Arkane Dishonored: Death of the Outsider - standalone adventure featuring Billie Lurk

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamesn.com/dishonored-2/harvey-smith-dishonored-death-of-the-outsider-new-writers

Why Dishonored: Death of the Outsider needed new writers, according to Harvey Smith

Following the release of Prey - Arkane Studios’ System Shock-inspired sci-fi RPG - Arkane’s founder, Raphael Colantonio, announced that he was leaving the company. Dishonored 2’s co-creative director, Harvey Smith, also moved from the Dishonored studio at Lyon and travelled back to the US to oversee the Austin branch. At this point, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider was around halfway into development, but Smith was forced to take a more hands-off approach for the second half.

“It’s a shock, because Raph and I have been working side-by-side for nine years,” Smith tells us. “For Dishonored 1 we were in this weird role where we collaborated very tightly. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but also gratifying - and I learned a lot. We were already friends, but I got to know him much better. Then we said ‘let’s do separate projects - you grow the awesome studio and I’ll go at my own [project]’. Before you know it, four years went by.

“Then, just as I move back, he’s announcing that he’s leaving. Going forward, I’ll focus more and more on the Austin studio and what we’re going to do there. Death of the Outsider is my wrapping up with the guys in Lyon - the first half of that we planned together while I was living there, but the second half was worked on while I was living in Austin. I’ve been communicating with them through video conferences and stuff, so they carry a lot of the load of the second half of it. Kudos to those guys.”

Colantonio is currently still around in a consultancy role, helping with the transition. The presidential, operational responsibilities are all completely new to Smith, so he’s happy to have the founder still around as an advisor. Colantonio’s continued presence also helps the Lyon studio adapt to the changes. Still, it must be strange for Smith to step away from Dishonored a bit - the series that’s dominated his life for all these years. Saying that, Dishonored was never only Smith’s baby.

“Look at what Raph did, and what Sebastien Mitton did, and you’ve gotta look at what Ricardo Bare did,” Smith says. “Then, for Dishonored 2, we had Sachka Duval, our narrative designer, she just kicked ass - she did so well. And by the time we hit Death of the Outsider, she and Christophe Carrier, the level design director, and Dinga Bakaba are all credited with ‘additional creative direction’, because on Death of the Outsider we were leaning on them so heavily while they’re in Lyon.”

Smith sees his personal Dishonored journey as an eight-year arc, all of it beginning with the murder of the Empress in the first game. On that fateful day, all the major players were there: Corvo, Daud, Emily, and even Billie Lurk, the star of the upcoming expansion. “This is really the last piece of that big story, with Daud and Billie being the central part of it,” Smith says. “For me - and I think for Sachka, and even for people who didn’t work on Dishonored 2, who feel some pride in the thing, like Ricardo and Raph - it’s a big, meaningful moment. Death of the Outsider was the ideal way to end this part of the arc. It’s all hinged on this one political assassination.”

Like the major players in Dishonored, the pieces have shifted on the development team since that day, too. Just as players get to experience Dishonored through a brand-new protagonist in Billie Lurk, the writing team was refreshed for the Death of the Outsider. For the first game, it was Harvey Smith, Ricardo Bare, Austin Grossman, and Looking Glass’ Terri Brosius - who actually came up with the idea of the talking heart. “Then for Dishonored 2, I hired Sachka, and if it’s true to say that Dinga was my right-hand man on the project, Sachka was left-hand woman,” Smith explains. “By the time we get to Death of the Outsider we knew we needed more support - Austin wasn’t as available, Terri wasn’t as available, they had other games going on. Obviously we weren’t working with Ricardo.

“So we found Anna Megill, who’s a very veteran game narrative designer/writer - she now works with Sam Lake at Remedy. She moved to Finland. We also interviewed and hired Hazel Monforton, a PhD student who’s a Dishonored fanatic and had written a bunch of analysis on the games. She wrote something that I loved about the Outsider and it rang very true, and then her samples were amazing. Also, Sachka really came into her own for this project and drove a lot of the narrative design, while I framed it all and gave voice to some of the characters and oversaw the whole thing. Sachka was really the driver on the ground - as the lead there, she deserves a lot of credit - but picking up Anna and Hazel was really useful. And also, I never got to work face-to-face with her, but we picked up an intern named Sophie Mallinson.”

