Dishonored

Figures. I'm guessing it will be some middleground. Definitely not High Chaos, since in that ending Emily is just a little sociopath. It could be pure Low Chaos with Emily the Wise, but I doubt it. Just doesn't fit the perfectly optimistic tone.

Shit can happen as she grows up.

Or maybe "Emily the Wise" is your reward for staying on the "Good Path". I do kind of feel like they're going to address the morality thing in the sequel. Emily is using the "Dark Evil Powers" while gunning for her target and he's screaming about how she'll be evil and dark if he kills him "just like us" and I find that to be such a funny line.

Either way, she's using her powers indiscriminately.

I do think that's also a nice touch. Corvo didn't talk much and he had a implied personality. Here it is more clear.

Corvo in his announcement trailer showed that he didn't need his powers too much, preferring to blink and freeze time at most very few times. He had more raw skill and even gameplay made sure we weren't constantly zipping around the map.

Emily however is likely still a novice at this and must rely on whatever tools she gets. So not only are her powers different, so is her "playstyle", she uses them more frequently than Corvo did in his trailer.

Am I reading too much into this? Probably.

Well Corvo was a One-Man Army Memetic Badass even BEFORE he got his powers. Emily was an empress.

Gangsta Corvo

Speaking of Corvo, have a portrait.

Dude got craggy as hell. And he let his stubble grow out, I guess.

edited 18th Jun '15 9:41:30 AM by majoraoftime

Looks like he's actually aged a fair deal.

It has been fifteen years.

edited 19th Jun '15 5:13:39 PM by Cortez

Devs dish more details on Emily and Corvo

edited 24th Jun '15 3:52:33 AM by YoKab

I kind of wish we could switch between protagonists in missions.

I honestly wonder if playable Corvo is going to be Joel to Emily's Ellie, because I don't see how having one optional player for the entire campaign and mission tree could be effective if they aren't together. I think Corvo and Emily are a father-daughter pair similar to Booker/Elizabeth and Joel/Ellie. I think the other will be the Companion AI for the player's campaign.

edited 24th Jun '15 4:45:15 AM by JulianLapostat

Sounds to me more like they're going the martyr route. Early on in the game one of them dies, and that serves as the impetus for revenge for whichever character survives. Not sure if I like that.

I wonder which Dishonored ending turns out to be canon. The game doesn't appear to take place in Gristol, so theoretically it could be either.

I think that would be too depressing to do, i.e play as Corvo if he loses Emily because that would mean he failed, yet again, to protect someone and now he has superpowers unlike the first game where Daud had the Outsider's Mark against Corvo's lack of powers when he killed the Empress.

One of the main reasons for having two player characters is that eventually they'll fight each other and I think that's what they will go for. Besides, there's not much point in giving Corvo a voice if he doesn't have anyone to interact with. So the AI companion route is a better option.

Harvey Smith said that Emily definitely lives and Corvo spared Daud which to me suggests that Low Chaos or Medium Chaos is canon.

edited 24th Jun '15 8:49:52 AM by JulianLapostat

Dishonored's world kinda is depressing in a lot of ways, so that wouldn't be at all out of place. Still, you make good points.

Though, I have to wonder about what would make Emily and Corvo fight one-another. I know they sort of did that with Corvo and Daud in the original, but Corvo and Emily are like family if not actual family. Hard for me to think what would make them fight one-another.

People do change and anything is possible after all. That kind of is the message of the first Dishonored that today's friends can be tomorrow's enemies and likewise its possible for you to forgive someone who you have every reason to hate and kill. So its possible that things can happen that force Corvo and Emily to move against each other, even if its via possession or something.

And I disagree that Dishonored is depressing. The first game had dark elements and a bleak tone for sure but there was also quite a bit of optimism under the surface. Guys like Slackjaw turn out to be decent as does Samuel, Callista, Cecilia. Piero and Sokolov also put their differences aside and work. And you know Corvo is able to spare Daud eventually.

Wasn't Slackjaw a professional criminal? And basically all of your assassination targets are irredeemable monsters for whom the "clean" non-lethal option is a fate worse than death.

