Dishonored | Capturing the Arkane | 2020 Review

Dishonored is a 2012 stealth-action game from Arkane Studios set in a post-apocalyptic Dunwall City. My Dishonored 2020 review covers the topic of genre, level design, and story, and makes an attempt at capturing the Arkane. Arkane Studios was the studio behind Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, and would have had a couple other titles had they been more savvy with their contracts. Dishonored's credits include names like Raphael Colantonio, Harvey Smith, and Bethesda Game Softworks (of course Bethesda is here). These guys worked on games like System Shock, Thief, and Deus Ex, which of course inspires a long conversation about Immersive Sims.
SOURCES -
Bethesda's shady business isn't unusual - www.archive.is...
Infinite Bodies Tweak - archive.is/Z7hL1
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic Trailer - • Dark Messiah of Might ...
Arx Fatalis Trailer - • Arx Fatalis Trailer - ...
Hunt Down the Freeman Trailer - • HUNT DOWN THE FREEMAN ...
Half Life Alyx Meeting the Vortigaunt - • HALF LIFE ALYX Meeting...
#Patrician

[@Patrician]

Please bear in mind that I had 53 subscribers when I uploaded this video. Hunt Down the Freeman went through Steam Greenlight on Valve's platform, and to this day remains a blatant copyright infringement of their IP on their storefront. It doesn't take a stamp of approval from Gaben himself for that to be a taken as a greenlight.

[@pablocruz5613]

K Lu

[@panimala]

Not a blatant infringement with how Valve handles their IP in regards to fan creations no.

[@cstew1349]

Dishonored is one of the games I've played through most, and I don't think that has anything to do with the gameplay or the plot. Gameplay is good, plot is ok, but the world one inhabits, the characters in it, and the particular artistic style really do it for me.

[@planescaped]

It did am amazing job at creating atmosphere. One of the best original IP worlds created in the past decade I say. Would love to see a big Bethesda-style RPG set in the Dishonored universe.

[@KnjazNazrath]

'ate steampunk, 'ate bleedin from me eyes, 'ate birds from Brigmore, luv whalepunk. Simple as.

[@naunau311]

I'd say the gameplay is more than "good" honestly. My basis for that is just how much you can do how free you are to be creative etc... Just look at some kill montages you'll find some hilarious ones, some really impressive ones, some impossible looking ones... There's just so much way to kill people in that game

[@kodan7879]

It's just so choke full of stuff and polish. Something draws you back again and again and again.

[@vafan13]

@@naunau311 "good plus" or "very good minus", then? lol

[@thesurvivorssanctuary6561]

If you get the low chaos ending and you spare High Overseer Campbell(as both a man and then a weeper), he get's cured of his weep...ing...ness. Weeperness.

[@casperryborg4869]

I never knew that he got cured, that is freaking amazing. Thanks for the interesting trivia!

[@David-mr2ql]

I don’t think this is correct. He is not shown in the “Sokolov and Piero curing the plague” cutscene. Where have you seen this?

[@blakehansen5434]

@@David-mr2qlhe’s cappin big time

[@EmDub01]

Glad I discovered this channel! One note on the non-lethal options for targets is that, while more cruel and elaborate than a simple swift assassination, they keep in line with the game’s title: the targets are left dishonored, given pathetic and miserable life sentences, much like what Corvo had faced. There could be arguments against this idea though, it’s been a few years since I have finished the game, but that is the impression I got from those non-lethal options, that the fate worse than death was to totally strip the villains of their dignity and humanity.

[@lm05_]

I had never thought about it that way, wow

[@lifeismeaningless5512]

@@lm05_ that's why there's the saying "Death before Dishonor"

[@jamisoncrawford9868]

Nothing justifies how you do Jindosh.

[@businessgamerprb5398]

If they had dignity and humanity left in them they would have not done what they did.... It's just simply taking fate into your hands or letting fate do it's work...

[@ginge641]

@@businessgamerprb5398 Lady Boyle's only crime is financially supporting Burrows. The Pendletons had nothing to do with the coup either and do as he says because their house is (relatively) suffering.

[@killroy1117]

Would love to see a dishonoured 2 review! I loved both the games and I learned a lot in this review

[@Patrician]

It and Arkane's Prey have also been requested. Arkane in general is pretty much good ground to cover.

[@kingdavey90]

I don't know if the video got enough dislikes and unsubscribers to warrant Dishonored 2 video.

[@v-trigger6137]

@@Patrician you should also try review to Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah. Arkane's earlier games

[@scientificbrony]

@@Patrician I love prey, if you are down so am i

[@vonhendrik]

Came to your channel for the Morrowind mega video, stayed for all the rest of this quality analysis. Your hard work is appreciated and incredible. Can't wait to see you at 100,000 subscribers and up.

