To Kill or Not to Kill: A Dishonorable Review

Hello Dear Readers,

This week I'm going to talk about a little gem of a game from 2012 that was released by Arkane Studios, an older development house that makes games so fresh it still has that new-developer smell.

The game, of course, is Dishonored, a first person Thief-like that was billed as having Deus Ex-like "immersive sim-ness". You might call this genre the "sneak-em up" with a side of "slice-em up" if you want to go that route.

In this article I'm going to go into the game's pedigree, who exactly Arkane Studios are, and describe to you just how awesome Dishonored is while also picking at some nits I just can't ignore.

So let's start.

Just who are Arkane Studios, anyway?

Arkane were founded in 1999 in Lyon, France and opened an office in Austin, Texas in 2006. Wikipedia describes the key people at the company as Raphael Colantonio (CEO and creative director), Harvey Smith (game designer) and Austin Grossman (Writer).

Colantonio is known for Arkanes first game, from 2002, called Arx Fatalis. This was a first person RPG with a focus on melee combat and casting magic spells. It looks kind of rough today but back then it was ahead of its time.

Smith is known for his work on such seminal classics as System Shock and Deus Ex, as well as some not-so-classic games like Blacksite: Area 51 and Deus Ex 2. Harvey Smith might not always hit his mark but he is always trying new things and coming up with new ideas and most of the games he has worked on are interesting in their own right in one way or another.

Grossman also worked on System Shock and the first Deus Ex, as well as Jurassic Park: Trespasser, another big miss from the turn of the century but with big ideas.

All three of these people were key players on Dishonored but focusing on them ignores the hard work and input of the literally dozens and dozens of other people that worked with them and particularly on Dishonored. Basically the take-away from mentioning them is this: Dishonored is a game made by people with a history of making innovative, interesting games that have new ideas and aren't afraid to take big risks, design-wise.

The studio's second game, 2006's Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, kept up with the first person immersive-ness and further emphasized the melee combat. Between Dark Messiah and Dishonored they worked on some projects that got canceled, one an FPS called The Crossing that had a write-up in Game Informer magazine at one point and another an expansion for Half-Life 2 called Return to Ravenholm. They also did Call of Duty: World at War's multiplayer component and even did some design, animation and art for BioShock 2.

So those games may all be well and good, you say, but what do they have to do with Dishonored?

Well I'm glad you asked because I've been dying to tell you!

Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah did first person melee combat in a way that was more than just acceptable and actually quite fun. Deus Ex was very reactive to the player and accounted for a lot of potential player decisions which meant that players had lots of choices as to how to approach any given situation.

So combine really good first person combat and a strong element of player choice, toss in some good world-building narrative elements and tight level design and you get Dishonored. A game where you can sneak and go unnoticed or tackle enemies head on with sword and crossbow, or flintlock pistol. Or springrazor traps. Whatever.

Dishonored takes place in kind of fictional neo-Victorian city called Dunwall which is kind of based on Great Britain and looks a bit like Half-Life 2's City 17, which is no coincidence because both games feature the same art director: Viktor Antonov.

You play as a personal bodyguard to the Empress, whose murder you are framed for during the tutorial. While rotting in prison you are aided in escaping by allies on the outside who conspire to overthrow the current Lord Regent and restore the Empress's young daughter, Emily, to the throne. Only problem is Emily has been kidnapped and you need to find her first.

Oh and also there's a plague infesting the city via rat swarms that will feast on corpses. The more corpses you leave around the more rats there will be throughout the game and the darker your ending will be.

So in the first couple levels you get set up then break out of prison and meet your allies, who bring you in on the conspiracy to neutralize problematic people in high places and find the Empress's daughter in order to restore the old order.

The rest of the game is basically you carrying out this mission with one probably very obvious plot twist a little after the half-way mark to keep things from getting stale.

Naturally the game is very violent if you choose to play that way. You can get into sword fights that end with you slicing enemies heads off or decapitating them with your crossbow from afar. The game has a sprint function like Wolfenstein: The New Order's and sprint-sliding into enemies is one way to engage them in combat. It all looks pretty cool in practice.

Another great thing about the game is that it takes the whole "player choice" thing to heart and offers you actual choices, unlike BioShock. Here you can decide not to kill anyone, even bosses, and go through the whole story without any blood on your hands. It's a little bit harder and takes a little bit more time but you're rewarded with a different ending for the effort and a cleaner conscience.

In order to accommodate these different play styles, stealthy versus non-stealthy or violent versus non-violent, the level design is crafted with especial care. Each level tasks you with the main goal of getting from point A to point B but provides you with many different ways to do so. Taking the direct approach might mean keeping to the street level and confronting enemies head-on while being stealthy will have you taking the high ground via building rooftops or going the low ground via sewers and things like that.

