Dishonored: Death of the Outsider

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider is a continuation to the story arc of the first game's DLC, The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches, and a conclusion to "the Kaldwin era" and the series overall. Maybe in hopes of selling more copies, it was released as a standalone title instead of DLC to the second game. Death of the Outsider is smaller in scope (and price) than a full-size Dishonored title but doesn't lack on the detail and great gameplay I've come to expect from Arkane Studios.

Thanks to Crealgood for gifting me this game!

Deicide

You play as Billie Lurk who's back to using her real name. She has dropped Emily Kaldwin off at the capital and returned to Karnaca on the Dreadful Wale. Seeking forgiveness or maybe help to her nightmares (that Emily unbeknownst caused by changing the timeline), Billie's tracked down her former mentor and guild leader Daud, who's again voiced by Michael Madsen. I'm glad they got Madsen back; the old assassin wouldn't have been the same without him.

Daud gives Billie one last job: kill the Outsider. I expected Billie to siphon her supernatural powers off Daud like the assassins do in the first game. Surely you wouldn't expect the Outsider to offer his mark and powers to someone who's after his life. Or maybe you would. But he doesn't. I reckon that's solely because Billie would have refused it anyway. However, the Outsider still is the one that gives Billie powers by forcefully gifting her a pair of void artifacts.

"I never knew what the black-eyed bastard wanted." --Daud

Maybe because of not having the mark, Billie actually talks back to the Outsider. I don't recall even Daud ever being able to reply in cutscenes to the "cryptic shit" coming out of the god's mouth. Maybe it's because Billie is different, like the Outsider himself says.

Refined mechanics

Death of the Outsider has two notable differences in its mechanics to the previous games: there's no chaos system and there's no mana. The former could be just because it's less work -- the developers didn't have to add variations to later levels based on the player's actions. But it does also fit Billie's character. She doesn't care if she needs to murder a person or two; there is no achievement for finishing the (whole) game without kills. You as a player don't have to worry about things going to shit due to high chaos either.

The lack of mana, or rather it being 'void power' instead is a brilliant change and would've probably worked great in all of the games. The difference is that void power always regenerates back to full. Not "needing" to drink mana potions and/or wait after power use to get a fifth of mana bar back for free before another activation affects the flow of the game in a surprisingly large way.

A very particular set of skills

Billie gets only 3 powers: Displace, Foresight, and Semblance. All come at their supposed full strength and aren't upgradable. The power set suits frontal assault perhaps even unexpectedly poorly; you won't get a whole lot out of them when engaging hostiles openly. However, they do make great tools for an assassin who wants to get to their target unnoticed.

I didn't read Foresight's tutorial or key prompts properly on my first playthrough which caused me to miss the power's interaction with Displace. Foresight is Billie's version of Darkvision. It spawns a time-pausing probe that highlights loot and such. It's maybe slightly more useful than Dishonored 2's terrible version of Darkvision. The Foresight probe can also fly through ratways and such -- and most importantly -- it can leave a marker for Displace.

Displace is Billie's traversal power. For long-distance, accuracy-requiring jumps the power is not as good as Blink or even Far Reach because it first leaves a marker to which you can then teleport to. That's a bit too much to do mid jump though not impossible. The benefit of the marker is that teleporting to it requires only line of sight, not effect; windows and fences won't stop it. Placing the marker does require the line of effect though but that's where Foresight comes into play. With the powers combined you can do stuff such as rob a blackmarket store.

Semblance is basically a variation of Corvo's Possession. Instead of taking control of an NPC's body, you take their appearance while rendering the subject unconscious if they weren't already. In a game with dialogue trees the power could have really interesting uses but Death of the Outsider limits it to key interactions, such as taking part in an auction. Most of the time it merely works as a way to walk past guards without raising an alarm. Also, it was kind of weird that there's a guaranteed bonecharm that negates Semblance's weakness, making wolfhounds unable to smell through your ruse.

There being a known set of tools allowed Arkane to design the game around them. There was no possibility that the player had nothing in their arsenal. Even with the fewer options there are still multiple ways of doing things. Like in Prey: Mooncrash, limiting the amount of tools works great in an immersive sim.

The point is proven further once you beat Death of the Outsider and unlock Original Game+ mode. It's the same game with the exception of your powers being fully upgraded Blink, Darkvision, and Domino from Dishonored 2 instead. They provide a more brutish playthrough and I think you'll miss breaking into at least one blackmarket, but otherwise the different powers do the job just as well. Death of the Outsider does also have few new gadgets but they're not gamechangers even if still welcome.

I'd like to think that one of the game's missions was inspired by Eidos Montreal's Thief (2014). You get to rob a bank like in Thief's Bank Heist DLC and there's a way to make everyone fall asleep similarly to the House of Blossoms level. There's an achievement for not waking anyone up and leaving all security measures untouched. I unlocked it on my OG+ run and it took some extra effort with the alternative power set. The mission has another Jindosh puzzle of sorts, though it's far easier if you have prior knowledge of certain thing.

Games with a spoiler in title

Humanizing the Outsider wasn't the most interesting direction Arkane took the series after the first Dishonored. It could've been the reason why they got a new voice actor for him too. Letting mysteries stay as such is usually better; let imagination fill in the gaps. Keeping the Outsider an untouchable deity would've been far cooler than making him some helpless poor boy. At least the Void remains an enigma.

Arkane put much more effort into telling the story yet Dishonored 2's narrative wasn't all that exciting. Were the voiceover bits between missions really necessary? The studio is so good at showing with environmental storytelling -- why not just keep doing that? If they will, it will happen in some other game though as the Dishonored franchise has been stated to be resting for the time being.

What next?

I do wonder what the future holds for Arkane Studios. Its founder Raphaël Colantonio stepped down as the president of the company two months after the release of Prey in 2017. He stated family and his son as the reason, which is the kind of justification no one is allowed question. I can't help but think if there's more to it though.

Bethesda/ZeniMax Media has shown to be rapacious to the extreme and there must be pressure from them to move Arkane into making more profitable games. While immersive sims are amazing, they simply don't make as much money as something like a microtransaction-filled multiplayer title potentially could.

Perhaps Colantonio felt he was no longer in control, no longer allowed to make what he loved and decided it was time to leave. Bethesda acquiring Arkane Studios had potentially saved them from money troubles in 2010 and things had been going well for a while. Now with Arkane having made a name for themselves things are changing.

BioWare's founder doctors Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk maybe felt the same way about EA holding the reins when they retired from the industry after the release of Mass Effect 3. And look what happened at BioWare afterwards: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and Anthem -- a fucking downward spiral.

Arkane's Austin studio -- I presume (Edit: it was Lyon) -- has aided MachineGames to develop Wolfenstein: Youngblood and Cyberpilot. The former was released 3 weeks ago and got a lukewarm reception at best. Of course in addition to its other problems, the singleplayer/co-op shooter includes mictrotransactions as well!

Arkane Lyon's current project is called Deathloop. Not much is known about it currently, though. I can only hope that 1) it's good, and 2) it's not some monetized to the max monstrosity.

Edited 2023-06-01: Arkane Lyon was the co-developer on Youngblood.