[@notsae66]

You can actually save Emily in High Chaos; if you teleport and kill her captor before he can throw her off the ledge, you get a third ending with "evil" Emily ruling.

[@xxXXRAPXXxx]

You can just shoot hemlok in the face with a crossbow and Emily will hang on the ledge for long enough that you can just walk up to her and watch her fall (in high chaos i kill everyone and feed them to my little rats. Call me Grandpa Stabby.). Or you know stop time.

[@blakehansen5434]

No shit

[@megapussi]

In the video he says "havloc grabs emily and threatens to jump. He'll do it too!" Its worded this way because its extremely obvious you're able to save emily, and the surprising part is that its even possible for her to die at all.

[@krullachief669]

Tbh I love the nonlethal options because for most of them, they're worse fates than death. It's great to just damn people while letting them live. Also stealing Daud's purse is just pure fucking swag. To add on to the Daud thing, Daud himself is perfectly fine with you killing him for what he's done, but if you walk away after fighting him he's in disbelief, but if you steal his coin purse, my preferred way of neutralizing him because style, he just has a quiet breakdown over the fact that, as he was surrounded by people loyal to him, only one person would ever really steal from him and that person would also just fucking kill him. So when you just pick his pocket and leave? That sends him down a spiral that's genuinely very interesting. More so because if you role play as Corvo the cruelly merciful, letting your targets live, for a given value of living, he could infer about the other ways Corvo would fuck with him. It's just a really nice character beat into the minds of both Daud and Corvo.

[@yewtewbstew547]

I like them for the same reason (especially the Pendletons one, they had that coming lol) but I do agree with people who say the "non lethal" stuff conflicts with the chaos system. That system was a good idea, I especially like how it creates a bit of a logical link between an increase in deaths and higher instances of rat swarms looking to eat corpses, but there were a few issues with it's execution and the moral aspect was one of them. Many of the non lethal options are clearly the greater evil AND logically would have a more chaotic impact on the world, so it doesn't always make sense. That said you can easily kill all of the main targets and still achieve the low chaos ending, so it's not too big of a problem. If you get the high chaos ending it's invariably going to be because you butchered guards en masse, which does make sense.

[@elibattaglia1200]

Honestly I think all of the character's were interesting, but Daud was super interesting and the DLC's just added on to my interest in him

[@v-trigger6137]

I never killed Daud, he wasn't really a bad guy or so he was less of a bad guy than the people you met in the game. he was able to regain his humanity back and got into a good path.. the DLC implies that after the assassination he felt a guilt, for making a child orphan and helping corrupt people to capture a whole country. he realizes what he did and he was ready to accept the outcome from Corvo, instead being a chickenshit and running like other characters. not to mention he also helps Emily from Delilah, that was enough for me to spare him

[@elibattaglia1200]

@@v-trigger6137 and then in dishonored 2 they make his low chaos run canon to the story, so he really did change and he's a good guy now

[@v-trigger6137]

also Daud was voiced by the badass Michael Madsen. that's another plus point for making the character cool

[@onanthebarbarian4842]

