Dishonored’s chaos system fascinates me. On the surface it’s a basic kill-counter, where actually using the fun lethal magic is punished with increased guard counts and a pessimistic ending, and this naturally rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. When given the ability to stop time, what people want to do is take down an entire squad all at once, queue up ten projectiles for when time resumes, move someone back down the stairs, and so on, not just sneaking past one particularly stubborn guard. When given the ability to summon a devouring swarm of rats, the idea isn’t to possess one and sneak it into a drain pipe, it’s to make an explosive and terrifying entrance. Dampening that enjoyment with negative consequences seems like an unambiguously bad move, but the narrative framing that surrounds it leads into an analytical hall of mirrors. These powers are granted by the Outsider, a manifestation of the indefinable void, and their reasons aren’t very clear. They state that it’s because our protagonist is interesting, and they’re curious of what will be done with these newfound abilities. Just as the Outsider grants Corvo powers and a burden of choice, so too does the designer give them to the player, which, to a degree, lets us correlate the ideals of the two. To craft these levels with smart patrol routes, entry points, optional objectives, and bonus dialog takes a ton of effort, so the hope was that players wouldn’t choose to miss that content. While they made it possible to do so, they don’t actually want players to walk in the front door, shoot everyone in sight, and finish the game thoughtlessly in two hours, so some level of punishment was implemented. Similarly, the hope of the Outsider is that Corvo isn’t going to be boring, he won’t just give in to his base lust for revenge, and will instead give some insight on the nature of humanity. Once the uninteresting aggression has been pared off, the choice is then between taking out the high-priority targets lethally or non-lethally, and this where the situation actually becomes nuanced. All of the non-lethal, low-chaos options for eliminating targets are arguably worse than death: being branded with a hot iron and cast into a plague-infested city, being worked to death in a mine, kidnapped by an obsessive stalker, or put up for the same kind of public execution Corvo was originally destined for. The optional dialog in each mission really hammers home just how horrible things will be for those who receive your mercy, with the same overseers who mention the heretic’s brand being the same ones who reveal its horrible implications, and the prophesying heart making it clear that the spared Lady Boyle will soon die in abject poverty thanks to your beneficence. I believe this is the dilemma that the Outsider, as a being outside mortality and time, wants to see. Corvo himself was almost executed outside the law, but now he has all the power in the world and nothing to lose. What perspective on life and death does that give a person? Would he see even the most brutal rat-swarm death as justice, and maybe even merciful compared to the torturous and prolonged alternative? How much is mere existence worth?

However, that perspective rests upon the ever-shaky foundation of determining the developer’s intent, and it’s questionable how much of this is simply overanalysis. After all, every one of those horrible non-lethal options contribute to the low-chaos ending, with its bright skies and optimism. What could have been a dilemma worthy of the Outsider’s interest, one with no right answers, ends up as a right-and-wrong binary choice. This might be another example of the full-lethality problem, where the developers wanted players to have a choice, but had to associate some options with punishment to force players into thinking. With this, we arrive at Dishonored’s infinite mirror, of asking why players are given a choice if one option is almost objectively inferior, which can be answered with the idea that this effect is deeply woven into the narrative, which can in turn be questioned when it means interesting dilemmas are made into binary choices with inferior options, and so on, to infinity.

To be honest, I don’t know what my takeaway about Dishonored’s chaos system and its story really is. On one hand, I love that I get to question these things, but on the other, I wonder if its choices being blandly sorted into high or low chaos was just a cynical move, an anticipation that players might not pick up on the worldbuilding details and say there was no point to it all. Giving the murderous players a dark and stormy final level was considered the best way to show that the world was reacting to their choices; non-lethality had to be rewarded with smiles and sunny days, the feeling of being patronized is inescapable. That sneaky bitterness of cynicism is about the only thing that keeps me from really adoring the game, since it does everything else so beautifully, the world is so unique and interesting, the levels intricate and the powers satisfying, it’s the exact sort of originality I love to see. I just wish I could be confident that the game thought as highly of me as I do of it.