Sachka Duval already has experience writing for the series with Dishonored 2, but her responsibilities were bumped up. Outside of Duval and Smith, though, the entire writing team is new blood. On top of being fresh talent, they’re also all women, other than Smith. This wasn’t an intentional decision - they just hired the best writers they could, though Smith does value inclusivity.

“It’s part by design, because it would be nice if your team had parity or if you had representation from everybody, but it’s an ongoing struggle because women are discouraged from applying and they have more to deal with while they’re employed at most places, so they burn out quicker, I think,” Smith explains. “In any case, we went after hiring where we could and were like ‘let’s bring in the strongest candidates’, but in this case they happened to be, yeah, the whole narrative team except from me were women. There was this funny meeting where I went by Lyon and Anna and Hazel were meeting with Sachka, and I stuck my head in the door and I said something like ‘oh, I see you’re already having the meeting about killing all the men’. They all laughed and Hazel was like, ‘while you’re here, you might as well be the first’. We joked about it through the course of development, but they were incredibly professional and really talented.”

Behind this new blood, there’s Arkane founder Christophe Carrier, who also handles lead level design. Smith says Carrier is “a big part of the secret sauce” that makes Dishonored’s world feels so coherent, along with artist Sebastien Vuitton and the environmental artists. That means Death of the Outsider will still be recognisably Dishonored. In fact, Smith says bringing on the new talent allowed them to add even more detail to the world, since Smith and Ricardo Bare were making it up as they went along with the first game, throwing in writing based on research of Victorian England. Duval, along with the new writers - Megill, Mallinson, and Monforton - already had an idea of the world, as they’d seen it from the outside, as fans. “These are all people that knew this world we had created and they took it as canonical, as the gospel. Whereas, for us, it was bits and pieces we’d made up along the way. So they take it to a new level of sophistication.”

One of Dishonored: Death of the Outsider’s new tricks is allowing Billie Lurk to steal the visages of those around her, adding a completely new layer of tactical considerations to the game: social stealth. As we wrote about in our article, Smith didn’t think the power would work to begin with, but it’s now one of his favourite things in the game. It just goes to show how much something can be refreshed with some new faces.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamesn.com/dishonored-2/dishonored-death-of-the-outsider-semblance

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider delivers on the social stealth we were promised a decade ago

In Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, protagonist Billie Lurk has a power named Semblance. Using it, she can take the face of any NPC and wear it, wandering uninhibited wherever it makes sense for that person to be.

It’s a central power in the forthcoming game. But when it was first pitched by the game’s leads, Arkane co-creative director Harvey Smith was dubious.

“Upfront I said, ‘I’m not so sure about this power. Do you know how much work this is?,’” he tells us. “If I walk into a group of guards and they see me and go, ‘Evening, captain’, that’s fine, that’s one thing. On the other hand, if I mimic a lady who’s living in an apartment, and I walk down the street and go in the other apartment, shouldn’t the person there say, ‘Oh, Mrs So-and-so?’. We’re gonna miss some of this.”

It couldn’t have helped that Arkane had already attempted a social stealth sequence for Dishonored 2, but it hadn’t worked out.

“There was a party at the duke’s palace where you had to blend in, but we ended up cutting it because we were running out of time and we hadn’t built much of it,” Smith remembers. “And on top of that, at some point we said, ‘You know, we did a party mission last time and it was pretty well-received. Is this one going to be better than that? Are we competing with ourselves?’”

It’s not the first time social stealth has been dropped from a game. In fact, it’s always proven difficult.

About ten years ago, game designers couldn’t stop talking about the idea. What if, the argument went, there was a way for a game character to be even less conspicuous than three points of intense green light glowing from the shadows? It sounds crazy, we know, but perhaps instead they could blend in; hide in plain sight. What kind of new gameplay possibilities would emerge from such an idea?

Assassin’s Creed led the charge. Gone were Sam Fisher’s excessive eyewear choices, replaced by the option to fade away into a small group of monks wearing roughly the same clothes as you. It felt unbelievably exciting in 2007, and threatened to catalyse all manner of new stealth gameplay ideas. But Assassin’s Creed never really seemed to get over the crowds thing. Gradually, it became apparent that those segments were the least entertaining, and they were backgrounded in favour of unambiguously fun stuff like pirate ships and Biblical quantities of stabbing. A version of Splinter Cell: Conviction, meanwhile, in which an AI-governed crowd replaced shadow and light as a central mechanic, was scrapped.