Dishonored is, in my opinion, hobbled in a weird, less than obvious way. Seriously, hear me out: The best way is to pseudo-ironman it and only use autosave points when you die. I realized this after botching stealth and being attacked by a bunch of guards. I popped slow motion and fought off four of them at the same time, with slow motion cutting out just in time for all of them to fall dead in a semi-circle around me. This was awesome, and I remember thinking it was a shame it would never be part of that Corvo's history because I'd just reload, not get caught, and go for a neatly planned out Low Chaos run. It struck me how strange it is how the "real" story of that particular run would be highly fragmented in my memory, because of all the reloading. Could I lay claim to doing a cool thing if I then officially declared it non-canon in my own run? Normally, that doesn't really bother me in games, because it's often a question of mechanics. Yes, I reloaded, because it's objectively better to have more than less health. The opposite side of the spectrum would be, ironically, text-heavy RPG's, where I feel fairly removed from the choices the game offers because they're filtered through cut-scenes and established characters, rather than my own direct actions. The Chaos system provides a good middle ground, and the fact that it hinges on your actions throughout the game means you can't turn your brain off until you encounter another dialogue choice. I'm reminded of a part in The Witcher 3, where a bunch of nobodies attack you, and I habitually slaughtered them, only later realizing I didn't need to. But the game never reminded me again. And while one might argue that fits with the world of The Witcher, I'd say it'd do so even more if it mattered. The game likes reminding you all the time... as long as the choice was made through dialogue. The difficulty of Dishonored seems to be made with this continuous manner of play in mind. Its forgiving nature means it's more or less impossible for any individual encounter to drain your resources to the point where it becomes a logical choice to reload. Wandering into High Chaos might make the game harder, but it's more far off. And your general behavior being judged, rather than a single story point somewhere, means you can't approach it as a part-time thing. I've found it shifts the difficulty from being purely mechanical, to being more psychological. You're working with a more general goal in mind, and not just getting past the next group of guards. And the potential of a slip-up impacting my overall game, rather than me just trying to beat the game, was ever present in my mind. This does add an interesting dynamic in some cases: Do you go for the Low Chaos assassination when it means lugging a corpse through half the city, and maybe ending up in a worse position than you'd be in if you just knife the sucker while no-one's looking? Choking guards becomes much less of an option when one catches you with your pants down, or when abusing Blink and quickly choking the guard down there could go wrong and alert everyone. So you become a reluctant killer, with the possible exception of people who just really deserve it. And that's why the Chaos system and the ending had a big impact on me. I kept it all Low Chaos right up until the last mission. I return to the pub to see that Emily now thinks of me as a death-headed killing machine. I travel to the island with Samuel being surly, and telling me he never wants to see me again. But I tried, Samuel. And for most of the time, I succeeded. It's easy to just sit there in your boat and lecture me about killing, but I'm the guy with the knife and the scary mask who gets sent into the lion's den again and again. You expect me to not defend myself? To stay untouched by the filth that creeps up everywhere in this damn city? You think not even trying makes you a better man? Well, good. That's why I shot the sucker with a tranq dart. I'm going to need a ride back, and Samuel can learn a lesson about maintaining principles when the choice is between seeing me one more time, or being stuck on an island full of angry traitors with very short prospective careers. That day, the fruit of victory had a bitter taste to it, and it made me embrace the more negative ending all the more. One of the best gaming experiences I've ever had, to be honest. Too bad the sequel didn't stack up in that regard, but you'll have to read about that in a different novel.

[@wimbusbert1249]

Well said, bro

[@schmecklin377]

This was really well written and I feel like you connected with the games design in the way they really imagined when making it

[@AtomFA]

arkane really got shafted so many times, and have such good fluid movement and combat in their games.. but games run on oblivion's engine are still blasting

[@pasaniusventris4113]

quick note at 5:20 is that corvo actually returned a few days early, and ended up in a wrong place wrong time kind of situation. he wasn't supposed to be there for the assassination, and they pinned the blame on him because he was.

[@megapussi]

This isnt at all relevant to the point he's making. It just serves to make the assassins, and by extension the guards fighting them, look completely incompetent. Bro has a massive spy network but is incapable of keeping tabs on one of the most high profile guys in the country.

[@bennygerow]

When I started following you yesterday you had 1.9k subs, so you've gained a thousand in a day! Freaking badass!

[@Patrician]

Words don't describe how surreal this experience has been so far.

[@bennygerow]

@@Patrician I think you're right up there with the mainstays on here, and I'm def going to hit up your merch if you've got anything set up.

[@stevefrench8435]

His Morrowind Supervid was getting recommended to me at 700 views, KZbin really liked it for some reason. So did I.

[@Groovetwig]

@@Patrician you are rocketing up! I’m excited to see you grow and progress further

[@Csumbi]

i think the limitations on dead bodies were because of the physics in the game, the bodies, while static, they still have rag doll physics which might be more taxing performance wise than a guard with simple walking or other animations

[@aquanaridllcl970]

I can't wait for the dishonored 2 video. Just because of how actually mindbogling capeshit crazy the entire engine of the game works

[@OlderBrotherCo]

I have to disagree about blink, "ruining the game" for some people, or making it too easy. Here's my take: modern games that bend over backwards to establish "balance" between all abilities/paths ruin the games far more. Games like Morrowind and Dishonored stand unique (amongst other reasons) because they embrace this idea that certain play styles will inevitably be more powerful, even comically so. The games provide a ton of different options and pathways that a player might take, and rather than the developer hamstringing players who want to take that god route by removing options for "balance," they allow us to choose each play through how hammy we want it. Blink-choke-blink-hide body is one of the combos that made your magic PC (in a world with very limited magic) so fun, and stand out as unique.

[@LegioXXI]

All blink needs to do is actually draining mana, and it would be fine. The tool would still be available, but it being limited would force you to actually manage your resources, while still feeling powerful like the other abilities.

[@pauloricardo-wn6ps]

it's really not fun to use the meta over and over again until the end of the game

[@KnjazNazrath]

Where my "Flesh and Steel, Clean(er/est) Hands, Whisper Ways, Silence is Golden, Ghost, Time Management, Natural Talent, By My Hand Alone" crew at?

