Dishonored

Worse, it's not just that he never says anything - it's that he never shows any kind of emotional reaction at all. Compare that to Link in the later Zelda games or Samus in the later Metroid ones, both of whom are silent protagonists, but are still capable of nonverbal emotional reactions that tell us what they're feeling at certain points in the narrative.

Another issue is how the delivery of dialogue is very flat and monotone throughout the game. Characters will use the same tone and inflection when describing some horrific event that they will when telling Corvo what they had for breakfast that morning. The whole game suffers from a lack of emotion, not just Corvo. Maybe the Rat Plague sucks out people's feelings too?

While things like optional notes and background lore found in the world are a nice extra, they are not a substitute for actual characterization within the narrative itself. If your character is only interesting if I go out of my way to find optional stuff, then you've failed to deliver the characterization in an effective manner.

Tl;dr - While Corvo may be a fairly interesting character, he has very poor characterization. The latter is what people are actually taking issue with when they say he's a bad character.

edited 29th May '14 9:46:55 AM by Talby

Dishonored was nearly about feudal Japanese sorcerers.

What?

UPDATE:

Xbox One and PS4 versions may be coming.

edited 10th May '15 6:42:31 PM by AnotherGuy

I heard about that a while ago, thanks to this link on the game's Trivia page.

The Japan idea does sound like it would've been interesting, but I can't really hate the setting Dishonored eventually made for itself. The game had a lot of flaws, but setting (and visual design) wasn't one of them.

It's interesting to see how the general plot premise seemed to stay the same, swap out a master for an Empress.

Yeah. The Urban-Victorian-Dieselpunk look of the game is probably its best feature besides gameplay.

I'm still fond of the morality system. Sure, it had the major problem of forcing you not to use most of your awesome skills and powers if you wanted to be good, but other than that it was refreshingly simple. Kill people or don't. Killing people leads to the dark ending, sparing people leads to the light ending.

Even better, since your actions affect the morality of the world, you're justified whichever way you go. Murder everyone in sight? They would have done the same to you in a heartbeat. Let everyone live? They're good people in a bad situation, and the chance you've given them will turn the world around.

Er, also murder the prostitutes and their johns, and the average person walking in the street, and the hobos? Those were justified too?

Because if you're a murderous bastard, so is everyone else in the world. So, yeah, kinda. Obviously not really, but more than if you started randomly killing people in a Low Chaos world.

Victorian dark times is getting bit old though in that steam punk themes are slowly becoming more common :p

Dishonored 2 is finally here, everyone! Discuss.

FUCK YES!

BADASS FEMALE PROTAG!

SEXY VISUAL STYLES!

NON-SILENT PROTAG (Or, presumably since Emily DOES have a VA from the first one and an identified character of sorts and that was probably the most criticized thing of Dishonored besides not being able to use powers).

NEW GAGETS/POWERS!

And it seems Time Travel will be a theme; The Antagonist Guy says that her arriving at that second has all be calculated and she uses a time power right after; I would assume that that's a visual connection.

I think compared to how misogynist Dishonored 1 was (still a good game otherwise) its a necessary step.

And cool I think.

I love Dishonored and am really looking forward to the sequel

Also, if they want me to play as Corvo again they better give him some awesome powers.

Corvo's boring, all hail Empress Emily!

I don't think we'll even see Corvo again as the two endings where Emily survives has him die of old age when she grows up. We might have him make some appearances due to the whole Time Travel, but playable? Unlikely.

edited 15th Jun '15 5:07:43 AM by YoKab

Arkane confirmed that Corvo and Emily are Dishonored 2's player characters. Supposedly, you choose your character at the beginning of the game and they have different powers.

Still, I find it amazing that they are using Emily for marketing. Game marketers tend to operate on the (mostly unsusbtantiated) assumption that female leads don't sell.

edited 15th Jun '15 5:09:30 AM by lrrose

My bad then, thanks for correcting me. Altough wether or not Corvo is only there for fanservice (not the sexy one) though...

I'm gonna create a page for Arkane Studios now, they have enough games to warrant one.

edited 15th Jun '15 5:10:18 AM by YoKab

You can play as Corvo. It's two different stories with both of them, a Corvo story and a Emily story.

Also I like that they decided to use Emily for marketing. I am now looking forward to this.

And the clockwork mooks are creepy, how advanced is the tech that they have robots now?

I just hope it's not as heave handed in its moralizing this time.

What specifically didn't you like about the morality of the first game? Because I loved the way the morality system worked (other than the part where being good basically required you not to use your awesome powers). The game became more optimistic if you were good, and more cynical if you were evil, thus justifying your choices either way. Contrast with, say, Mass Effect, where the overall optimistic tone of the setting made the cynical choices seem Stupid Evil.

Yeah. Corvo, is either a Bastion of moral purity or a bastard leading a nation into ruin, solely depending on the number of people he killed. This gets even more wierd when the types of non-lethal takedowns of many of the game's targets are taken into account, because some of them are fates worse than death.

What, send Boyle to a stalker who will probably lock her, and rape her for many weeks? I'd rather give her a quick death! How is that making me a better person?!

When facing High Overseer Cromwell, head of a group of religious zealots, players are asked to either kill him, or burn his face with a specific branding called the Heretic's Brand, which forbids anyone in the city from being nice to him in any way. Likewise, the Pendleton twins, rich noblemen, can either be assassinated or forced to work in their own silver mines with their tongues removed, disfigured, and their heads shaved.

Sure, the fate of these people are rather awful in the non-lethal versions, but according to the game, it is all okay because they are not dead. Several examples were just straight out torment which what he tries to show.

The system was good, but plot-wise not executed in the best way. It almost gave me this impression: Corvo is either a violent psychopath or a stealthy guy with Moral Sociopathy.

edited 15th Jun '15 11:33:02 AM by YoKab

It was bullshit that I got a bad ending because I killed the guards, like they were upstanding pillars of morality holding up the community. And I shouldn't be penalized for how I want to play the game.

The guards were keeping the Weepers away. They weren't nice people but the provided a stable service that kept Dunwall working.

Honestly when you think about it Chaos was just Chaos. You can't expect the city to be clean if you slaughtered all its guards (who probably had no clue of the political plot and poison going on). It's pretty ambigious, even if the examples I mentioned were kinda...

It is indeed shocking, awesome, and shockingly awesome that Emily is being used for marketing, not Corvo. It's almost as if acknowledging the existence of female protagonists won't send the players fleeing in droves!

It's going to be interesting to see how they handle two separate campaigns, if that proves to be accurate. Honestly, if given the choice, I'd probably rather the entire game be about Emily, to try to give her the best, most focused campaign possible, rather than splitting it between the two. But who knows, maybe they'll do it well. Hell, done properly, it could be great.

Really need to finish Daud's story, now that this has been announced.

I hope the two campaigns are actually different, with unique mechanics and objectives. If they just use reskined maps for Corvo and Emily that would be disappointing.

I think what I'd like best is if they alternate. So you start the game as one, play a mission, then play another mission as the other one, taking place at the same time. Later missions have different effects in Corvo's story depending on what Emily has done, and so on.