Only Hitman has remained consistently committed to social stealth since. With the right costume change you gain permission to act in new ways: as a barman you’re allowed to serve NPCs suspicious drinks, and as a security guard nobody bats an eyelid if you walk into a restricted area.

But, of course, you have to wrest the costume away from whoever’s wearing it first. It turns out limitations like these are essential to making social stealth doable.

“Social stealth is incredibly hard because it changes the fundamental interaction,” Smith says. “It’s almost like a different game - it is a different game.”

The Death of the Outsider team kept iterating after Smith’s feedback, and gradually they reduced the ramifications of their new ability to something more manageable. It remained a mammoth task: there’s plenty of unique dialogue that comes about through combinations of faces and NPCs. But thanks to its constraints, Semblance works.

The NPC whose face Billie steals using Semblance fall immediately unconscious, and moving their body breaks the spell. Moreover, if a guard discovers that victim, they quickly realise there’s something odd about the second version of that person they’ve seen pottering about the place. Trouble soon heads your way.

Successful use of Semblance requires patience. Perambulating through the streets of Karnaca beneath the rarefied skin of a noble, I enjoyed the kind of respect Lurk isn’t usually afforded. But I soon noticed that the spell was gradually draining mana, and eventually I’d be exposed - right in front of the patrolling guards on the pavement. I broke into a run, and the mana drained even faster. Which is when I realised Semblance is intrinsically related to speed: stand still, and you can wear a face forever.

After breaking into the house of Shan Yun - an opera singer with an unlikely link to a cult important to Lurk and Daud’s quest to destroy the Outsider - I made my way upstairs slowly and deliberately. The face of a kitchen staffer could only take me to the first floor, where I watched and learned the patrol routes of Yu’s guards. From there, I hid in a storage room - stuffed with cast-off art only the rich could consider junk - and was able to recharge my mana before taking on the guise of a guard. Earning a salute from a colleague as I ascended the central staircase to the top floor felt like a quiet victory.

Perhaps social stealth’s problem back when it was being toyed with ten years ago was that it relied on the idea of anonymity - the faceless bustle of the city. Here, social stealth is interpersonal: to get where you need to go in Dishonored using Semblance, you have to think about whose face you’re stealing, and what kind of relationship they have with the people whose paths you’re going to cross. Perhaps that’s why it works now where it so often didn’t before.

“I have to say it’s one of the coolest things in Death of the Outsider,” Smith says. “In my most recent playthrough, almost on the final version, I found myself using it more than I expected. In a major scene that is pivotal to a Death of the Outsider mission, I took one of the two major characters - caught him alone, which is hard - and took his face. I walked out and stood in front of the other major character in the mission, and she totally interacted with me as if I were Brother Cardoza. It felt shockingly intimate. I had all these emotional reactions to it and then hustled away.

“The people on the team that advocated for that were right. It’s a really good feeling.”

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Looks like Smith is personally done with Dishonored for good, while the new henhouse writers he hired are squabbling working on a new Dishonored proof of concept to be greenlit by teh masta.

Wonder if they choose to stick with the Victorian setting, or perhaps choose an entirely different era.

 

[Goldwell]

From most of the screenshots it looks like more of the same of Karnaca. Which is fine by me, really enjoyed the environments in Dishonored 2.

I am quite curious what Harvey and Arkane are going to be working on next though, maybe something more in the realm of a futuristic sci-fi game seeing as he has spent the past decade working on Dishonored.

 

[V_K]

Obviously we weren’t working with Ricardo.

Is there some bad blood I missed?

 

[LESS T_T]

Obviously we weren’t working with Ricardo.

Is there some bad blood I missed?

Ricardo Bare is lead designer of Prey.

 

[toro]

Taking on Contracts in Death of the Outsider - I guess Dishonored: Contracts will be the next iteration of the franchise.

The Death of the Outsider is far from the end for Arkane Studios - This is reassuring. Not. *Who cares anyway?