[@LukaSzent]

Just came here from watching your D2 critique, and I must say bravo! Both were very detailed analyses that shed new light on issues I was unaware of and further clarified a myriad of gripes I had; and this is from someone who really knows the franchise well-or at least thought they did. With that said, I still of course love the game uncontrollably. And it seems you do too, yet you end both videos pessimistically. I say so as obviously the amount of time and effort you’ve put into understanding every facet shows you have respect for it on some capacity. I wish that was stated more clearly, but that’s nothing more than preference of understanding your opinion. Unless you actually do dislike this game franchise and you still decided to throw hours upon hours of your time it’s direction-all I can say to that is: mad lad. To wrap up, I love content like this. It’s unfortunate that almost any and every expansive epic, whether books, film, or games usually have just as many problems as narrative achievements, but I accept these criticisms wholeheartedly. Better not to lie and blind yourself of bad craftsmanship out of devotion to a work of art, than to become an annoying fanboy! 😂

[@N7niko]

Only my second video of yours so far after stumbling upon your 7 hour morrowind vid. Safe to say I’m glad I found the channel.

[@PointZ3ROGaming]

Hey man, just found your channel and I'm going through your backlog. Amazing stuff. It's rare to find such a perfect balance between humour, personality, and genuinely insightful and intelligent analysis. Love your stuff!

[@sandwichboy1268]

IMO too many people went for low chaos first playthrough. I think high chaos was the intended first playthrough, with low chaos for players when they get more skilled

[@badsectoracula]

Ah, Dishonored. The game that people up to this day mischaracterize as a stealth game even though it has more options for non-stealth gameplay and when it starts it outright tells you that there isn't a wrong way to play it while associating the high chaos ending as the "bad" ending even though the game tries its hardest to avoid that association :-P. Also one of my favorite series which i always play in the most lethal way possible as i am not a big fan of stealth - and find Emily's reactions amusing (BTW you can save her from falling in the high chaos ending, she then promises to kill everyone who opposes her afterwards :-P), both in the first game but also in the sequel too where she makes some amusingly over the top comments when she notices random objects in the world ("ah, a pencil, how i wish i could stab delilah in the eyes, force feed her her eyeballs and laugh at her as she chokes on them, desperately gasping for air" - or something like that, it has been a while since i played the game :-P). Arkane is one my favorite developers as so far they've made exclusively immersive sims and focus heavily on the gameplay side. I have a feeling that their games are designed with gameplay first and then they come up with a story to excuse the gameplay (Prey is perhaps the best example of this - the gameplay is excellent, i've played a ton of immersive sims and proto-immersive sims ever since Ultima Underworld and even some of the games that inspired that like Dungeon Master and Prey is easily my favorite... but the writing/story is at best ok). I found it amusing when in the NoClip video about the company, all their narrative designer talked about was gameplay and never mentioned narrative at all :-P.

[@DukeoftheAges]

Yeah the powers and combat is much more fun to go wild with than to stealth around, that is for sure.

[@Csumbi]

the prospect of "bad ending" is what always made me to play this game as stealthy as possible, i wanted to go on a rampage in a level so many times, but then i remember that if i do i get the bad ending so i always avoided it all together, trying it only when i got noticed, but reloading immediately afterwards.

[@badsectoracula]

@@Csumbi there isn't really a "bad" ending though - you get high "chaos" (not just in the ending, chaos rises throughout the game as you progress) but what that means is that you get more killing... however that only happens because you are already killing people anyway.

[@Csumbi]

@@badsectoracula well i guess its a matter of perspective, getting a cinematic at the end that says that Emily becomes a tyrant is a bad ending to me.

[@ziodice6166]

@@Csumbi Emily doesn't need to be a tyrant! She can just be dead if you like! Is that...better...?

[@SillyBoydo]

their discography of games is near perfect and they should be very proud of what they've developed. AAA publishers are disgusting man, Arkane deserved much better.

[@hopecaster98]

Hopefully they aren't fucked over with deathloop

[@reredrumuoy]

Yeah Redfall is a disgrace. Really sad to see Arkane lose their edge.

[@samreddig8819]

​@@reredrumuoy they were forced into it and 70% of the staff quit in protest. Redfall isn't an Arkane game because Arkane isn't Arkane anymore.

[@Hu_Re]

btw you can alert the regent in castle so he will run up. After that you can do some acrobatics with his body in hands and jump off the roof. So you actually can drag his body to Samuel

[@nursenic03]

After playing Prey. I will support anything this company makes. I’ve never played the dishonored series but I will now.

[@alifadila3364]

This is my first time watching one of your videos, I love the structure and format of the videos, and they're relatively long, I'm a sucker for long critiques. Thank you Sir, keep doing what you're doing:)

[@Nanocon1]

The problem i have with Dishonored is the fact it punishes you for killing, Dishonored 3 should have an enemy chaos system where each enemy is either high chaos or low chaos and you can kill the high chaos enemies without raising your own chaos, and you would have to listen to the enemies idle voice lines to be able to tell which side they fall on. Also it shouldnt punish us for killing our targets, because some of them definitely deserve it.

