Is Dishonored 2 One of the Most Underappreciated Titles This Gen?

i rarely ever see d2 mentioned on these boards, particularly when people discuss their favourite games of the gen and i wonder why. it's definitely one of mine.

the vast array of powers and mechanics it serves up is remarkable. the ability to mix and match these to suit your play style and switch at any point to flit between brutal terrorist, silent pacifist or anywhere in between is freedom rarely seen in gaming these days. and the extent of which you can creatively combine powers and mechanics with in-game content is ingenious.

stealthgamerbr is the best youtuber i’ve seen to demonstrate this stuff.

we all love games that reward creativity and you’d be hard pressed to find better examples of this than the dishonored games. the answer to the question of “i wonder if i could do <insert something creative here>” is invariably yes. case in point -

the level design is similarly some of the most imaginative out there. kirin jindosh’s clockwork mansion with its shape shifting, labyrinthine rubik’s cube design and the estate of aramis stilton requiring you to leap back and forth through time with the use of the mystical timepiece thingamabob are triumphs of design and shirley rank up there as some of the best this gen.

there is some bad stuff too, i’m not so blinkered to suggest otherwise, but i’m keen to hear your thoughts on the game, how you think it compares to the first dishonored and, if you didn’t like it, what would you do to improve it for dishonored 3?

I like first one better. this one is more overpowered and i was bored. never finish plus it was badly optimize.

Prey is best arkane game. there said.

Is it overrated?

It has a niche Audience like Deus Ex does.

I thought it was hugely overrated actually. PC Gamer gave it Game of the Year over Overwatch.

The writing is weak and the AI is mostly broken. I couldn't believe the decision to split up those characters when you have Stephen Russell doing the voices. He's barely in it if you don't play as him.

Meh. Dishonored makes you too overpowered. I'd rather play Thief.

yeah i believe the ai was buggy on pc at launch. i didn't have any issues on the ps4 tbh.

in general i thought the ai was pretty good on hard difficulty, enemies group together and team up to tactically to find and tackle you. they regroup together if they can't. they're generally perceptive (but not good at vertically spotting you, definitely noticed that), plus there's a decent mix of them including the clockwork soldiers and they each require different strategies to take down.

as for the stephen russell point if you don't chose to be corvo then he's the one turned to stone so naturally he's not going to be that chatty. bit harsh to hold that against the game.

the last thief game was horrible. with d2 you can choose to play without powers or limit them to whatever you see as challenge worthy

Dishonored 2 was fun but I definitely enjoyed the first one more.

I think it's definitely underappreciated... it deserved more attention. But like said above, it's kind of a niche game nowadays.

No, the first one was superior

@Macutchi: Obviously he's the one that turns to stone yes. I thought it was a really poor story decision because I wasn't going to play through the game a second time just to hear his voice.

I hated how the AI instantly switched to fully alert even if they just got a tiny spot of you. The AI really needed an investigative mode before coming for you. Even guards at night in the middle of the street instantly recognise you at once.

Edit: What the guy above me said basically.

Wasnt nearly as good as the first one. Sneaking was really difficult on the levels i played. What kind of stealth game reacts that negatively to stealth.

Yup, it was great. I hope Arkane continue to make games like that now that Dishonored story is finished. Perhaps a spiritual successor.

Its an excellent, enjoyed every moment of it, Death of the Outsider as well made me hopefully that there will be a dishonored 3.

The game has been fixed considerable, it runs like a dream.

ok sounds something very specific to you and your expectations. i think the inclusion of two protags, both with different powers / styles was a great design choice. i'm not sure why you place so much stock in hearing stephen russell's voice but if that's more important to you than having a choice of protags then fair enough i guess.

as for the ai, they have the markers above their heads which are in essence an investigative to alert mode indicator. i never personally thought the ai were overly perceptive or unfair.

and as a wanted individual, if an enemy was to spot you in the street (can't think of any streets that were unlit at night), i don't think it's unrealistic to expect them to recognise and pursue you. there's many ways you can circumvent those kind of situations

Yeah I absolutely loved it.

I really don't get why Dishonored 2 and Prey aren't selling, I think they are games everyone should play.

There is just so much you can do in these games, as long as you are creative enough.

Meh to be fair I only played the demo, but to

Me it seemed to have the excact same

Problem as D1. Yes you can be all sneaky and stealth your way through it, but with a few exceptions it’s just sooooo much faster and easier to just kill everything, because you are wayyy overpowered...

That may seem so at the start, but going through the game you unlock some very powerful magic to use for being stealthy or getting no kills.

or for recent i would say Hitman.

Fantastic game. my second fav game after DOOM this gen.

I love how overpowered you get in Dishonoured. Most games don't go for that so I welcome the different approach. And it serves well to encourage experimentation.

Sure was. Doesn't make the old ones worse though. And the old ones shits all over Dishonored.