Why Dishonored: Death of the Outsider needed new writers, according to Harvey Smith - Why Arkane needs new writers and designers? Because of Billie.

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider delivers on the social stealth we were promised a decade ago - What is social stealth? Who promised that? Wtf.

Thanks Infinitron and Morgoth - You are doing Bethesda's work. For free.

 

[Silva]

Completely offtopic but it occurred to me that the tonal style of this series hurts my apreciation of it so bad. The way it's plots and NPCs and dialogues and music etc. are constructed pass me a feeling of trying hard to be a popamole hollywood supers blockbuster. If it was more uncaring and gritty like Stalker or Dark Souls 1 this would rock my world. I think what I'm trying to say here is, the intangibles go a long way to increase a game overall quality, and while the gameplay and level design of Dishonored is amazing, I find it's intangibles kinda on the weak side.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.pcgamer.com/dishonored-2...sed-on-daud-but-was-considered-the-easy-road/

Dishonored 2's Death of the Outsider could have focused on Daud but was considered 'the easy road'
"We weren't sure at first, but Billie became more interesting as we worked on Dishonored 2."

When Dishonored 2's Death of the Outsider was revealed at E3, its launch trailer (featured above) showcased Billie Lurk slaughtering five baddies before rescuing her mentor Daud. With that, the star of the forthcoming DLC's show was immediately clear—however Daud was once considered as the standalone expansion's central protagonist.

That's according to the game's lead designer Dinga Bakaba, who I sat down with alongside lead level designer Christophe Carrier at Gamescom.

"We spoke to Harvey and we knew we wanted to explore this part of the universe, which is like the underground," Bakaba tells me. "The powerful are the focus of the main games and DLC was the underground, the assassins, the shady figures, and so we wanted to come back to that. We weren't sure at first, but Billie became more and more interesting as we worked on Dishonored 2. There was an option where we could have just told this story through the eyes of Daud, by the way, but I think that would have been the easy road because his powers are known, it would mean less mechanical exploration.

"In the end it was cool to choose Billie because she's intriguing… she went through several interesting stages in her life—particularly in Dishonored 2, her main redemption arc is pretty much done, she's paid her debts in a way. And we're focusing on a more personal quest which is where she wants to find her mentor who now has a crazy agenda. Out of loyalty, she will carry on with his ambitions."

Speaking to Billie's mentor, I suggest to Bakaba and Carrier that Michael Madsen's voice feels made for the role. The pair tell me that securing his services in the first Dishonored game was somewhat of a surprise—particularly given both Bakaka and Carrier are fans of his work. But despite Madsen's professionalism and suitability, Bakaba suggests that working with celebrities, while nice, can be more complicated than working with lesser known actors.

"They may have they own personality and world and sometimes it just doesn't match with yours," says Bakaba. Carrier interjects: "Actually in Dishonored we had to change a character because the acting of the celebrity was not matching the character. I'm not going to say who. It was a very cool actor and very cool acting, but it just didn't match the character."

As for the Dishonored timeline post-Death of the Outsider, it doesn't appear Arkane is quite done with Dunwall and beyond just yet.

"The Outsider is very central to Dishonored of course, but, for example, in this last game, he's not the one giving the power to Billie in the same way that he did with the other ones," says Carrier. "Maybe this marks the end for the Outsider but that doesn't mean it's the end of The Void. It's the end of this Void, but the Outsider is representative of his Void. The Void as a whole will however always exist.

"People tend to think that the Outside is god and if you kill god then everything ends. That's not the case. We're very attached to the IP, we love it, and the end of the Outsider is more like the end of this era. It's more like they are attached to him in a way and ending his storyline is ending this period. We don't know what we're going to do after that, but it doesn't mean that it's the end."

Dishonored 2's Death of the Outisder is due September 15. In the meantime, check out Ian Birnbaum's hands-on at QuakeCon which includes words from Arkane's Harvey Smith.

 

[Durandal]

As much I would have loved seeing/hearing the return of Michael Madsen, I'd rather prefer a new ability set for the new DLC.
I do hope we get to see not!Japan in a sequel.