[@dkcsi9256]

This is in Dishonored 2. You just have to use the heart

[@joker-0723]

I agree totally with this. Most guards are just chilling the fuck out but the witches are just fucked in the head. They literally slaughter everyone in an area and trash the place like pseudo crust punks

[@goulakh555]

28:33 wait what??...your samuel didn't fire the gun??...is there medium chaos effect in there??...for me he always fire the gun in high chaos!!

[@Patrician]

High chaos starts at around 30% of people killed but Samuel fires his gun at 50%

[@DarkWraithKevin]

hey i think you have some really good takes. i didnt expect to agree with everything you said in the morrowind review and i was able to sit through the whole thing. thanks for making that , it was awesome. maybe do a little piece on rebirth and tamriel rebuilt down the road if you feel like going back. not too many people have covered it

[@actuallywetsocks2374]

The world, the artsyle, the characters, the lore and the great gameplay and allowance for player freedom and creativity, love this game

[@joesomebody3365]

I didn't know about the drama behind Bethesda withholding milestone payments to try and screw over Arkane during development (though I had heard of them basing a bonus to Obsidian for Fallout New Vegas based on critic scores, which suspiciously fell just under the mark despite having overwhelming reviews by users/players). Sucks that it's possible we could have gotten a much bigger/better Dishonored were it not for AAA interference. Good review overall, do you feel Arkane has kinda fell off the wagon lately? I heard that "Dealth Loop" is fun but not as good as Dishonored, and that Red Fall is an unmitigated disaster.

[@migamaos3953]

30:20 The Industrial Revolution and it’s consequences...

[@baldr2825]

Have been a

[@ajr3071]

@@baldr2825 disaster for

[@sonnenshiro6045]

@@ajr3071 the human

[@Greendayfan666GD]

@@sonnenshiro6045 race

[@MoistCrayon]

Dishonored and Bioshock are both tied for the spots for my favorite game. thanks for the great video!

[@buckles812]

Soon you will be bigger, Just keep making this wonderful content.

[@RandomProduct]

I really enjoyed this video, but I do have to nitpick as a developer. The 5 bodies limit is pretty low, but ragdolls are computationally expensive, especially in comparison to an NPC that's just walking around on a pre-determined path. It makes sense to me that they'd want to limit the number of dead/KO'd bodies around the map.

[@renshii422]

the mission witht the overseer begging to die because he has plague is different in high chaos in that the other 2 overseers are actually TRYING to kill him as he lies trying to convince them that hes actually healthy.

[@mediumvillain]

Seems very likely Bethesda did this same trick on Human Head Studios when they refused to release the nearly complete Prey 2, cancelled the game, and "gave the IP to another studio." After their next game flopped Human Head folded and was immediately acquired by Bethesda under a different name. Bethesda, then announced that Prey 2 had NOT been cancelled and, now also owning Arkane, mandated that their sci-fi survival horror immersive sim be titled Prey despite having no relation to that IP, which was part of the reason for its commercial failure. After Prey's commercial failure, due to Zenimax/Bethesda exec's desire to cash out and be bought out by another company, most of their top single player developers were then pivoted to making monetizable multiplayer/ live service games, leading to Fallout 76, Wolfenstein: Youngblood and most recently Redfall, which lacked vision & focus (bc nobody at Arkane wanted to make it and more than half of the previous team had left) which was eventually released as a terrible looter shooter after the Microsoft acquisition. So the tragedy of Arkane making Redfall starts way back in the late 00s or early 2010s with a completely different studio making a totally unrelated game. Bethesda systematically fucked over the studios it published in order to acquire them more cheaply, re-assigned studios to develop ill-fitting IPs or forced them to churn out bad games they didnt want to make, an exodus of talent from these studios behind the scenes, burnt out by Bethesda/Zenimax's dodgy, demanding management, all leading to the Microsoft acquisition, so the same execs who destroyed their own company in the name of ~making it more profitable~ could cash out, leaving Microsoft with a hollow shell of the company they bought; a post-Fallout 76 Todd Howard and a raft of IPs that are only as good as the studio developing the games.

[@bicc1]

Dishonored Is my favourite game of all time and always will be. I have over 1000 hours in it just because I come back and play it every couple months for like 2 weeks straight and it’s not like over games we’re you play for a month or so then forget about I keep coming back because it’s perfect in my opinion, from the gameplay to the voice actors to the art style to freedom you have when playing the game,dishonored is the best game ever made in my opinion.

[@Stashix]

I play with most of the UI hints and markers turned off too, but I always leave the object highlight on in both Dishonored 1 & 2. And the reason is that I've noticed I tend to abuse the Batman vision power if I don't have object highlight on, probably because I'm a compulsive explorer/collector and modern games have so much detail it becomes a chore to discern which objects are props and which are actually interactable.

