Corvo and Emily will have a major rift develop between them.
- Harvey Smith has revealed in a tweet that one of the canon choices Arkane selected for the first game was that Corvo spared Daud. Emily will eventually learn of this, and will be understandably upset that Corvo had her mother's killer in the palm of his hand yet inexplicably chose to let him go.
- to be fair, although Daud killed Jessamine, it's was Hiram Burrows who hired him to do so in the first place.
- Jossed, in that the character you don't choose spends the entire game as a statue.
Emily's shadow tentacle version of Blink can also be used to pull enemies to her.
It might require an upgrade or two to do so, but imagine the sheer Mook Horror Show potential. One moment, you're standing next to your comrade. The next, this eldritch tentacle bursts from the shadows and yanks him screaming into the dark.- Confirmed. This interview
says that with the Far Reach power, "you can stick to walls, you can yank somebody toward you and assassinate them in mid-air".
Emily's crossbow will do more damage than Corvo's will.
Judging by the trailer, it's fancier and somewhat larger compared to Corvo's from the first game. It could be to compensate for decreased brute strength compared to him.- Jossed. The bow is functionally the same for both characters, except for the nature of the Masterwork upgrades.
Playing High Chaos in Emily's route will ultimately turn Corvo against you.
Assuming that the canon ending for the first game was Low Chaos, Corvo will be horrified to see the girl he raised become a twisted, vicious Blood Knight.- The inverse for Corvo's route could also apply.
- Jossed: The character you don't choose is turned into a statue and put out of commission for the rest of the game. Once freed, Corvo continues to support Emily even if she went High Chaos all the way, and Emily still becomes "the Vengeful" in a High Chaos Corvo playthrough.
The choice to play as either character will be made in gameplay.
When Emily is deposed as Empress, she is attacked. The player, who starts as Corvo, will defend her, and all the assailants are taken down. Then, one of them aims a gun at Emily. Bullet Time initiates, and you have two choices. Take down the attacker, and Emily is shot, or Corvo can Take The Bullet himself. The person who gets shot won't be killed outright, but will remain incapacitated, leaving the other to go on the Karnaca quest.- Although the tutorial does have you playing as Emily, it mostly serves simply as a tutorial for the new combat mechanics. During the first mission, after Delilah's coup is under way, when you make the choice to play as one, the other is actually turned into a stone statue through Delilah's Void powers, putting them out of commission for the duration of the game.
This time, the combat tutorial will be Emily training with Corvo.
- Confirmed.
Emily's deposers claimed, among other things, that Emily was consorting with the Outsider.
The Abbey of the Everyman, for one, would see that as sufficient cause to label her a heretic and unfit to rule.- One would think after being around Corvo, Emily would outlaw the Abbey of the Everyman.
- Jossed for Emily. Emily's deposers were more concerned with her 'murdering her opponents' than anything to do with the Outsider. Corvo, on the other hand is suspected but the attempt to uncover his connection to The Outsider was cut short after the Overseers were soundly defeated by Delilah.
- Throughout the game, they seem mainly concerned with Delilah being a witch.
Billie Lurk will be one of Emily's new 'tutors.'
Emily won't know that she worked for Daud though. Or that Daud asked Billie to watch over Emily, while Corvo's unavailable.- Confirmed somewhat. Meagan Foster, filling the role previously held by Samuel Beechworth in Dishonored 1, is actually Billie Lurk under a new identity after she was canonically spared by Daud at the end of The Knife of Dunwall. She isn't so much a tutor as she is a close ally willing to help the player character depose Delilah and her conspirators, since Billie would know the kind of threat the witch poses. She only reveals her past and especially her part in the death of Jessamine to Emily/Corvo on a Low Chaos playthrough, though.
Both Corvo and Emily will be active throughout the game.
Rather than picking which one goes out and does things and which one stays home, both of the protagonists will be running missions throughout the game. Picking your PC at the beginning will simply determine which of them handles the main story missions. There will also be at least one level where Corvo and Emily work together.- Jossed: The character you don't choose is turned into a statue by Delilah and stays that way until the end of the story.
The Chaos system won't be quite as unforgiving as it was in the first game.
This could be implemented by any combination of the following:- Certain kills simply cause less chaos, or even none at all. Non-living enemies like the clockwork guards, for example, could be destroyed with impunity.
- This one is confirmed: Evildoers and non-sentient enemies do not penalize you as much as regular guards or civilians.
- There will be a Medium Chaos ending. Not quite as happy and peaceful as Low Chaos, but not a massive What the Hell, Player? like High Chaos.
- Jossed. There's still just High and Low Chaos, however the endings will change based on the actions you take and the characters you choose to kill.
