What is it?

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider is a 1st Person, Open Level, Steampunk, Dark Fantasy, Stealth, Action-Adventure

What’s good?

The game gives you the ability to either complete it without killing anyone or kill as many people as your heart desires, some interesting steampunk locales, fairly fun trophy list, the kill cam kill sequences are still satisfying, introduction of sidequests, Michael Madsen’s Daud.

What’s bad?

No options to choose talents, the melee combat feels even more clunky than before, the stealth mechanics feel weaker but maybe it was simply the lack of the Domino skill for taking out multiple enemies simultaneously and non-lethally, Rosario Dawson as awesome as she is felt pretty wooden in her delivery of Billie Lurk, campaign is really short.

Released: 2017-09-15	Developer: Arkane Studios	Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Completed: 2017-09-29	Completion: 100%	Highest Trophy: Platinum

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider – Full Review

Some Ideas Are Too Big To Fail

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider is part sequel and part conclusion to the Dishonored franchise thus far. Like Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, it’s essentially a DLC add-on but delivered in a standalone package. I really like the concept of standalone mini sequels and you can read my full thoughts on standalone add-ons HERE. In this game you play as Billie Lurk who is voiced by the lovely Rosario Dawson. Anyone who has played Dishonored 2 will immediately recognize her as Megan Foster. She was sort of a guide or mentor in that game but in this game she is much more. The game pitch is simple yet ambitious in its promise. As Billie Lurk you set off on a mission to kill a God. Your target is the mysterious Outsider, the god-like character who grants magical abilities to those who accept his mark.

It turns out Megan Foster was Billie’s alias. She had been an assassin with a group known as the Whalers. Their leader Daud, the Knife of Dunwall, was the assassin who murdered the Empress in the very first Dishonored Definitive Edition game. That event changed everything and brought untold pain and suffering to the kingdom. For this Daud deeply regretted his actions and for that Billie mistook him as weak. She betrayed Daud and attempted to kill him but he was much stronger and easily bested her. Instead of killing her for her betrayal he spared her life and banished her. Ashamed, Billy fled the city and changed her name to Megan Foster.

Repaying an Old Debt

When Death of the Outsider begins Billie is looking for her former mentor Daud who is voiced by Michael Madsen. For those of you who might not know, Madsen was forever immortalized on screen as Mr. Blonde in Quentin Tarantino’s first movie Reservoir Dogs. He’s the guy dancing around the police officer duct taped to a chair while he’s cutting his ear off and singing along to ‘Stuck in the Middle With You’. If you enjoy Tarantino films and haven’t seen it you should definitely check it out. So for me, just knowing it was Madsen doing the voice added a whole new level of badassery to Dauds character.

You discover he’s been captured by a gang who call themselves the Eyeless and they are forcing him to fight in an illegal underground fighting ring. The fighting ring is located in an old derelict bathhouse so you set off to rescue him. At this point in the story you have no abilities, just your wits, your instincts and a knack for killing. When you finally locate and free Daud he tells you of his discovery. The Eyeless gang is more than just a gang. They are pawns for an ancient and mystical group called the Cult of the Outsider. The cult created the Outsider many millennia ago. They kidnapped a boy from the street and sacrificed him in the void forever trapping his soul. The knife that slit the boy’s throat is the only thing capable of killing the Outsider. And the leaders of Eyeless have that dagger.

From Humble Beginnings

Daud is convinced the Outsider is to blame for all the pain and suffering in the kingdom and he asks for your help to kill him. You discover Daud is dying and I can only assume this is his last chance to atone for his many sins. It’s around this time the Outsider appears before you and grants you powerful magical abilities. It’s unclear why he would assist you if he is all knowing and all powerful. If you intend on finding and killing him what would be in it for him. But for now that isn’t important. For now all you have to concern yourself with is discovering the location of the dagger and stealing it. Now the rest of the story involves discovering who the leaders of the Eyeless are, where they’ve hidden the dagger, stealing it and finally confronting the Outsider in the void.

Fruit of the Poisoned Tree

Unlike the other titles you aren’t given a choice to refuse the Outsiders powers. There’s also no customizable talent tree either. Instead you are given three specific skills that you cannot change; Displace, Foresight and Semblance. These are completely new skills for the series and offer Billie some new and interesting tactics. Personally I was disappointed with this change. One of the greatest aspects of Dishonored 2 was the almost complete freedom to play the game your own way. The limitations given to you here hurt the game. Arkane Studios did however change the focus energy meter to refill automatically over time. This is fantastic and allows you to use your powers more freely. Another bonus for trophy hunters is there’s no Flesh and Steel trophy. Since you always receive the Outsiders powers they removed one of the most difficult steps to earning the platinum trophy.