[@JD-qq8fz]

"Dishonored can't be an immersive sim if immersive sims aren't real" hahhaha whooo! Now there's a hot take I can get behind

[@catzor4795]

Arkane is the non autistic version of Valve. Underrated studio. All their games are just so cohesive and knows what it wants to be.

[@afungai1649]

Unfortunately they’re kind of a one hit wonder. Dishonored is their only truly notable game. Valve on the other hand has several genre defining titles under their belt over the past 2 decades.

[@catzor4795]

@@afungai1649 Not anymore, Prey is almost immaculate. I wish it was a commercial success like Dishonored.

[@fiddlesticks7245]

@@afungai1649 dishonored, dark messiah... Try again lil bro

[@anubisgod23]

Arkanes worst gamed are on par with other studios best games. honestly such a good studious

[@anubisgod23]

@@afungai1649 bro Prey is arkanes best game. I love dishonored but prey is better and is simply incredible to play.

[@damienparoski2033]

I myself found the "moral choice" option in this game a Sophie's Choice. You can strait up murder someone or you can make their life unbelievably miserable and then die. I never felt like the good guy in the game. In fact I felt like the evil guy a D&D group would quest to and take down after I placed my puppet daughter on the throne. Scar from the Lion King was not as murderous and cruel as we were in that game and everyone knew he was the bad guy!

[@Patrician]

No wonder they betrayed Corvo, considering Corvo loved moral grandstanding about how much of a good guy he was for maiming and condemning people to a long death. They should have explored that aspect of just how monstrous he really was in way more depth.

[@wyatthorstman6747]

Honestly as someone who has spent 100's of hours learning gaurd patterns and ideal routes to take on every mission in all three games, and has damn near perfected the ghost and clean hands runs. It hurts my soul to see him killing all of the people he does and making the choices he makes.

[@dumbfuk7701]

Dishonored is one of my favorite games, like, top 3

[@carguy6311]

Such an excellent video. Can’t wait til you have 10x the subs you do now!

[@unkncrc]

"...industrial revolution or apocalypse. But I repeat myself." Unabomber ghostwriting these or what?

[@corypowercat7277]

I started replaying this game during the fall of 2022. It is interesting how much you notice and understand once you're older. When I played this when I was 12 I just k'lled people because I saw them as bad. Now that I am older I understand that isn't the best thing to do in the game.

[@magickponch]

"You're gonna have to do better than that if you wanna make protagonist by game 2" killed me

[@joesomebody3365]

Oh also, good job on the video in general.

[@user-ci4zy4tm2b]

Great review. I personally think that this game didn't need a sequel. Second game was ok, but wasn't that revolutionary and deep as the first one.

[@UFOToaster]

Very good reviews mate! Informative with a side of humor. Keep it up!

[@gettingbeat]

5:06 very small point, there's a line saying that Corvo came back early. So the assassination was supposed to happend when he was still away

[@asgoritolinasgoritolino7708]

I like how you didn't dare to put the original image at 3:01 kek.

[@kingscrump]

Love the video. Question for you, how do you put the little hashtag above your title?

[@mushymcmushington7176]

I don't really have anything to add to the conversation, just throwing something out for the KZbin algorithm. Love this kinda content, it's an absolute injustice that it has so few views.

[@johnbakker6170]

A prey review would be much appreciated. I liked it but got so bored I still haven't finished it.

[@gurugru5958]

This game deserves a remaster of this video.

[@Vanessa80808]

I love the combat in the dishonored games, some of the most satisfying fps meele combat murder I've got to do in any game

[@anthonygarcia8749]

That's sad

[@newtsears423]

I've never played Dishonored but I'm willing to sacrifice just a bit of my time to watch this maestro's masterpiece of editing mwahaha

[@ileutur6863]

First time viewer here. What does this dude have against immersive sims? I don't agree with how the genre is named but its definitely real and its known for having quality and relatively niche games

[@Hellsbest1986]

Hey dude I just found your channel and love your content. Undoubtetly you will blow up soon. Would you ever consider doing a video on Disco Elysium? I'd be thrilled to hear your opinion on it!

[@Stonedogg1]

Your video is top notch. I watched the Morrowind mega vid and now I'm browsing the rest of your content! Edit: I answered my own question by rewatching the video.

[@gunnardenton5972]

"Bethesdecision" I'm rolling

[@clydemarshall8095]

I went with sparing Delilah because I figured Daud was a man who had had enough killing.

[@Kelnef]

I have no idea why I enjoy quicksaving and reloading to achieve the perfect "edge of tomorrow" sequence of actions to stealth and incapacitate all the guards

[@ziggymar]

Wanted man: Signs his name in guest list he's trying to sneak through

[@chillchinna4164]

Dishonoured is one of my favourite games. I play it at least twice a year. It’s a shame the sequel didn’t have the same impact. It’s also a good thing there were no other games after 2 that would make things even worse. They did wonderful work on Prey as well, and I play it regularly too. It’s just a shame Arkane’s spark seems to get less and less bright with every game.

[@WeekendGamerTX]

Loved the intro.

[@almost_harmless]

I agree that analyzing Dishonored turns up discrepancies, but I just enjoyed the story as it unfolded. It is a matter of choice for me. Knowing a lot about certain things, music, movies or even combat and tactics, you can quickly dissect and wave off books, movies, songs and comics as being unrealistic or have gaps, but for me, I prefer to enjoy it all instead. I guess I just realized that all I did when picking things apart, was that it robbed me of enjoying art as it was intended. Granted, some things are harder to ignore, but I try. Dishonored was for me a chance to scratch that "Thief" itch. I loved the atmosphere, the art and the way the game plays out. The lore is also fantastic, making me want to learn more.

[@juliohinojosa6923]

Well said, I have too adopted that philosophy in life, movies, and videogames. I remember when I was young everyone around me and myself would criticize CGI in movies and criticize realism, or rather the lack thereof in videogames. But now I tend to appreciate the art that the director is trying to convey and take the experience as a whole instead of nitpicking the art to death. After all we are human and nothing is perfect

[@aidanabregov1412]

"You were drawing smiling faces when I left...."

[@SyndicateOperative]

21:50 That's pure fanfic. Lady Boyle gets handed off to a noble admirer, not some modern day redneck. I'm pretty sure he mentions his estate on a private island; much more luxurious than some dude's basement. I'm pretty sure she'd be willing to stay on his island too, after he explained that it was the only option to stop her from being assassinated that night, even if she might not ever be interested in him.

[@cillid2381]

Man. Feels bad after the recent closures

[@Unf0rget]

Jebus, that intro really hits. When I thought these companies were scummy just for horse armor and putting skyrim on my fridge before even announcing that we'll get the sequel when Im in my retirement home telling my neighbors they'd have savings if they didnt let their kids gamble it all away to get this year's line up in madden 2070.

[@iluvatarchem]

The game is not good at combat? Ok

[@ehrtdaz7186]

D1 and D2 have genuinely the best first person melee combat i've played. They also have one of the most fun magic/abilities out of any video game excluding party based cRPGs. Idk what this guy is talking about lol.

[@ginge641]

@@ehrtdaz7186 Maybe try actually watching the video.

[@anthonygarcia8749]

It's trash

[@iluvatarchem]

@@anthonygarcia8749 Imagine if you had actually played the game instead of posting moronic comments on utube. Just imagine

[@chainjaw8013]

I know every dishonored video there is yet this great content got past me somehow!!

[@ziodice6166]

Out of curiosity, what's with the gag on immersive sims 'not existing?' I also have trouble seeing it entirely as its own *genre* that's a little extreme imo but there are certainly serious through-lines between Deus Ex, System/Bioshock, Dishonored, Prey (Arkane), Thief, et cetera et cetera. Is there like, a cult of super militant immersive sim fans we're making fun of? How did I miss that?

[@Patrician]

I believe it's a restrictive excuse to non ImSims to continue to not adopt a focus towards emergent storytelling. I think fetishising a design philosophy as inherently great is also regressive because proponents believe quality is tied to the label and not to the actual elements of the game. And there is a cult like mentality towards the genre that can't handle criticism and behaves in a pseudo-intellectual way, as evidenced by the comments on my Bioshock videos.

[@ziodice6166]

@@Patrician That's pretty fair! The "genre" certainly isn't without its flaws either, most of the games overgeneralize and a problem I notice especially with the Dishonored series is the ratio of environment based storytelling to what is directly presented to the player turns the story of most titles in the franchise (including both games and their respective DLCs) into something that seems incredibly "meh" to a lot of people unless you take a ton of time to investigate the "lore"; or worse, in Dishonored 2's case neither of the protagonists (but particularly Emily, who's supposed to be canon) have a decent character arc unless you read a full length novel of medium quality almost no one even knows exists. Tl;dr they either need to shift more of interest to what's presented directly *or* do something to entice people who aren't already obsessed with the world to investigate beyond what's directly presented. I for one was hugely disappointed in the sequels world and story but it grew on me a lot over time, the presentation is just lackluster as hell imo. /End wall of text

[@ziodice6166]

(Got distracted by Dishonored 2 ranting but if it wasn't clear I meant to imply that's an issue with the presentation of MOST games commonly called immersive sims in my opinion.)