 

[LESS T_T]

https://bethesda.net/en/article/5pC...death-of-the-outsider-new-powers-gadgets-gear

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider – New Powers, Gadgets, Gear

Among all the playable characters in the Dishonored universe, Billie Lurk stands apart. She never ascended to the high court, like Royal Protector Corvo Attano. She wasn’t born into royalty, like Empress Emily Kaldwin. Then again, the same can be said about Billie’s mentor Daud, a mercenary assassin who starred in the first game’s DLC. The real difference? Unlike any of the previous three playable characters, Billie Lurk isn’t granted supernatural powers after being marked by the mysterious Outsider. And that makes a big difference when it comes to her new suite of abilities, gadgets and gear in the standalone game, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider.

“We had this idea that the person who takes the Outsider’s life would not bear his mark,” says Creative Director Harvey Smith. “Instead, Billie derives her powers from artifacts that are tied to the Void.”

Take a look at just a few of Billie’s new powers, her unique gear and one very cool gadget in our video interview with Smith.

What other powers does Billie have? Here’s a rundown of what you’ll wield as you work toward taking down the ultimate target: the supernatural, god-like figure who’s been at the center of the events that have roiled the Empire of the Isles ever since Daud (with Billie at his side) assassinated Empress Jessamine Kaldwin in the first game.

POWERS
In Death of the Outsider, Billie’s powers are unlocked as she acquires various artifacts that are tied to the Void. Billie can also find Bonecharms scattered throughout the world in order to upgrade her powers.

Displace. Like Corvo’s Blink and Emily’s Far Reach, Displace is Billie’s mobility power. Unlike Corvo and Emily, Billie’s power is based on placing markers in the world that no one else can see, then swapping positions with the marker. “It’s like Billie Lurk can imagine being in two places at once, and then decide which one of them is the right place that she should be,” Smith says. Billie can use these markers to navigate through a level – or she can strategically place a marker, then use it to stage a surprise attack or quickly escape an area. “It’s important to note that she doesn’t have to be looking directly at the marker,” Smith says. “It can be behind her or down a hall or on a rooftop. The marker has to have a line of sight to Billie – but Billie doesn’t have to be looking at it.”

Void Strike. This powerful charged-up attack will push your foes away from you, giving you more space to maneuver – or allowing you to assassinate an enemy if you take them by surprise. “Void Strike offers you another way in the middle of combat to drive an enemy back and destroy them,” Smith says.

Semblance. Steal someone’s identity, and use it to trick your enemies. Unlike Corvo’s Possession power, Semblance allows for a fuller range of actions, including anything from tricking an ally into unlocking a door to engaging in actual combat with another enemy. “Semblance is one of those powers that I was skeptical about because of the edge cases, but our game design team really nailed it,” Smith says. “You can pass by guards using the face of one of their allies, and get a greeting. But the other day I heard one major character calling to another – clearly getting ready for an important chat. She called out from another room, and he said, ‘Be there in a minute.’ I choked him out and used Semblance, then walked to her and she conversed with me as if I were him. It was a surprise to me, impressing me with how far the team had gone, supporting that major scene.”

Foresight. Whether you’re playing as a bloodthirsty assassin or a merciful agent of justice, you’ll want to get the lay of the land in Death of the Outsider’s intricately designed levels. Foresight allows Billie to pause time, leave her body, and see what lies ahead. While doing so, Billie can also leave a Displace marker, or mark objects of interest to track and follow.

GADGETS AND GEAR
Some of these items – like Billie’s sword and the Sliver of the Eye – are artifacts from the Void. Others are new gadgets that can be combined with Billie’s powers to wreak havoc… or to take out a target without anyone knowing what happened.

Voltaic Gun. Strapped to Billie’s wrist, this electrified projectile launcher can be upgraded to make it more powerful and versatile with a range of lethal and non-lethal ammunition types.

Hyperbaric Grenade. Toss this at your enemies for a non-lethal blast of compacted air. If you find yourself outnumbered and surrounded, the blast from this grenade will send mobs of enemies into the air, making it easier to escape the situation or combine your powers for some awesome kills.

Rat Whispers. Using a special talisman from the love of her life Deirdre, Billie can learn more about her world – and gather some useful clues – via the whisperings of the rats that roam the streets of Karnaca.