Granted, the world of Dishonored is not as unceasingly grimdark as 40k- something for which I'm thankful- but it's not exactly optimistic either. The tone of the Dishonored 2 trailer reflects this- things look pretty bleak wherever Emily is.

Well all the targets aren't monsters. Like Lady Boyle (the one who is Esma) is kind of nice and Daud is definitely not a monster whatever else he is. The High Overseer and the Pendletons are jerks for sure. Hiram Burrows even has something sad about him, as the Outsider noted. And yes Slackjaw is a criminal, but his word "is just as good as them who run the city, maybe a little better."

The DLC is much bleaker of course. But even then there are characters like the Geezer and Lizzy Stride who aren't entirely bad and even The Outsider turns out to be a bit of a softie there. But more than that there are a lot of mini-subplots that are positive. Like the subplot in The Flooded District with those NP Cs you help to get to a safe area and dodge the Tallboys.

Regardless of whether Daud is a monster I feel obliged to note that he's killed hundreds (at a minimum) or thousands (more likely) of people and is feared to the point where most people won't even say his name according to some thugs (and yet his bounty is only 5000 for some reason).

Dishonored's world does kind of suck, honestly. The best outcome when you die is to merge with the nothingness outside of reality, but if you were an angry shithead you wander around the Void as a revenant until you get eaten. Also, every person who has ever been granted magic powers has abused them (except Corvo, maybe). Also, things suck even more if you're not rich, but that's a given everywhere.

edited 24th Jun '15 6:14:05 PM by majoraoftime

The point of Dishonored is that everyone is flawed and weak in some way but they have the capacity to be different and change. Quite a lot of people simply don't have the capacity or will to be different and change but that does not mean that all people are like that. In the game while the aristocrats are bad, a lot of the poorer and lower order characters turn out to have more honor than any of them. Even criminals and assassins.

You have Samuel Beechworth who is probably the most moral character in the entire game. Piero is a bit of a classic "nice guy" in his creeping over Callista but he's still a dedicated scientist and even he manages to win over Sokolov later on. Callista likewise is a good woman who is still a realistic nanny who laments that handling a child-empress can be annoying. Then Cecilia is also a nice person.

The level design reflects that, there's nothing but endless possibilities. So its got an optimism that is buried there. The Outsider is also Lovecraft Lite, he's a genuinely nice God who wants people to decide and realize for themselves that Good Feels Good, even when its hard and there's no reward. That's what Daud learns in his DLC. He's doing something utterly selfless and no one will ever know and he's fine with that.

I just got my XBOX trophy for Dishonored. All 80 Achievements.

I have been playing it for three years, and I got the story part but then the Dunwall City Trials were unending torture (though incredibly satisfying once I got it). I saved the Brigmore DLC achievements for last and replaying it so many times has really made me appreciate the game, I seem to find new stuff in each playthrough.

And for me the Knife Of Dunwall/Brigmore Witches Daud is the single greatest DLC ever, right up there with Undead Nightmare (which I prefer over Red Dead Redemption) and Liberty City Episodes. Its really amazingly stylish and satisfying on its own.

edited 25th Jun '15 8:37:57 AM by JulianLapostat

Dishonored had some pretty good DLC.

One thing that really disappointed me about the Brigmore Witches was that you couldn't outsmart the gas in the Hatters' hideout, even if you have numerous supernatural ways to move faster than the timer. In a game that was so based around giving the player freedom to interact with game systems to solve their problems, that was a pretty big oversight.

Yeah that part was a little too scripted. But it does make sense. Depending on the number of filters and the nature of the toxin, gas can spread very fast through the air, and Bend Time only affects time not space, so gas particles are probably immune to it. The gas does clear out the entire factory including civilians. So its pretty nasty.

Harvey Smith is trying to troll hotel guests

edited 17th Dec '15 10:19:49 AM by YoKab

Bethesda will host a second E3 conference, fingers crossed for gameplay

Altough I suppose we may get something if this image is anything to go by.

edited 4th Feb '16 4:24:19 AM by YoKab