Four years after Corvo first blinked onto our screens, Dishonored is back with more reasons for revenge, more paranormal powers, and more honour being dissed.
But while an assassin’s occupational hazards never change, a whole lot else certainly has. To bring you up to speed on the next chapter in the Empire of the Isles’ history, here’s everything we’ve learned about Dishonored 2.
Just a year after Arkane Studios whipped the cloak off the first Dishonored game, in 2013 it teased a new project that "will have similar features to Dishonored" and "multiplayer." It wasn't for another two years that we found out that the new project was Dishonored 2, with the news first unintentionally broadcast live over Twitch by Arkane Studios' Harvey Smith and Ralph Colantonio who thought their conversation was private.
A day later the Dishonored sequel was officially unveiled during Bethesda's E3 2015 conference. There we got a reveal trailer, of which Smith later said, "everything Emily does in this trailer, you can do in the game."
In May we learned the release date - that Dishonored 2 will launch on PC, PS4, and Xbox One on November 11th 2016.
The original Dishonored had two endings depending on your play style, leaving the city of Dunwall in ruins or squinting in the sunlight of a golden age.
Developer Arkane Studios opted for the “low chaos” conclusion as Dishonored’s canonical ending, and the sequel sets off from there. In that conclusion, bodyguard-turned-supernatural-cutthroat Corvo saves royal orphan Emily’s life (who, coincidentally, is heavily implied to be his daughter), she ascends the throne as the new Empress, and Corvo spares the life of Daud - the man who killed Empress Jessamine.
15 years have now passed, and a grizzled Corvo can be seen in this character portrait for Dishonored 2. Meanwhile, Emily is a 25 year old woman trained in the arts of assassination by Corvo himself. This familial bliss is rocked when an otherworldly usurper seizes the throne, and ousts Emily from power. A propaganda poster included in the Collector’s Edition of the game names a certain new “Empress Delilah Kaldwin,” suggesting that the witch Delilah Copperspoon may be the thorn in Corvo and Emily’s side.
Delilah was the main antagonist in Dishonored’s DLC stories and leader of the Brigmore Witches Coven who, despite her claims on the poster, bears no relation to Emily or the royal family. Now you must work to take back what’s Emily’s, helping her once more assume the throne as Empress of the Isles.
In Dishonored 2, you can either do this the old fashioned way with Corvo – no longer silent, brought to life with the dulcet tones of Thief’s Stephen Russel - or assume control of new playable character Emily Kaldwin (voiced by Erica Luttrell). This means there are two different perspectives on the plot, and your decision on who to play at the beginning of the game will carry through right to the end – there’s no switching and no option for co-op play.
While this is one of the most dramatic decisions you’ll have to make, there are plenty more: Who you let live, who you kill, the sympathy level of the NPC you assassinate, whether you play using your supernatural powers, or whether you reject them entirely and use only the steel of your sword – all these decisions influence your path and the eventual outcome of Dishonored 2’s story.
However, morality is no longer black and white. As the 2016 E3 trailer hinted, you’ll be faced with decisions dappled with grey, and your actions affect the stability of the world around you much more than in the first game.
Speaking of which, that world has changed. Our first demo of Dishonored 2 took us to the city of Karnaca, a dazzling coastal outpost on the fringes of the Empire’s map that holds the key to restoring Emily to power.
If Dunwall was the diseased heart of an Empire, Karnaca is what lies at the edge of the map - a colonialist endeavor that trades Victorian cobblestones for Tuscan tiles, and weepers for blood flies.
Each level in this sun-soaked metropolis can be navigated in a non-linear way. Do you choose to go in the front door or search for the secret entrance down the street? Every mission follows the Dishonored tradition of placing a high-value target in a defended location, but now each level contains its own gameplay twist.
Crack in the Slab allows the player to move dynamically back and forth between two time periods, between a mansion in ruins and the same house three years ago on the night of an opulent party. Our gameplay preview of the Clockwork Mansion allows you to change the configuration of each room like a rubix cube, pulling on levers to find yourself in a whole new area entirely. The Royal Conservatory sees you navigating a massive museum with taxidermy animals, entrenched in the Victorian fascination with natural philosophy and science. Each level is unique, and each pulls back the curtain on a new portrait of life in Emily’s Empire.
Your base of operations here is a boat, and your weapon loadout the same whether you play as Emily or Corvo, including a pistol, sword and crossbow. Instead, Smith explained to us that it’s the upgrades and the powers that will truly define the lines between your playthroughs as either character, playthroughs that should take between 12 and 20 hours.
You can dive further into those abilities on our Dishonored Wiki page that lists each one. For new kid on the block Emily, her supernatural powers are slinky, sharp, and suited to stealthy sweeps of enemy-packed locations.
Take for instance Shadow Walk where she transforms into a torrent of shadow and flows across the floor unnoticed, or Far Reach that allows her to pull herself up to inaccessible places or incapacitate a guard standing metres away in one fell swoop.
Playing as Corvo will be slipping back into the familiar boots of the last game. He uses the rat swarms, possession, time stops and other skills you’ll remember, but the extra 15 years make him feel heavier and more brutish than the sprightly Emily. Still, his powers have been buffed and beefed up, like how Bend Time can also now fast forward time, or possession can now be chained between creatures.
Of course, you can choose to play Dishonored 2 without your powers according to Smith. Doing so will unlock a trophy, and you can check out the full list of in-game achievements here - though beware of spoilers!
So that’s it for our round-up of everything you need to know about Dishonored 2. A Corvo whose chiseled features the sands of time have worn, a grown-up Emily with an arsenal of awesome powers, new exotic locations, and a cornucopia of imaginative levels with clever gameplay twists have our interest piqued. Arkane Studios has claimed you’ll only see about 20% of the game in one playthrough, but between now and the game’s launch on PC, PS4 and Xbox One on 11 November, you’ll find 100% of your Dishonored 2 updates right here at IGN.
Alysia Judge is a video host at IGN, where she reckons shadow walk would be a fairly useful way to late-to-work detection. Follow her on Twitter.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire