It’s hard to imagine that it’s been a year since we first started playing Arkane’s Dishonored 2, but just a mere 10 month’s later, we return to the era of Kaldwin as former assassin Billie Lurk sets the stage for this standalone adventure.
Dishonored: Death of the Outsider takes place after the events of the last game, as the Kaldwin empire is restored and Billie Lurk is set on a journey to assist her mentor Daud with his quest for revenge on the Outsider, the god behind it all.
The main thing that sets Death of the Outsider apart is the fact that the game is much more eager to lift the restraints and limitations on player opportunities. Foregoing the need to find elixirs to replenish energy and the franchise’s Chaos system (which is narratively justified) create a sense of freedom that made me want to experiment a lot more than I usually would in a Dishonored game. The former is certainly a blessing, though the Chaos system’s removal often made me feel that I was simply taking the easy way out. It’s fun to play without the training wheels on, but sometimes setting a standard/limitation is simply a better form of motivation, in my opinion.
Whilst having its limitations in numbers, Billie’s set of powers is still quite useful in practice, even more so due to the fact that we don’t have to replenish mana in order to make use of it. Alternatively, the game’s New Game+ mode gives us the ability to substitute these powers for Emily’s and Corvo’s original abilities.
Death of the Outsider has a much smaller scope than the first two main entries in the series, but it more than makes up for this fact in level/mission design. Whilst not reaching the heights of the game’s best missions/levels, the roughly 7-hour game offers a consistent, challenging and detailed experience that is simply a lot of fun to revisit, which will definitely make you return multiple times after your initial session.
Graphically, there isn’t much to say in regards to what changes have been made. The level design and such is obviously original, but regarding sound design and graphical fidelity the game is pretty much the same as Dishonored 2 itself, looking and performing pretty much identically in that regard.