I never played Arkane Studios’ Dishonored back in 2012 when it came out. In those days, it wasn’t really the kind of game I liked to play. I was much more likely to play a turn-based RPG than anything else and even when I dabbled in first-person games, I typically bounced off them in a couple of hours. Half-Life 2 and Bioshock spring immediately to mind, two games that I tried and quickly returned on the Xbox 360. Now, many years later, I’ve played a lot more first-person games, more shooters, and in general have broadened my gaming horizons. After playing through Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and sneaking through many bandit camps in Ancient Greece, I found myself craving more stealth gameplay. Dishonored seemed like a perfect fit.
My first impression of Dishonored, having played very few true stealth games, is that the stealth is much more important and intrinsic to the game than modern Assassin’s Creed, where battles typically turn into full-on brawls where sneaking goes completely out the window. I found myself repeatedly reloading when spotted because it just wasn’t worth the hassle that would ensue if a guard alerted his allies. A lot of my desire to reload had to do with the way I played through the game. I decided early on that I didn’t want to kill anyone.
Very few games that involve combat give you the option to avoid taking lives. I guess there’s Spider-Man, but come on, those super-powered punches surely broke a few skulls. In the case of Dishonored, I stuck to the shadows and choked out anyone who was in my way, carefully placing their unconscious bodies out of sight in case others were patrolling nearby. I came to realize I was having a lot of fun plotting out my route to avoid being seen. There was always this sense of cautious excitement when I crept up behind an unaware foe, only to silence them and drag them into the shadows.
The most crucial mechanic in Dishonored that makes it a joy to play is the blink ability. Without it, avoiding being seen would be immensely more challenging and probably a lot less fun. With careful use of this ability, Corvo is able to close the distance to foes, over walls, to rooftops, and whatever else might be in his field of vision in the span of an instant. You can even chain these short-range teleports together provided you have the mana to support it. You’re frequently able to blink to locations you might not expect, like a chandelier, a light post, or the beam of a bridge. You can also just blink directly ahead to quickly zip past an enemy that might be looking the other way.
Even alone, the blink ability makes for a satisfying gameplay loop. The lionshare of my gameplay in Dishonored involved blinking past guards or sneaking up behind them and choking them out. The only other tool at my disposal for a pacifist run was a crossbow loaded up with sleep darts, my last resort if I’d been surrounded by enemies. As a result, I never got to use any of the many other tools at Corvo’s disposal, all only useful in the case of murder.
I had to wonder, by the time I’d arrived at the very end of the game, if I’d missed out on the full Dishonored experience. Sure, I was satisfied that I’d achieved my goal without shedding blood and the ending and events in the game went a long way toward reinforcing the positive feelings I had about that, but I had to admit--it might have been pretty fun to set deadly traps, throw grenades, and really fully utilize Corvo’s toolset in navigating my obstacles.
I’d been on the fence about whether or not I was going to play the DLC of Dishonored, but I had the Definitive Edition for PS4 which included all of that for no additional cost, so I figured why not? I loaded up The Knife of Dunwall, electing to skip the less story-centric Trials expansion entirely, fully intent on assuming the role of Daud, Corvo’s counterpart. Except this time I wasn’t going to spare my enemies.
When I decided to let go and murder every enemy in sight, the game unsurprisingly felt a lot different. Although Dishonored ostensibly gives you the freedom to choose your own path, the tools at your disposal certainly cater more to outright violence. As with the base Dishonored games, there are only a handful of tools that support a non-violent playthrough, but when you consider all of the tools that are designed to murder, it’s staggering. There are crossbow bolts, explosive bolts, grenades, arc mines, a pistol, and abilities that support continuous kills to build up melee finishers, among others.
It was easier, too, because I had less reason to reload if things went wrong, if I had miscalculated. If I alert an enemy, why not just slit their throat right then and there? Or just fire off a point-blank shot before they can tell their friends? That’s never an option when taking someone down peacefully. You can only choke someone out if you approach them unseen--of course there’s the option of using a sleep dart, but even that’s not a perfect solution since it takes time for it to do its work.
Helpfully, The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches do add Chokedust and stun mines as pseudo non-violent diversions, but in both cases they seem designed to incapacitate enemies to make them easier to kill. I’m glad that I played the base Dishonored non-violently my first time through, because I might never have done it if I’d played the game in a more traditional way. It serves as a helpful comparison, though, and makes a lot of sense narratively, since Daud is intrinsically kind of a Bad Dude compared to Corvo. Whether or not I had more fun playing violently is up to debate, but it’s hard to ignore that you definitely have more tools to play with if you elect to kill, and the game is less time-consuming in general when you don’t have to worry about the unforeseen consequences of your actions. Sure, if I rewire a trap, it might prevent it from hurting me, but it could kill a hapless guard instead. It’s a lot easier to just not have to worry about that. The only thing left to worry about at that point is my guilt.
It's worth wondering whether or not it would have been a better use of resources to make a pacifist route as engaging to play as the more traditional violent approach. Every game gives you a set of tools and a list of actions you are capable of performing--and in a lot of cases, the primary action you can take to influence the game world is to defeat your enemies. Although many games may dress this up in a way that's less off-putting, it's no less true that the primary vehicle of expression in the majority of games is, well, murder. There's a lot to unpack about that statement that I don't necessarily need to go into here, but suffice to say that it's very nice to have games that offer the option of avoiding taking lives, especially in the context of an action game like Dishonored. I only wish that the game did a better job of making that type of play style as engaging or as interesting as the violence is.
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