Hook Mine. Place this on a wall or floor or ceiling, and it’ll draw an enemy to it. The Hook Mine can be used non-lethally to subdue a person or hide an unconscious body. But if you place enough Hook Mines in an area, you’ll eviscerate anyone caught in the competing magnetic forces. “It can be quite gory,” Smith says. “It’s one of our favorite toys across the Dishonored games.”

Along with these powers and gadgets, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider also includes the Original Game + mode, unlocked after finishing the game. With this mode, players can mix Billie’s new powers with a curated selection of Emily and Corvo’s powers from Dishonored 2.

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider releases on September 15, 2017, on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

 

[ColonelTeacup]

PCGamesN: One of Death of the Outsider's writers was hired because of her great tweets

The new generation of audiences have short attention spans. Gotta have them story events happen in 140 characters or less.

 

[DeepOcean]

Whoops... a new mine that glue a guy to the wall instead of you know... blowing him up, another Blink type ability but this time you pre select the place you gonna go, another invisibility power like Emily had but this time, you need to kill a dude to get it... such originality, my God, Arkane is killing it! How many slightly different ways to kill the same recycled guards they will come up with?

 

[Durandal]

I WANT NEW FUCKING ENEMY TYPES, ARKANE

 

[ColonelTeacup]

Whoops... a new mine that glue a guy to the wall instead of you know... blowing him up, another Blink type ability but this time you pre select the place you gonna go, another invisibility power like Emily had but this time, you need to kill a dude to get it... such originality, my God, Arkane is killing it! How many slightly different ways to kill the same recycled guards they will come up with?

Why did they never allow an ability to possess your opponent and walk in their skin for a limited amount of time? Higher tiers of the ability would change it from the dude exploding when you exit him to being able to get out non-lethally. Or an ability like Alucards from Hellsing, where you shed your human skin and become a type of eldritch abomination for a time, that can attack viciously? I suppose similarly those Darkness games, but not just some serpants attached to you.

 

[Alienman]

PCGamesN: One of Death of the Outsider's writers was hired because of her great tweets

The new generation of audiences have short attention spans. Gotta have them story events happen in 140 characters or less.

she has a master’s degree in Women’s Studies at Oxford, and she’s currently undergoing a PhD at Durham University in English Literature - her research focused on ritual violence and women’s writing. Yes, ritual violence.

Of course.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Well done, Harvey. Leaving the Dishonored IP to the Femnazis.

Dishonored 3.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

 

[ColonelTeacup]

PCGamesN: One of Death of the Outsider's writers was hired because of her great tweets

The new generation of audiences have short attention spans. Gotta have them story events happen in 140 characters or less.

she has a master’s degree in Women’s Studies at Oxford, and she’s currently undergoing a PhD at Durham University in English Literature - her research focused on ritual violence and women’s writing. Yes, ritual violence.

Of course.

Ritual violence? Sounds kinky. She can leave out the womens writing however.

 

[Multidirectional]

Well done, Harvey. Leaving the Dishonored IP to the Femnazis.

Dishonored 3.

Fuck Dishonored anyway, I just hope they do at least one more game like Prey. Couldn't even finish Dishonored 2, it bored me so much.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

https://bethesda.net/en/article/1CH...the-outsider-launch-trailer-dev-note-and-tips

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider – Launch Trailer, Dev Note & Tips
From all of us at Arkane Studios, thank you for your ongoing love of Dishonored. Nothing is more important to us than the memorable experiences players take away from our games. For all of us in Lyon, France, and Austin, Texas, your dedication and passion have kept us going, through Dishonored, The Knife of Dunwall, The Brigmore Witches, Dishonored 2, and now Death of the Outsider, starring the supernatural assassin and fan favorite, Billie Lurk.

In her effort to rid the world of the Outsider – the mysterious godlike figure looming over the Dishonored games – Billie has some of the coolest powers, weapons and gadgets we’ve ever designed. And the missions she embarks upon will take you deep into Karnaca, hunting for Billie’s old mentor, the underworld legend Daud, then beyond Karnaca to the blackest reaches of the Void. For those of you who love the series, we hope you’re inspired to revisit the Dishonored series and explore The Empire of the Isles once more leading up to the release of Death of the Outsider. But if you’re new to this series, Dishonored is all about ultra-powerful supernatural assassins navigating a corrupt, decaying steampunk empire, and Death of the Outsider is a standalone adventure that’s a perfect entry point even if you’ve never played a previous Dishonored game.