- There will be more methods available to (creatively and/or spectacularly) neutralize opponents without killing them: sleeping gas traps, non-lethal combat finishers, etc.
- Confirmed. Both Emily and Corvo can now use stun mines, stinging bolts (non-lethal arrows that will cause an enemy to flee and forget), and howling bolts (essentially flashbangs). You can also aerially knock some one out and even engage in sword-fights (so long as you parry enemy sword strikes into choke holds).
Corvo and Emily will have different methods for non-lethally eliminating their prime targets.
Of course, the question is which one of the two will be more sadistically creative.- Jossed. Both use the same methods.
Emily was framed with the crime which Daud did
it has been confirmed that Daud's survival is canon. And it would be cool to see history repeat itself, both father and daughter were framed by the very same person- Jossed... somewhat. Emily was framed for another's crimes, but the perpetrator was a servant of Delilah's, the Big Bad of the Daud DLCs.
The Big Bad will be empowered by another supernatural entity instead of the Outsider
Considering how much the Outsider seemingly seems to care about Emily, what with indirectly guiding Daud to stop Delilah's plot and granting his powers to Corvo, it seems a little out of place for another Outsider-empowered individual to try and screw her over again.- Alternatively, the one who usurped Emily was previously empowered by the Outsider but did not actively seek to usurp her until now.
- Jossed. Harvey Smith stated on Twitter that there's only one entity representing the Void at a time, and there doesn't seem to be any other source of supernatural magic in this world. In the story, Delilah's revival is actually because she was able to free herself from the prison Daud trapped her in during the DLC and become a part of The Outsider himself, thus gaining his immortality and power and threatening to tear apart all of reality if left unchecked.
Hit Girl references galore
If Chloë Grace Moretz is returning to voice Emily, which is possible since Miss Moretz is a young woman now and could easily voice a twenty-something character, the game is ripe for opportunities to make one or two sweet Actor Allusions. After all, Emily is a badass female assassin this time around.- Jossed, since Erica Luttrel will be voicing Emily. Though a few Hit Girl references could still be snuck in to pay homage to Emily's heritage.
The Clockwork Mansion level will be procedurally generated
Think about it. Every time you replay the mission or even reload to an earlier checkpoint, the game will randomize the Mansion, making it arrange itself in different ways. New pathways, new hidden passages, and new opportunities for stealth or environmental kills that are unique to each playthrough. We already saw some shades of this in the original Dishonored during "Lady Boyle's Last Party", where the identity of Lady Boyle and her outfit was unique for each playthrough. Something like this could take what already looks to be a spectacular level to the next level.- Jossed.
Daud will make an appearance.
Daud's backstory mentions that Karnaca is his hometown, and it is one of the possible retirement locations Billie suggests to him. Since Corvo canonically spares Daud, it's very possible Corvo and Emily would run into him in Karnaca and due to his life debt to Corvo, Daud will provide assistance to them.- My guess is that Corvo and Emily need to find out information about who, and what, Delilah is. They'll hear a rumour of someone who faced her and lived to tell the tale, they'll make their way to see this reclusive figure, and it turns out to be Daud.
- Confirmed. There is a shadowy figure that meets up with Billie Lurks in the ending, it can't be anyone but Daud
Emily will have a Multiple-Choice Past.
Along with the customary Alignment-Based Endings, her Karma Meter dictates how merciful or ruthless Corvo taught her to be as a girl, thereby leaving the true ending of Dishonored 1 up in the air.- Confirmed to an extent. Emily's personality in low chaos and high chaos runs seems to differ from the get-go rather than starting out the same and being shaped by the events of the game
The Thief-Verse and The Empire of the Isles are the same universe.
This comes into play because Corvo is to be voiced by Stephen Russell, the original voice of Garrett. After the events of the reboot, The Builder flooded The City, and over centuries this gave rise to the various cities up to Dunwall and the Empire of the Isles. The Abbey of the Everyman got their ideas from the long dead Hammerites and Mechanists, and the power that deposes Emily is the Trickster himself, reincarnated by some combination of the Outsider providing his mark and Delilah's magic art.- Jossed.
Emily will already be personally familiar with the Outsider by the time he appears in the game.
In the first game where it was implied that Emily had dreams about the Void/possibly the Outsider himself. It seems within character that he would speak to her long before marking her, judging from him setting everything in motion to secure her future and her being the daughter of one of his most interesting marked, if Low Chaos is canon. Of course you can reject the mark entirely, but it seems plausible that, of all his chosen, she'd be the one he'd keep the closest eye/would speak to even before his offer to give her the mark.- Most likely jossed. Emily is very surprised to discover the Outsider and the Void are real, and both her low chaos and high chaos comments on the Scriptures signify she didn't really believe in them.
