game except Dishonored 2 I bet this game is much worse than PREY .

I would argue that in terms of level design, Dishonored 2 is much better, only the Arboretum, Talos 1 lobby and the Crew Quarters on Prey came close to Dishonored 2 with the other areas being utterly mediocre, this was actually my biggest disappointment with Prey. In terms of combat and character progression system, Prey is better but in terms of stealth, it is worse. Both Prey and Dishonored 2 are absolute crap in terms of story and characters but Dishonored 2 is better because you actually interact with other characters with multiple options in how to deal with them, what only happens in Prey near the end.

 

[Ash]

More options doesn't necessarily mean better though. Otherwise Skyrim and FO3 would be great games. Arkane's level design is above average in general but it often lacks engaging content, such as good enemy placement, the execution of challenges within a level, too much art and realism focus and so on.

 

[baturinsky]

It was probably a case in Dishonored 1 too, but I have just noticed that fastest way to kill or knockout someone is to jump on them from high ground (such as a chair).
So, now my playstyle is this