Slip into our world, sneaking and fighting your way toward increasingly powerful assassination targets, and let us know what you think. Again, from all of us, thank you for playing.

Helpful Hints and Tips To Get You Started

• Don’t feel constrained to stick to one particular playstyle. We encourage you to experiment during your first playthrough!
• Always look around for alternate pathways: side alleys, back doors, unlocked windows, overhead balconies, rooftops, and waterways. And be sure to look up! Go vertical when you can, along ledges, rooftops, pipes, etc. You can often sneak past an encounter that way or find an alternate entry or path.
• Give the stealth approach a shot. Sneaking, playing nonlethally, or even ghosting the missions adds even more tension and drama to situations.
• Our stealth model is mostly based on enemy view cones and occlusion. Darkness only matters at a distance, making you more hidden. Up close, enemy facing and field of view matters most so remember to stay behind them or something that blocks their line of sight. And don’t forget to lean! If your body is behind something like a wall, you can lean out to peek ahead.
• You can play the entire game without killing if you choose. For almost all the combat moves, there are nonlethal versions such as combat choke, drop attack and slide takedown.
• Distract enemies with sound by throwing a bottle or setting an alarm clock.
• Eavesdrop on unaware enemies to absorb more information related to the world and the events unfolding around you. Similarly, read posted signs. Often characters have follow-up lines if you hang out and listen to them (or click on them further). You’ll absorb more about the world this way.
• Seek out Black Market shops to upgrade gear and buy more ammo.
• Use Foresight to locate more Bonecharms. Don’t forget to assign them and review your Bonecharm loadout periodically. Upgrade the number you can carry at Black Market shops.
• Change difficulty whenever you want. If you're an advanced player or really into stealth, we suggest you try playing on Hard.
• Be sure to check out the tutorial videos to learn more about the game mechanics.
• Quicksave is your friend.
• You can turn off the HUD UI, including goal markers. If you’re a minimalist, experiment with that.
• You can check out the calibration options screen to set your brightness so that black is really black for the best visual experience.

 

[LESS T_T]

It's available now in some regions (Asia and Oceania).

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/d...tation4/archive/2017/09/14/a-fine-finish.aspx

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider
A Fine Finish
Review

by Javy Gwaltney on September 14, 2017 at 10:59 AM

In 2012, Arkane Studios introduced the world to the city of Dunwall, a dark fantasy kingdom inspired by Victorian London, where nobles stabbed other nobles in the back for crumbs of power when they weren’t busy grounding the poor into dust. For nearly five years and across multiple entries, Arkane has built its fantastical universe around assassins and vigilantes, people sick of corrupt politicians and tyrants molding the world in their image and willing to do anything to stop them – even making deals with the devil. In the world of Dishonored, the closest thing to the devil is The Outsider, a mysterious figure on the outskirts of reality who grants those he deems worthy of his interest supernatural powers.

It’s no surprise that Death of the Outsider, supposedly the last chapter in Dishonored’s story, is focused on The Outsider. He’s always been the most compelling character in this universe as well as being the one person tying everything together across every game. While Death Of The Outsider isn’t the strongest Dishonored game, this standalone expansion does justice by its enigmatic character and serves as a strong finale for a series that’s mined the depths of revenge, justice, and the absurdity of existence for all of its combined worth.

In Death of The Outsider, you play Billie Lurk, Daud’s pupil and a returning character from the original Dishonored’s first DLC, The Knife of Dunwall, as well as Dishonored 2. Lurk finally reunites with Daud after years of separation and her former teacher presents her with one last job: to kill the Outsider and end the chaos that he introduces into the world. Death Of The Outsider does a great job of setting up both Daud and Billie’s motives for wanting to do so. They’re both old, hardened killers who had many years to try and come to terms with their years as assassins. They’re filled with regret over their actions – including killing Empress Jessamine Kaldwin at the beginning of the original Dishonored – and are looking for redemption. Daud’s on his last leg, coughing with disease, so it’s up to you to do the job. Luckily, as is Dishonored’s inclination, you’re given more than enough tools to get it done.

Death of the Outsider replaces the abilities from Dishonored 2 completely by giving Lurk her own three abilities: Displace, Semblance, and Foresight. All three powers are essentially mutated versions of powers from Dishonored 2, but the mutations make them worthwhile.