Possible effects of Emily accepting or rejecting the Outsider's gifts:
- At some point in the game, Deliah will pull another Grand Theft Me attempt on Emily. If you accepted the Outsider's empowerment, Emily will be able to No-Sell the attempt. If you reject the empowerment, things get more complicated.
- Jossed. Rejecting the Mark has no real effect on the plot, just the difficulty of gameplay.
Delilah is attempting to replace the Outsider.
- Delilah is stated in the Book of Karnaca video to be after a "much greater prize" than the Imperial Throne. What greater prize is there than the throne of the Void itself?
- Confirmed.
The story DLC will star Billie Lurk AND Daud.
- The Heart indicates that Billie has an even greater purpose past Dunwall and Karnaca. She reunites with Daud, regains her supernatural powers, and like the main game the player may choose to play as either one.
- Unless Arkane make keeping Stilton sane and therefore keeping Meagan's arm canon, I can't see you playing as her, since you'd only be able to have a power or a weapon active at one time.
- That would be very in keeping with how so far they've shown a distinct preference for making the Low Chaos aligned options canon, and that's a mission that the Low Chaos option would already be preferred given the lack of an Asshole Victim.
- CONFIRMED. Albeit no word if Daud will be playable. He will be a major supporting-character at any rate.
- On Billie's mutilations and her clockwork cybernetics: It's revealed that she's tied to the "broken" nature of space-time at Stilton Manor, and due to Emily's interference pertaining to Stilton himself, Billie is paradoxically both mutilated and whole. This is also the source of her Void powers.
- With the release of Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, which is actually a standalone spin-off of Dishonored 2, you only play as Bille Lurk (while making canon that Emily was the player-character, and that Aramis Stilton was saved, thus she kept her arm and eye), with Daud in a supporting role, while her having Void powers is a result of having the arm and eye she would have lost in the original timeline being replaced by Void artifacts that grant her new abilities.
Sokolov first met Billie during her time in the Whalers.
- How they met each other is never explained but presumably Sokolov had to interact with Daud and likely the Whalers at some point to know his face for the portrait he painted of him.
Possibilities for further games in the franchise.
- Dishonored 3: Following the events of Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, Billie Lurk journeys to Dabovka, capitol of Tyvia, to reunite with her old friend Sokolov. However, when word gets out that Billie possesses the Twin-bladed Knife—an artifact that can literally create a god—she finds herself targeted by everyone from the High Judges and their Operators to the exiled Princes who once ruled Tyvia. To prevent it from falling into the wrong hands, Billie sets out to find a way to strip the Knife of its powers.
- Dishonored 4: Set many years after the previous game, players control a new character living on the Isle of Morley. The Overseers have consolidated their power, creating a world similar to Arkane's canceled project The Crossing. A much older Billie, having developed the Apprentice ability, grants the player powers of their own in order to fight back. However, as Billie grows weaker with age, the dead god whose eye she possesses begins taking increasing control, forming a new avatar of the Void known as the Lurker.
Dishonored 3 will be set in Tyvia
- Sokolov heads there in both High and Low Chaos endings, so the developers are likely making sure that's a set up for something if they're covering both bases like that. More importantly, though, Dr. Galvani's last note mentions he's moving to Tyvia to escape the repeated burglaries. You darn well know we're following him!.
- Plus, Tyvia seems to be to Eastern Europe/Russia what Serkonos was to a sunny Mediterranean locale, so it would be a stark contrast in terms of environment.
Dishonored is set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, but...
...it's in the even farther-flung future after the fires of war have long died down, either due to some galactic-scale calamity or simple entropy, and left most of the galaxy lifeless save for a few scattered worlds inhabited by the last of its sentient species. This near-absence of life has left the Warp barren and empty as well, but its corrupting influence is still felt, and in no place moreso than the Empire of the Isles—and even a miniscule echo of the Imperium of Man's struggle against the Chaos remains in the form of the Abbey of the Everyman.- As an aside, this would also neatly explain why the Outsider's clothing (not to mention the twin-bladed knife) looks so comparatively modern despite his human form ostensibly being from the setting's equivalent to the bronze age... because he isn't. The civilization of this world may very well have still been a post-apocalyptic Imperium by that point, with the Envisioned being fully aware of what the Void used to be and trying to use him—and the Eye of the Dead God, itself likely a remnant of some Chaos god—to tap into it, either to gain power or escape the planet.
The Dukes guards know he has been replaced by his double
In a low chaos play though they have seized this opportunity to get rid of the hated duke, maybe even going as far as having an 'accident' happen to the real duke while he is locked away. In high chaos play though they don't really care, as long as they get paid.