Dishonored is one of the few games I've ever played where a direct recommendation of "play this with a controller/keyboard and mouse" cannot be made. Generally speaking, I enjoy playing stealth games with a controller. Stealth, like racing games, is a genre that benefits greatly from analog sticks. At the heart of a great stealth game is nail-biting tension and suspense. Vulnerability is stressed through risk outweighing reward. On a keyboard, all of your inputs are static. Are you pressing up? Good, you're moving up. Jolting an analog stick up can mean the difference between shuffling silently and bringing in nearby ears for inspection. Even in games where this choice tends to be an illusion, it heightens the already high stakes of weaving in and out of crowded spaces as little more than a specter in the night. If that's how you choose to play Dishonored, I recommend it. Leaning and inventory management can feel a little less natural than they would on a keyboard, but they're functional and aren't as distracting as they could potentially be. In the words of Godd Howard himself, "it just works."

The other side of the coin is this: combat-based playthroughs require vastly more precision than two analog sticks can allow. Far from the stealth game half of this game is, aggressive playstyles in Dishonored turn the game into a psychotically frenetic action-platformer about style. The ability to teleport goes from a neat tool for traversing large areas undetected to a weapon that allows you to change your position on the fly. Double jumping allows you to exploit the verticality of each level, creating moments where countering an attack means raising a blade from above as often as it does parrying a swing. Grenade kills are a gory spectacle that separates torsos from limbs and then torsos from themselves. But this brutality exists for more than shock value alone. Each decapitated body part can be picked up and thrown to be used as a distraction or to stagger oncoming attacks. Being of the same lineage of Dark Messiah, Dishonored features a host of supernatural abilities to go alongside teleportation, one of which allows you to throw enemies to the ground with a gust of wind. Paired with the ability to stop time completely, falling bodies go from quick executions to rather grim bridges used to access nearby rooftops. Also paired with the ability to turn the weapons of your enemies into your own, it allows you to disintegrate unaware platoons. As both a stealth game and a power fantasy, Dishonored succeeds.

As a narrative? I don't know what to tell you. This is where things start to get a little bit more complicated. At the heart of Dishonored isn't its cast of characters or the journey you go on but the morality of your actions. The choice to go silent or to leave bodies in your wake is one not only made for your character but the world he lives in. Going on a murderous rampage causes everyone to hate you while the world falls to shit. It's daring and bold, and I can't say it works entirely because this game loves to give you tools to just murder the fuck out of everyone. Your supernatural powers can be used to sneak around guards. But when upgrades can make my powers deadlier while others encourage me to go on thoughtlessly violent killing sprees, I don't know if I feel like the game is trying to instill any morals in me and succeeding in its job. Especially since the detail of this setting only makes me care about the characters I'm told to get rid of, the non-violent approach to Dishonored's narrative can feel a bit hollow.

Outside of that, though, this is one of the best immersive sims I've ever played. This is one of those quintessential 'reload your save every five minutes' games, and it's always a blast to revisit. I do wish its attitude toward women were a little friendlier. I wouldn't say it's the most misogynistic game I've ever played, but averypaledog's review hits the nail on its head.

Dishonored é uma obra-prima, com infinita variedade no gameplay, parecendo por vezes um Hitman com esteróides em primeira pessoa, a idéia do final mudar conforme suas ações aumenta a tensão em todas as missões e é o maior chamativo do jogo pra mim, você sempre tem a opção de agir não letalmente ou o oposto, e isso vai afetar o mundo e a história de várias formas, nunca zerar um jogo sem matar ninguém foi tão divertido, esse também é talvez o jogo mais parecido com Half Life 2 artisticamente falando, sua curta duração é desculpada pelo seu fator replay, todo fã de Stealth e Immersive Sim tem a obrigação de jogar esse.