Now Semblance is an ability that lets you harvest the face of any living person and project it as your own. Effectively this makes you a chameleon or master of disguise. It’s very useful and you can kill or incapacitate people while disguised. The Semblance skill slowly drains your focus energy and will break if you either run out of mana or someone sees you doing something you shouldn’t be doing, killing someone for example. As usual, Arkane Studios offers a little more creativity with this skill. You see at key points in the game, if you steal the correct face, you can infiltrate important events. Usually you will get a trophy for your efforts but sometimes you will also skip an entire combat section. This is very useful for completing a stealth run but in all honesty it’s not the best option, see below for more details.

The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts

The other two skills are basically new versions of old skills. Displace is very similar to Dishonored 2’s Blink with the ability to instantly teleport long distances. The difference this time around is that you can set up a Displacement target beforehand. It’s the spot you will Displace to and it’s a fixed point that’ll stay where it is even while you do other things. At any point, as long as you are in view of the target and in range , when you hit L2 you will teleport there. Essentially you can set up an emergency escape route before every encounter. So for example prior to engaging with a group of enemies, you position a Displace target behind them on a rooftop. Now if the fight becomes overwhelming, hit L2 to Displace to find yourself on that rooftop watching the enemies searching for you.

The final skill Foresight is like the previous games Dark Vision but better. It’s like an astral projection skill used for scouting. Not only is it good for scouting and planning routes but you can also use it to tag enemies. After an enemy is tagged, even while Foresight isn’t active, you can see them through walls. If that wasn’t enough, the ability also allows you to put down Displacement targets. This means you can use Foresight to ghost through a hazardous area and set up a Displacement target in a normally unreachable position. Take for example a Wall of Light trap that will kill you if you attempt to walk through it. Now you could easily use Foresight to bypass it and continue to an area behind a small opening like a window. Now put down a target and Displace through the window skipping the trap.

Some Skills Have No Shelf Life

Those skills are all pretty decent and certainly help Billie along the way. However while I was playing I just really had a tougher time than I had during Dishonored 2. For the first while I couldn’t figure it out. I was doing a stealth run for my first playthrough which probably made things worse. It’s always easier to stealth through these games once you know the lay of the land. But I knew that wasn’t it. There was more to it. Eventually around half way through I finally realized what it was. My first run in Dishonored 2 was a Flesh and Steel run in which I had no powers and just killed whoever got in my way. It was pretty tough and annoying, especially the melee combat. You can read my full Dishonored 2 Review HERE.

I was pretty frustrated by the end of that run and wasn’t sure I’d play a second time. Eventually I decided to go for it just to try some of the powers. That’s when the game came to life. I was also going for my stealth no kill run. I thought for sure it was going to be worse than the Flesh and Steel run but it wasn’t. The skills were just so good the game flew by. In particular a skill called Domino made the biggest impact. With it you could essentially spirit link multiple enemies together so that whatever happened to one happened to them all. So when I’d come to a group of let’s say three guards I’d Domino them all and then incapacitate one which would drop all of them. It was beautiful and exactly what I was missing in this game.

Well luckily for me after I completed the game an option appeared on the main menu. Classic Game+. It’s the New Game+ mode but instead of the three normal skills, you get three skills from Dishonored 2. To my elation one of them was Domino. The other two were Blink and Dark Vision. With Domino in my arsenal the game once again became my playground. I was able to breeze through entire levels with no problem at all. It certainly helped that I wasn’t doing a stealth run either. You can see a video of the final level HERE that showcases my love for the Domino skill while I endeavor to kill most of the cultists. To say the least, this second run completely changed my opinion of the game and significantly increased my rating for it.

They Don’t Make ‘Em Like They Used To

Now to be clear this game is in no way as good as Dishonored 2, which is practically a masterpiece. It had some of the finest and most interesting level design I’ve ever seen. The options were nearly limitless on how to approach those levels and the hugely customizable skill trees just amplified that. The levels in Death of the Outsider display nowhere near that level of mastery. They aren’t terrible levels by any stretch and in fact I’d say they are better than average. The only level that comes remotely close to the greatness on display in Dishonored 2 would be the bank heist level. There are a few different ways to tackle it including gassing the ventilation system with sleeping gas, disabling security systems, killing everyone and even stealing the entire vault. All in all it is the one stand out level.