And not use things the game gives you to make the game harder feels really stupid to me. Game is desiged to use its' things. If I play Dishonored without powers I might just as well play the vastly superiour Thief series instead of trying to make Dishonored as much as possible into Thief.

if you're talking about the old thief games then the last one was like 14 year ago. get with the times lads!

and, even as a big stealth fan, i really didn't care for the new hitman game. ignoring the stupid decision to go episodic and require always online, the game felt over simplified to the point of where it had even removed the ability to do elementary things like peer through keyholes.

the whole "opportunities" feature was just a glorified hand holding mechanism and although you can turn it off, without it i felt like i was just fumbling round in the dark, needing to be in the right place at the right time to serendipitously stumble across something useful to help what was otherwise largely a trial and error approach.

d2 is by orders of magnitude the better stealth game in my eyes.

my thoughts too. there's some crazy shit you can pull off when you've maxed out various skill trees and combine them together, but only if you start over again and reassign all your runes from the previous play through, meaning you have to complete the game first before it'll let you do that. but the great thing about the game is it's left entirely up to you, so if that doesn't appeal go with no powers or just a very limited subset on high difficulty instead

I'd rather not. Thief 1, 2 and 3 is so much better than Dishonored it's not even funny. DOOM 1&2 is so much better than 3 and 4 it's not even funny. Team Fortress 2 is so much better than Overwatch it's not even funny. I could go on.

It's not funny how much worse most games are today. I'm not gonna play them just because they're new and I have to "get with the times". If I have to play 14 years old games to play something better, then so be it.

i adore the first thief games but it doesn't stop me from being able to appreciate newer games.

and there is objectively a lot to appreciate in the dishonored games, it's a shame you can't see it

I can totally see why people like it, no problem. But I don't like it. It just makes me think of similar better games I'd rather play. I can see why people can have super fun with GTA games too, fooling around with shit, and I don't like the GTAs either.

Doom 3 was true evolution of franchise and Doom 4? well if you count the impact in 1993 than sure its better. however today Doom 4 play much better. Doom 1 and 2 didnot even had free mouse look are now are browser based game.

it took modders to make mod brutal Doom to become stable on todays computer with free mouse look.

last geneartion was terrible. remember horde of COD clones?? remember how awful Hitman Absolution was compare to fantastic Hitman 2016.

gaming 10 years ago saw the darkest era in gaming. i mean from 2008 to 2012.

gotcha, i misunderstood from your previous post. and for what it's worth i feel the same about a lot of modern games compared to older ones too

Still need to play it, but, the game was most certainly well celebrated during its release. And I don't recall anybody yet to say they felt differently about it later, which is a good sign. I wouldn't sweat it. But yeah, probably see more by proxy bashing like "Bethesda doesn't make good games anymore".

Definitely. Game was amazing

I enjoyed both Dishonored 1 and 2, to be fair the stealth genre is a just abit hard for most people to get into. With that said I liked both and thought the story for the second could have been better but playing as Emily was fun. Her ability to turn into a creepy shadow stealth thing was fun.

I enjoyed both 1 and 2. Strangely enough I enjoyed Dishonored 2 addon more than I anticipated. Great game with great level design.

*yawn* Look, what a cool and nostalgic hipster I am! The Thief games have aged terribly. I actually doubt that you have played them.

No, it's kinda bad and treated as such.

idk I found the first one boring. It's challenging if you go stealthy but if you play casually it's rather easy.

I think they waited too long for a sequel. Also, it really made me feel like I was playing something I've already played before, but I can't figure out what...

Yes and no. If you play it as a stealth game it is a great game. But if you go for a combat playthrough the game completely collapses into a 3 hour shitfest. It's really unbalanced and bad.

It's pretty amazing, and does the first game proud imo.

So yes I'd argue it is underappreciated; people hate on it just for being "not as good as the first" and that's bullshit. It stands on it's own, and is incredibly fun.

A new IP would be awesome, but so would a prequel to Dishonored. Or a sequel to Prey, another overlooked game.

Arkane is just awesome. Love their game engine, too, makes the games look like oil paintings.

A common problem for games that give the player creative liberty, in other words, leave it up to the player to get all the fun out of the game, is "path of least resistance" syndrome": players won't use everything at their disposal to maximize the enjoyment of the game; if they can just use a couple items or skills and beat the game in three hours, they will.

God forbid they try something else out and have fun with the game. These are the same kind of people that will look at a bucket of LEGO pieces and go "what do i do with those?" if not provided a pre-sorted kit with directions. Sad!

Yeah, a prequel could work with Daud as an assassin leading up to the assassination of Empress. That could work.

This game is phenomenal. Arkane has a really deep understanding of systemic level/game design, I think they're of the best studios still making games true to the old "immersive sim" genre.

Immersive sims are niche subgenre that is heavily PC-based. Most of "gaming culture/history" is very heavily console-biased. So most mainstream reviewers would be going on about Nintendo or Sony games when talking about recognized games instead companies like Looking Glass or Arkane Studios.