Um ótimo "stealth". O melhor do jogo é que não há um modo certo para jogar, as missões podem ser concluídas de diversas formas diferentes. A ambientação e o traço do jogos são extremamente bonitos, tendo gráficos levemente exagerados e cores que dão um aspecto de pintura ao jogo.
O principal ponto negativo do game é o protagonista. Além do protagonista não ter voz, Corvo tem uma história super rasa, não possuindo uma motivação clara sobre sua vingança (Okay, ele quer resgatar a princesa, mas todas as missões que ele é enviado vem de motivações terceiras). O plot twist do jogo mesmo sendo previsível, funciona. Resumidamente, a gameplay do game é melhor que a história do jogo em si.

Abandoned this about 7 hours in, towards the end of the first proper mission.

I deeply disliked the effect the morality system has on the game. The game tells you from very early on that you have to avoid killing people in order to get a better ending. Upon learning this, and wanting a good ending, half the items and skills in the game became completely irrelevant if they were intended to kill enemies. Meanwhile the game turned into a mad flurry of saving and reloading (which I find very not-fun in games) because if an enemy ever saw you your inability to kill them meant all you'd be able to do is run away anyways, so if you don't save every time you knock someone unconscious and load whenever you're spotted the game takes forever. The condition attached to the good ending is also just very wishy-washy in a way that stressed me out too; how many enemies can I get away with killing?, am I going to be punished for humans dying for reasons beyond my control (apparently, yes, which was very frustrating)?, am I allowed to kill guard dogs without it hurting my good-ending chances (apparently yes, but I'd really like this to be stated in-game as it's just not intuitive)? Remove the morality system, and make killing people or being a stealthy ghost feel more like a play-style choice rather than something I'm being judged on with rewards being attached to one of the two options, and I'd instantly be much more on-board with the game.

Somewhat relatedly, I found playing the game a very stressful experience. When you're trying to play stealthily, such that you won't let yourself kill or attack anyone in an attempt to get the good-ending, you're super vulnerable. If an enemy sees you all you can do is run away and hide (as they take chase). Mechanically playing with this approach already starts to feel like its bordering on being a horror-game (weak, vulnerable protagonist tries to avoid relentless, essentially-immortal enemies whilst trying to reach the thing that will stop them attacking you), but these vibes are emphasised many times over by the oppressive atmosphere that the game's plague-ridden flavour conjures up. I think either the flavour or the mechanics on their own would have been fine for me, but combined these things led to me just being constantly stressed, on-edge and miserable.

A bunch of other stuff bothered me beyond this; it's very unclear what the range of sight on enemies actually is, attempting to knock enemies unconscious from behind just wouldn't work some amount of the time, I personally really dislike that the game requires I kill rats. Probably the biggest point in the game's favour, from the small portion I played, is that the two powers I unlocked (blink-teleporting and night-sight-that-lets-you-see-lifeforms-through-walls) are compelling and pleasing to use. The worlds I was exploring also seemed to have an impressive level of depth to them too, enough so that I'm a bit sad that not enjoying the way the game encourages me to engage with it mechanically prevented me from exploring it further.

Dishonored is a grim and intriguing work of art that highlights the many joyous complexities of the stealth genre.

For the longest time I hated stealth. I never saw the point of being silent and sneaky when going loud yields the same results. Dishonored changed my perspective. With Dishonored, I didn't try to be sneaky because I had to. For the first time while playing a stealth game, I went sneaky simply because I wanted to. Dishonored gives you the tools to do this in an exceptionally entertaining and unique way.

The story of Dishonored is the perfect blend of fantasy, science-fiction, and reality. You sneak around as a framed assassin with eldritch powers in rat-plagued 1800s city, all while avoiding corrupt guards and sentient electricity turrets powered by whale fat. The story is also very engaging. The achievement for beating the game has a 41% completion rate on steam. This is much higher then most other games.

And then there's the ways you can assassinate your targets. Hitman (2016) always had unique ways to kill targets, and I'm pretty sure it had these because of Dishonored.

A small criticism I have of Dishonored is how unbelievably hard it is to 100% the game. Don't even think about trying it.

I can understand why people like this game a lot because there's a lot of room to play it however you want to with different builds and the level design is quite satisfying in that regard BUT I had fun playing this game like it was Neon White, which means I probably shouldn't have bought a stealth game (but it was on sale for a dollar!).

Since this was my first playthrough it also made me feel a bit like I was punished for playing the game like that given how the High Chaos ending feels sort of like a 'bad end' with all the characters punishing you or acting more callous towards you. Idk, I'm an assassin, sorry for killing everyone. The narrative isn't anything to write home about so I wasn't really attached to anyone beyond Corvo so I had no qualms just killing everyone, including Samuel, whom we are supposed to be attached to, or at least more attached to than I was. I ended up killing him so I was laughing over the shot in the ending montage of Corvo standing next to his grave instead of standing next to oh, idk, his dead sort-of-wife's grave.

My grievances aside I loved the world building and the lore of the game! It's really cool and incredibly unique. I'm a bit bummed the narrative of the game itself was as straightforward as it ended up being but I just know that fic writers are doing some crazy stuff and I actually feel compelled to go looking around for some of those stories because I think the world is just so interesting.

The game's morality is very 2010s, which isn't bad or good, it just reminds me of how people made games in this era, so again, I can really understand why it stood out to people so much at the time. I'm glad I played it especially since it was a dollar and was as short as it was, but I have no interest in playing it again for a Low Chaos run or checking out the DLCs unless I watch an LP.

"𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘴 𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘵."

Ratos por toda parte.
Esse é um jogo que te apresenta várias alternativas em uma missão, isso constrói uma narrativa bem flexível. Você pode ser matador ou misericordioso, porém isso acaba afetando as cidades e pessoas, instaurando ou não o caos.
O caos funciona como uma espécie de sistema de karma. A estética do jogo é cartoonesca com um toque de bizarro que combina com o ambiente devastado, lembra animações de terror.

Gameplay satisfatória e "moderna", várias habilidades para usar e caminhos para seguir nos mapas, a ambientação e level design é muito forte. Fiz uma run low chaos quase sem matar ninguém, mas existe uns personagens que você vai querer executar, por exemplo, o Torturador. Não sei se matar hostis influencia no caos.

Tempo de jogo: ~10 horas

Rejoguei depois de anos sem tocar nessa franquia denovo

o Dishonored 1 é com certeza uma parada diferente, ele é um imersive sim dos melhores que tem por ae, e por mais que a história tem seus pontos meio Clichê e até simplezinha de entender

eu acho que o que mais brilha pra mim nesse jogo é o universo dele, como as histórias além da principal são montadas e ambientadas, eu já me afoguei um monte de vezes só nesse jogo de 2012, em ficar olhando paisagens e admirando cada pedaço daquela cidade pronta pra colapsar de dentro pra fora

a ambientação desse jogo é uma parada de outro mundo, parece que em cada canto escuro infestado da praga te conta um pedaço da história daquela cidade, mesmo sem livros, sem texto

outra parada que eu acho muito legal nessa franquia é o estimulo a não-violencia, a maioria dos video-games que fazem muito sucesso tem algum grau de violência (não que isso seja um problema) mas esse jogo pega esses conceitos e deixa você tanto jogar como uma Entidade Furiosa e assassina após ter sido traído e jogado aos ratos,

quanto te deixa pensar que as pessoas que te veem como uma ameaça hoje e querem a todo custo te matar, são inocentes, elas foram manipuladas, elas só querem te matar pq elas acham que você é o culpado, então matar elas contribui pro high chaos do jogo que impacta muito como tanto os npcs te veem, como quanto isso escala pro fim do jogo

isso também vale pra pessoas infectadas pela doença, elas são inocentes, quem causou isso com elas foi o governo, elas COM CERTEZA, não querem ser daquele jeito

eu sou apaixonado no universo desse jogo, ele é muito cruel, e joga um cara que tava na nobreza pras ruas só pra mostrar oque a nobreza nunca teve contato, que é a miséria, a criminalidade... e a doença

I don't think I can call it my favorite game, but everything is made on the highest level:
ㅤ• complete freedom of actions (multiple ways to complete a mission without any punishment for doing it the "wrong" way or coercion to the "right" one);
ㅤ• an elaborate combat system (whether you're into stealth or not, you'll find your own style);
ㅤ• side activities (I really enjoyed the side quest and optional objectives);
ㅤ• attention to details (sometimes I made the stupidest things just to check whether the devs have foreseen that, and to my pleasant surprise, most of the time, they have);
ㅤ• an interesting plot (and some deep lore, although, I didn't really look into it, but that's an advantage);
ㅤ• all characters, even minor ones, have a personality, and in addition, lots of interesting NPC dialogues you can eavesdrop on that may tell you more about the setting;
ㅤ• beautiful locations (I genuinely loved to explore them even when there was no loot) and unobtrusive soundtrack (it sounded nice and set up a perfect mood).

Basically, it's a great game with lots of content if you're really dedicated to it and don't just run straight to the main objective ignoring everything else on your way. Perfect for people like me who just have to explore every nook and cranny and love to be rewarded for that.

me: i am fundementally opposed to the monarchy and the church as ruling powers. history is a record of their atrocities

my therapist: that's fair

me: but i love it when the enemies of the heiress to the throne are slaughtered by her loyal protector, his once-gentle ways pushed to the brink by the betrayal he has endured, so that she may ascend to the title that was stolen from her and right the wrongs of her predecessors

my therapist: who doesn't

Veredito: Escolhas variadas, mecânicas fodas, e dilemas morais.

Dishonored tá longe de ser perfeito: a dublagem às vezes é ruim e tem muito rosto mal animado (o que não é bom num jogo fotorrealista focado na história), certas decisões dos devs são muito questionáveis e ele sofre de uma falta considerável de polimento, incluindo bugs. Porra, recomecei o tutorial do zero por erro do jogo. Duas vezes!

Mas... sou forçado a achar ele incrível. Dishonored me fez pensar na maldade e bondade humanas, nos ciclos da sociedade, em ditaduras, nas pessoas horríveis que podemos virar se não tomarmos cuidado, se nos deixarmos levar por covardia, ou não soubermos diferenciar nossas boas intenções daquilo que decidimos fazer de fato. O trailer deixa bem claro: 'a vingança resolve tudo'. O jogo me dá todos os motivos e meios pra aloprar geral, pra matar com sangue e sem dó.

E me deixa decidir, a cada momento, o que fazer. Decidi não matar ninguém, resolver o problema do jeito mais pacífico que pude, e mesmo assim me sinto um merda. Me sinto também um ninja sorrateiro que passou despercebido de todo mundo e que soube aproveitar ao máximo cada arma, poder e caminho alternativo. Joguei um immersive sim fantástico, que botou mais roleplay nas mecânicas de stealth do que muito RPG bota nos atributos e números. Com seu roleplay e mecânicas, Dishonored fez pensar principalmente na minha própria ética, nos limites dela, no que deveria fazer para melhorar ela. E ainda não achei respostas.

A game that can be considered one of the Titans in the stealth-action and immersive sim genre. Dishonored shines with its fantastic level design and mechanics that gives players a lot of freedom to explore and pursue their own way of completing missions. In addition to the base game, it also has two great DLC that expands on the game design of the base. There are some clunkiness that can be attributed to the older game engine and it has a simple story and a weak chaos system. But the gameplay, the artstyle, the atmosphere, and the setting makes it stand out as one of the best of its genre. Plus, the current price of the base + DLC package being only $20 makes it a value package and the frequent Steam sales that it participates in makes it a fantastic purchase. This game gets a YAY from me

Skulking on rooftops, blinking to an upper balcony and then possessing a guard and standing within inches of a target, I love those moments.