There’s one other level worth mentioning, the Royal Conservatory. In Dishonored 2 you actually came to this place when it was full of witches. This game takes place sometime after and now the witches are all but wiped out. The Overseer’s have taken over the Conservatory and quarantined it. They are a violent group of zealots who will kill anyone associated with the Outsider or his worshipers. It appears they have been purging the Conservatory of dark magic and torturing the witches. Now there’s nothing fantastic about this level but it was interesting to see it again. The Overseers have made some changes to the overall layout but there was certainly a familiarity to it all which is odd in a new game. It wasn’t odd in a bad way it was actually pretty cool and it almost felt like a real place because of it.

And Why Would You Think That Was a Good Idea

For the first time in a Dishonored game they put in some sidequests or “contracts” as they’re called. Now just to be clear I’m a big fan of open world games and I like sidequests, optional objectives and the whole nine yards. But these sidequests don’t make any sense. You can read my Destiny 2 review HERE in which I pretty much had the same complaint. In that game you were in a rush against time to stop an enemy from destroying the solar system with a super weapon. So why would you stop to do a sidequest? In Destiny 2 it makes a bit more sense since it’s like an MMO game and you’ll be playing it long after the story missions are over.

Here on the other hand there’s no free roam mode. The only chance you have for doing sidequests is during the main story. Why would you be trying to steal a liquor recipe or kill a mime in the middle of such an onerous mission? It just makes no sense at all. Now again I love open world games and I love sidequests. I just want them to fit naturally into the overall game without feeling so forced. In my Uncharted: the Lost Legacy review I had mentioned how I had hoped Naughty Dog was trying out some new things to see how they’d be received by fans. I’m hoping that’s the same here. I’d love to see an even more open world for Dishonored. One in which sidequests would feel more natural. This franchise could be primed for that change with the Outsider gone now.

Some Things Never Change

The actual melee combat is still super frustrating. Especially with the asshole guards who gang up on you with half of them standing back shooting at you. The one’s that even if you rush over to attack them they perfectly parry all your attacks while their guns are drawn. Some of the enemy AI just drives me crazy. Not only that but some of the controls are a bit wonky. There are countless times I’ve attempted a drop assassination only to completely fail and instead alert all the guards in the vicinity. I’m by no means an expert gamer but it should be nearly impossible to screw up a simple drop attack. It’s one button. The AI’s uncanny ability to see me when I should be hidden also really chaps my ass. If they can ever iron out the fighting mechanics this franchise could be one of the all-time greats.

Final Thoughts

As noted above I was enamored by Dishonored 2 and was extremely excited about Death of the Outsider. But part of me was concerned that if the Outsider were to die what would it mean for the franchise as a whole? He’s been the one empowering the protagonists and granting them the abilities that make the franchise. Without him what will happen? Well I still don’t have an answer to that but without trying to spoil anything, it seems the void and the Cult of the Outsider existed long before he ever did. So it seems to me the Dishonored games have a lot of potential to continue on. This might actually give Arkane Studios the chance to throw a fresh coat of paint onto the franchise and that could be a good thing. For all its positives the series also has some major negatives.

Bottom Line

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider is a good game. It’s not great and I’m not sure it’s worth the $49 CAD unless you are a fan of the franchise. To anyone who hasn’t really been following Dishonored I wouldn’t recommend this game. Instead I’d point them directly at Dishonored 2 which is not only a full game but a great game. At this point it’s probably cheaper too. For those who do enjoy the Dishonored games definitely pick this game up if it fits your budget. It’s fairly short but it’s got some fresh elements to it. Not only that but it also concludes the story thus far and offers an easy platinum trophy. The ending was sort of anti-climactic but it does leave the door wide open for what comes next which is something I’m truly excited about.

How does it rate...		Other games in that category...
1st Person	B-	Destiny 2, Battlefield 1, Far Cry 4, Wolfenstein: the New Order
Open Level	B	The Last of Us, Prey, Journey, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
Steampunk	A	Dishonored 2, Bioshock: Infinite, The Order: 1886
Dark Fantasy	B	Bloodborne, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, The Last Guardian
Stealth	A-	Metal Gear Solid 5, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided; Dishonored 2
Action/Adventure	B	Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, Rise of the Tomb Raider

These ratings are based on games I have played at the time of this posting. Additions and Alterations made to game ratings and rankings after this date will not be reflected in the written review. For a fully updated list of games and game rankings please visit Rebel Gaming Canada’s GAMES LIST.

Twitter - https://twitter.com/RebelGaming_CA
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/RebelGamingCanada
Youtube - Rebel Gaming Youtube
Steemit - https://steemit.com/@johnquake
Webpage - https://www.rebelgamingcanada.com