Dishonored Review: Mission by Mission

With the news of Dishonored’s newest story; Death of The Outsider, slated to be released next month. I felt it was appropriate to revisit the very first game and review it mission by mission.

Are you ready? Okay!

Dishonored’s first mission isn’t exactly a mission, but an intro to the game’s story and characters which is told in the form of cutscenes with occasional interruptions where we can control the protagonist. We’re introduced to Empress Jessamine Kaldwin and her royal bodyguard Corvo Attano, the intro also lets us know about the horrific state the city of Dunwall is in during these horrible times as the Rat Plague has become almost unbearable. Because of this, Jessamine had sent Corvo away to the other places in the Isles in the hopes that somebody somewhere might have a cure to the plague. Though this appears to be fruitless as Corvo comes back empty-handed.

The air in this intro mission is spooky indeed, almost a little too quiet. as you walk through to deliver a letter to Jessamine, you are stopped by Emily Kaldwin, Jessamine’s daughter, you can choose to play hide and seek with her or just go on to find Jessamine, on your way you can see Anton Sokolov painting a portrait of the High Overseer.

Once you arrive at the gazebo that Jessamine is located in, she and the royal spymaster are arguing about the situation in the city, he wants to wall the city off and she wants to find a cure for her people. She sends Hiram away as her daughter informs her Corvo has come back. He delivers the letter that informs her that they have found no leads to the cure of the rat plague, disappointing Jessamine, though she is happy to see you again.

The happy reunion is cut short when several assassins are spotted on a roof top across from you, suddenly they teleport onto the gazebo, this gives us the first look at the game’s combat as we fight the assassins, but after a few moments the game gives us another cut-scene as Corvo is caught in the grasp of the assassin’s strange magic and unable to do anything but watch as Jessamine is killed right in front of you and her daughter, Emily, is kidnapped.

The assassins disappear with Emily in tow, and you are left to hold Jessamine in your arms as she dies, her last words are to find Emily.

The guards come, Hiram Burrows with them and point fingers at you for the murder of the Empress, you are knocked out and the game begins.

This mission intro sets the theme for the entire game, and it does so very well. The atmosphere is layered so deeply with tension that you can tell something is wrong way before it even happens, on my first playthrough, I felt like something was just off about this scenario, it all seemed too quiet.

It was executed very well and though this merely serves as an intro and not an actual mission, it’s counted among one of my favorites.

The next mission informs us that it has been six months since the murder of Jessamine Kaldwin, you are locked away in prison and waiting for your execution.

While in your cell, a guard will come by to deliver a tray of food and urge you to eat, upon examining the tray, you find a key and an anonymous message. The key is for the cell door and the message is from someone who claims to want to help you and knows your innocence.

Getting through the prison takes time and skill if you wish to go the stealth route, or you could speed it up and go for an all chaos brutality as you cut down anyone in your way to escape from Coldridge.

This level has you pick-pocketing a guard to get a key, finding an explosive located in a safe and rushing the explosive to the door that will lead to safety, well, at least freedom.

The freedom turns out to lead you into the sewers, where you are surrounded by disgusting water, rats, and the constant graffiti letting you know what the different denizens of the isles are thinking about.

Sneaking through the sewers for me was one of the most boring parts of the game, as there isn’t a lot of story related things involved with this section of the level, simply finding your way around, sneaking past or defeating your enemies and escaping to the freedom of a man named Samuel Beechworth’s waiting boat. Once you meet with Samuel, you will be off to the hideout of the people who conspired to break you out of prison.

You arrive at The Hound Pits Pub, meeting with the men that saved you and exploring around, you learn about the loyalist’s plans for outing the lord regent, rescuing Emily and making sure she is placed on the throne. This is the part of the game where you introduce yourself to everyone, Get your bearings and your mask from Piero, which can later be upgraded.

Finding your quarters, you will then drift off to sleep as the game’s loading screen informs you that you are now “somewhere else”

This brings you into a part of the mission where you appear to still be in your room at the pub, but are really in The Void, where you meet the mysterious and mythical god of the void himself, The Outsider. Who has taken an interest in your plight and offers you his mark to save Emily, clear your name and put everything right in the Empire.

After each mission, you will get a tally sheet of the kills, the chaos level and what special actions you took during the missions, it also keeps track of runes and bone charms found.

A pretty standard mission that shows the beginnings of a story that is sure to hook you, it gives us a look into combat, stealth and introduces us to some of the most important players in this political tug of rope.