Aside from the generally awesome design of the levels another thing I really like about them is that they're very big and full of lots of areas you don't even need to visit for your main quest. These areas usually have optional events or side quests to take on but usually they'll just have some money to loot and a book to read that fills out some of the detail of the world.

Everything in Dunwall is powered by whale oil batteries which are hooked up to the various machines like alarm posts, electric walls that are used to block access to certain areas and the like, as well as pylons that fire electricity at you if you get too close. Not only can you purchase items to hack these machines for your purposes so they work against your enemies instead of you, you can also just simply disable them completely by removing the whale oil batteries.

Did I mention you can throw these batteries and they explode on contact? Because they do, and it's

cool.

Visually the game has a kind of painted look to it which I think is very nice and distinct from the usual type of photo-realism a lot of games aspire to. It gives Dunwall a personality wholly its own and makes the whole game truly feel like you're taking a visit to another world.

Mechanically the game feels very nice. Running and sliding and jumping are all great with just the right amount of head-bobbing animation. Stylistically you can tailor the Heads Up Display to be as minimalist as you like with the option to turn each element on or off.

Systems-wise the game features magic that can be upgraded. Mostly basic spells like an Arkham Asylum-like Batman-vision that allows you to see enemies through walls or the ability to possess rats and, after an upgrade, people. The one you'll use the most is Blink, a spell that teleports you forward and is essential for being stealthy and picking out the hidden routes throughout the levels.

There are also charms to be found, of which you can initially only equip three and then eventually six, which give you little boosts to your abilities like making health potions heal you more or making you choke people out faster than usual.

At the end of each level is a stat screen that tells you how many people you killed or didn't kill, how many optional side quests you completed, how much loot you found and whether or not you were spotted by anyone.

My first time through the game I went full murder, killing anyone and everyone who crossed my path, enemy or civilian alike. It was a fun and mindless way to go through the game and allowed me to really explore each level. And even though I did spend a lot of time exploring there was still a lot of stuff I missed.

I'm currently on my second run through the game and I'm trying not to be seen at all or kill anyone. It's a good way to play the game because when you can't be seen it means every area and every room with guards is like a little puzzle you have to solve to get by. Not killing anyone is easy enough with the guards, you just avoid them. However the bosses require you to do a little side-questing to suss out their non-lethal option so it's a bit more involved on that front.

Also if you choke people out you can't just leave them lying on the ground or the floor because the rats will find them and eat them, and that will count as a kill at the end of the level. Instead you have to pick up any people you knock out and find a table or some place off the floor to leave them before moving on.

Not to mention if guards see any unconscious bodies lying around it raises their alert level and makes them more likely to spot you.

I said at the beginning I had some nits to pick but that's really not true. There are two things I feel worth complaining about. One is that the game is a little short, but this is okay because it's very replayable and there's a lot of optional stuff to see if you poke around each level enough.

The other is the game's treatment of women, or rather in one particular instance a woman character who is one of your assassination targets. Playing it violently you just kill this woman like you would kill any other character in the game. I used an incendiary bolt from my crossbow to set her on fire from across the room.

In this case it's the non-lethal option that is problematic. Since this woman is an aristocrat your only means of getting at her is at a masked ball she is throwing at her estate. Once you're in you can mingle with the other guests because your character wears a mask throughout the game anyway.

During your mingling and before you have a chance to deal with this woman one way or another you're approached by a masked man who has knowledge of your mission. He pleads with you not to kill her because he has an unhealthy infatuation with her. He tells you instead to just knock her out and take her to the basement where he'll be waiting to take her away somewhere private. He doesn't tell you what he plans to do with her but just assures you that he won't physically harm her and she'll never be heard from again.

Yeah.

Now, I'm just your typical Dumb White Guy who doesn't really know anything anyway but I'm pretty sure if I was female this scene would make me really uncomfortable. Especially since, if you're playing non-violently, going along with this creepy dude and whatever he plans on doing with this woman is your only way to see the "good" ending.

Yikes.

Harvey Smith at least tweeted on Twitter that yeah, they didn't really think that part through too well. So good on him. But if there is a sequel, and by all accounts if the rumors are true there will be, then I hope they're a little less creepy in how they integrate female characters into the game.

I mean, there's an Empress instead of an Emperor, so that's one thing. But then there's this scene so that's kind of something else.

So Dishonored is a pretty great game that murder heads everywhere should enjoy, unless they're female and they're playing non-lethally. That one instance might color the game too much one way for them and ruin their fun, and that's not any good. Despite that I give the game high marks in every other way, from the visual style to the various ways to play to the level design and even the story, as basic and simple it might be it is told very well.

This is one that I've enjoyed my time in and can't wait to return to, and that's what it's all about.

Thanks for reading.