Being given the choice to kill or get rid of someone through ingenious and sometimes sinister ways is a big highlight.

The world of Dunwall is a dark and somewhat beautiful place, both filled with despair and and a few individuals trying to bring light to a dark world is a sight to behold, a immersive game like no other!

I played this game in full while a dear friend who loved it very much watched. She was the best part of the experience.

I think more people should just play tabletop games or write books or draw pictures instead of making video games with annoying mechanics that obscure the lovely creativity of individuals- individuals with a genuine desire for agency and resources to imagine something complete and total.

You might think "oh, but what I WANT to make is a video game."
I don't believe you! I believe your parents bought you video games as a kid because it entertained you, and you never read books or had a cigarette after a meaningful experience with sex. You haven't played music live or been to a good show on whatever your buddy let you sniff off their index. I think you'd love the rush monitors caving in your ear drums and making eyes at the guy across the bar who came in with a haircut you like and a shirt with your favorite band's logo. I think you'd like the feeling of drawing a brush in one last stroke along a canvas before finishing the best watercolor you've ever spent time on. I think you'd like a beer with you homie Dylan way more than this.

This shit debases you down to your most bare components, when developers are trying to do fucking behaviorism on you to trick you into playing with toys in a specific way. They dress it up in incredible art and genuinely singular themes and stylings, but you're still just some motherfucking sigma male white guy who kills with a sad style using a skill tree and epic weapons and powers or whatever the fuck.

Game made me feel like a rat in a maze, even when I did cool shit. The chaos mechanic is so ridiculous. Treated women very bad. I appreciated how unafraid the story was with you suspending your disbelief, very unconcerned with explaining itself to you.

Sell your computer, buy a bass, move to a dirty city, join a band, start drinking, play poker with a man who is very old, donate all your money to charity, reckon with death, and then die when it is your time.

I'm part of the D.I.C.K squad. (Dunwall's Ice Cold Killer).

When you play this game like a maniac out for blood, using every single violent tool at your disposal, you end up looking like if Agent 47 had the skillset of Dante. Every aspect of that game absolutely rocks. When you're not playing that game, either because you're trying to pay attention to a plot with a million celebrity voice actors who KNOW this is the easiest paycheck they ever got during 2012 or because, god forbid, you're playing the game without breaking out that knife a single time - shit, is it dull.

It's a shame too, since Dunwall is a fun place and the world it paints manages to evoke a melancholy feeling in me, not to mention the fact that I think the art design and direction is pretty aces.

Your adopted daughter in this game draws four different images based on how much of a nice guy or a bastard you are and they're all (unintentionally) hilarious.

Dishonored é uma maravilha de se jogar!

Ter todas aquelas opções de abordagem dos objetivos foi aos poucos mudando muito a forma como eu olho para video games, Dishonored te obriga a ter um olhar criativo para chegar no seu objetivo.

O level design de Dishonored está muito acima dos padrões da indústria, são muitas opções e muitos segredos.

Porém, apesar de impressionante nesses aspectos, o jogo falha em contar sua história. Dishonored tem uma ambientação pobre, por exemplo, casas vazias, assets repetidos o tempo todo, nada no ambiente colabora para contar a história do jogo. Em Bioshock, por outro lado, vemos isso sendo feito de maneira exímia, ao entrar em um quarto é possível entender o que as pessoas que estavam ali viveram, o que pensavam, ou como morreram.

Suas DLCs são excelentes, algumas das melhores que já joguei na minha vida. Por curiosidade, acho a história das DLCs mais interessante do que do jogo base.

Ainda assim, Dishonored é um jogo que beira a perfeição, e uma das melhores experiências que tive com jogos em um bom tempo.

I feel like since this was the first entry in a series it wasn’t gonna be the best.
The controls were clunky and some sections were really hard even by my standards.
The story was intriguing, I would probably play a remaster (this time not as chaotic).
I threw aside stealth in favor of killing anything that crosses my path.
The game wasn’t too long so I could see myself playing another round.