Displace lets you teleport from place to place like Blink, but it’s switch-oriented instead of instantaneous. So you can place a marker in a safe spot, run into a zone filled with enemies, kill a few of them, and then zap back to where the marker is before you’re overwhelmed. You can also use that same power to ‘displace’ an enemy, meaning you can teleport inside them and literally cause them to explode into gory chunks. Nifty. If you’re a pacifist player, Semblance allows you to literally steal your enemies’ faces and walk around as them, passing through checkpoints. The New Game Plus mode lets you play through the campaign with the powers from Dishonored 2 as well.


On a gameplay level, Dishonored has always been about giving players a variety of skills and abilities to accomplish their objectives and then letting them go hog wild. Death of the Outsider might be the strongest version of that series concept thanks to one seemingly small, but important tweak. While previous Dishonored games required you to constantly find or buy potions to recharge your mana, Lurk’s power currency, called ‘void power’ is constantly recharging so that you can use your abilities as much as you want – they just have a cooldown that lasts a few seconds. This change eliminates you having to worry about rationing power use and instead encourages you to use it all the time, stringing together powerful combos like displacing behind a target and then using Semblance to steal their identity and walk through the entrance of an enemy base smooth as hell.

The chaos system, which determined what ending you would get in Dishonored and Dishonored 2, is gone completely. You can kill as many people as you want and suffer no narrative consequences for it. This tweak also turns out to be for the better, giving you the freedom overcome obstacles with whatever means necessary, lethal or otherwise, without any systems in place to hold you responsible for your actions in an artificial manner.

Death of the Outsider is a fairly short experience, about half as long as Dishonored 2. However, peppered throughout every level are a number of side quests you can do called contracts that reward money and are often skilled-based challenges. I ended up doing most of these and enjoyed them for their variety, as they’re much more than just wetwork. One quest requires you to infiltrate an enemy bar, knock out the bartender, and bring him across the city. How you do that, whether you go in stabbing everyone or sneaky, is up to you. Other contracts include stealing the contents of a lockbox from a bank and, amusingly enough, killing a mime and making it look like an accident.

The biggest strike against Death of the Outsider is while its levels are fun and open-ended in the way series fans have come to expect, none of them are particularly memorable enough on their own. Don’t get me wrong, I had fun pulling off a heist with minimal casualties and navigating The Void while being pursued by giant monsters, but there is no level that comes to matching the enigmatic wonders of Jindosh’s Clockwork Mansion or the time-bending puzzles of Artemis Silton’s house.

The storytelling also occasionally leaves something to be desired. On paper, having a game centered around killing The Outsider is a fantastic concept worth ending the series on, but the game has trouble rising to the occasion. For example, The Outsider himself has a habit of showing up and giving Lurk special powers or presenting her with frustratingly dull philosophy 101 questions about people and the choices they make. My reading was these scenes were intended to be mystifying, playing into The Outsider’s reputation as an enigmatic figure who just does whatever he wants, but in the end, they mostly annoyed me as they felt like scenes that existed to strike a wobbly balance between fan service and pushing the plot forward at breakneck speed.

Some of Daud and Billie’s character development feels rushed as well, with limited conversations between the two failing to capitalize on the dramatic history between them. Luckily, everything comes together in the end in a predictable but satisfying way, making these occasional weak points bumps in the road on a journey worth taking.

Death of the Outsider ultimately emerges as a strong chapter in one of the best modern action/RPG series thanks to gameplay refinements and dedication to its dark fiction. This standalone expansion doesn’t revolutionize the series but instead does something more important, navigating the familiar to bring everything to a satisfying conclusion.

GI Rating: 8.5

So there's now absolutely no narrative inhibitor whatsoever preventing you to play like a psychopathic mass murderer. Except of course if you're used to play your games like a connoisseur Thief veteran - like me.

 

[Hines]

On Steam, Death of the Outsider has mixed reviews and is only number 10 on the global sellers chart. :/

 

[Durandal]

On Steam, Death of the Outsider has mixed reviews and is only number 10 on the global sellers chart. :/

There is a bug fucking over Japanese users apparently, you need to launch with glorious american unicode settings somehow to get it to not crash