[@JohnLozo]

@@Patrician A unifying design philosophy that indie and AAA developers in a shared medium exploit is by definition a genre. How are you going to call out pseudo-intellectualism and not apply the same logic to the statements you've made relating to immersive sims?

[@paz1514]

Ooooh spicy take

[@enochrockwell7202]

I would only add two things to dishonored: moddability and better sequels

[@jotun.616]

Wait. Did he not cover the endings?

[@kordontheimpaler22]

This game taught me, trust no one. Anyone can betray you, and power can always be taken.

[@Dyno_98]

I also tried to get Ghost, Clean Hands and Mostly Flesh and Steel at the same time, but I couldn't make it past the Whalers after you lose all your stuff without alerting them. How did you make it?

[@Patrician]

It's a hard level that way, I think I used the sword to lure them around areas

[@the_clendonomist]

woah ok, i may need to replay this because my play through was almost completely different!

[@pixelhavoc4950]

Hunt Down the Freeman is only on Steam, nobody in valve actually helped make it, and half-life alyx is actually good imo. It's trying to prove that more can be done with be than just tiny tech demos which I think was done well

[@gorehound3414]

Been playing dishonered for years, done every achievement. But I still suck at this game, that’s what makes it fun!

[@connyschulze8074]

you either didnt do the dlc achievements or you're lying and you're actually decent at the Game because there is No way a Bad Player can get all the achievements from the dunwall trials

[@user-ig5ww1cl4y]

Ah, joke at 3:50 about controversial topics is nice, but joke at 6:20 is waaaay more hilarious

[@elitereptilian200]

I've played through this game so many times, every possible way & every possible difficulty.. many, many more times I'm comfortable admitting 😂 second one was not so hot but still good and death of the outsider is really damn good too.. at least to me..

[@ViperPilot16]

I miss the Dishonored series as a whole.

[@faytleingod8402]

Wait. You can get an invitation to the Boyle party before you go? I always snuck in or picked one up. Also it's funny that they Boyle sisters are randomized.... After 3 times in a row as a black rose, my fourth playthrough was kinda eye opening when the stalker says it's the wrong Boyle.

[@faytleingod8402]

Also in the houndpits if you kill all the guards before finding Anton and Pierre he says "what took weeks of planning you did in just mere minutes." So lethal can also be an option besides using the arc.

[@KaiTenSatsuma]

35:30 - I actually had a case - I don't know if it's a bug - where a despawned body resulted in a live guard replacing the despawned one in one of the later levels even though I was on low chaos.

[@elgigante7081]

I love Arkane, been playing their game since I was a kid. Can't wait to play deathloop at some point

[@shrek813]

I remember one play through I didn’t kill anyone until the last mission. Then i killed everyone on that level and got the best ending lol

[@kip_c]

Make a Dark Messiah video PLEASE

[@Laezar1]

Honestly the main thing I'd like to be different in dishonored is to just get rid of the chaos system. I really dislike it and it makes the freeform blend of stealth and combat become more about what ending I want than adapting to the actual situation. On the other hand I'd like guards alert level to matter a bit more and to not be able to blink while holding a corpse so as to make stealth a bit more complicated and rewarding. Another thing I'd like to see changed is maybe remove the mana potions, and instead of them have non lethal takedown take a lot longer but be a mana drain. Basically you knock them out by draining their mana, that way there is a gameplay incentive to do it (you can't drain them whille they are dead) but there is a clear drawback in that it would take much longer. This would make the consideration of lethal vs non lethal option much more of a mechanically meaningful one. You could still have sleep dart but no instant sleep dart, and a hit target would take much longer to go to sleep, but the advantage would be that they'd actually lie down and sleep, and in most cases wouldn't alert other guards because they are just sleeping. Something along those lines, as opposed to the current dart which is just a stronger version of the normal bolt that even doesn't kill.

[@S-B-R]

Did my guy really just compare Hunt Down The Freeman to HL:Alyx?! ...oh dear

[@patriciusvunkempen102]

god i fish for an arx fatalis sequel that would ahve been so good damn., what could ahve been

[@opinionpaladin6007]

I legit did not know the heart was the emperess's until Dishonored 2

[@zanmaru139]

Not sure why you'd equate Alyx to Hunt Down the Freeman.

[@casperryborg4869]

Just because a shit dried up and doesn't smell anymore, doesn't mean it ain't a shit. Hope this helped you!

[@nat040496]

I was pretty pure stealth as much as possible, but also max lethality. I got the skill that turns enemies to ash when you stealth kill them so i killed pretty much everyone cuz i had no idea the chaos system existed when i played this game on launch

[@archibaldwaldrop1094]

Brb, on my way to reinstall the game and do a playthrough with objective markers and the Hud turned off.

[@audaxriberinho]

6:02 I felt your faith...

[@Qladstone]

22:40 Got to pay attention to that articulation man.