The second mission takes us to our first target, We’re to find High Overseer Campbell and eliminate him. You find out from the Loyalists that Campbell is a very corrupt individual, he leads the city’s militant religious faction, The Abbey of The Everyman, most importantly, he holds the secret to Emily’s location. You’re tasked with infiltrating his office and eliminating him.

After being briefed on your mission, you head to Samuel’s boat. You have the option to take a side quest from Callista Curnow, who wishes you to save her uncle from the High Overseer, who plans to poison him.

Traveling through John Clavering Boulevard is not easy, to say the least, especially if you’re aiming for the stealth option, you are not only tasked with getting past the guards but circumventing two walls of light to reach the office of the high overseer. There are many options to take on your way, but the easiest strategy is to get onto the rooftops.

Getting to Holger, whether or not you take the high chaos or low chaos path is certainly a puzzle, This mission is incredibly fun as it offers something to love for every different player of the game, stealth, chaotic fighting, and you get to meet Granny Rags, the strange old lady whose location will change throughout the game.

Once you eliminate the High Overseer through lethal or non-lethal options, you will return to the boat and head back to the pub. This is one of the standout missions in the game, it pushes the story forward and it includes one of my favorite locations. Plus you get the “fun” look into alternate options of dealing with your enemies, the non-lethal option for taking down Campbell is having him branded a heretic.

The next mission takes you to find and rescue young Emily Kaldwin, the loyalists have found the location of Emily, she is being held at the Golden Cat by the Pendleton Twins. Before you leave, Havelock requires you to check out the sewers to take care of some weepers that are hiding out down there, once done, you are able to leave for the main mission.

Once off the boat, you’re back on the streets of Dunwall, There are many options you can take during this mission, including side quests to avoid the watchtowers. If you head to the Dunwall Whiskey Distillery, You can take a side quest from Slackjaw, who will provide a non-lethal option for the Pendleton brothers in exchange for Corvo to go to the offices of Dr. Galvani to find his missing associate. You can choose to skip this entirely but it does provide a useful rooftop access for the Golden Cat.

Getting inside is hard on stealth, but if you’re plowing through your enemies the mission goes a lot faster. Head inside, find the Pendleton brothers if your plan is to kill them, ignore them entirely if you want Slackjaw to deal with them and find Emily once and for all in one of the back rooms, She informs you that she knows a way out, She leads you through a V.I.P entrance and you head back down to Samuel’s boat.

A great visual mission, the environment is beautiful and one of the first times we see such bright colors in the city of Dunwall. I especially love the way it clashes with the dark and depressing parts of the city around it. The Golden Cat is a very remarkable mission with a lot of replay value where you can find new and interesting ways to get inside as well as to test your own skills at stealth.

Which brings us to the fourth mission of the game, one of my personal favorites story-wise. You’re objective is to remove the rest of the Lord Regent’s remaining allies, finding and abducting Anton Sokolov proves tests your skills as you traverse one of the most difficult maps in the game.

Sokolov’s apartment is located on the north end of Kaldwin’s bridge, but you’re dropped off on the south side due to the presence of floodlights illuminating the waterway, You must disable these lights later during the mission.

Traveling through the side streets of this mission can be extremely frustrating, especially if you’re playing stealthy, getting the drop on the guards to knock them out or kill them without alerting anyone else in the area is a feat I spent several tries to get right.

As with all missions you can find a rune here if you choose to explore the area, Getting up to Kaldwin’s bridge and across it and eventually coming to Sokolov’s apartment, You knock him out and have to bring him back to the boat. There is only one option for Sokolov, as you must bring him to the loyalists alive.

All in all, this was a good mission with some flaws, Though it does a wonderful job taking you through the more industrial parts of the city, one of my pet peeves was simply that Sokolov’s apartment was too far away and there were too many ways to get caught or killed in between the starting point and the apartment, The area map feels too big and with too much to explore, it becomes easier to get distracted from the main mission.

After you abduct Sokolov, he is taken as a hostage at the Pub, Corvo has the option of going up to the old tower to check on Emily, who is sleeping as Callista watches over her. Emily can be heard tossing and turning.

Many of the complaints I have about the game can be explained best with this mission, the large maps and extra things to see might intrigue some but for me it simply served as a distraction, there is nothing wrong with additional content or side quests but I feel like this game may have tried to do too much with it in many of its levels. Especially the side-quests that take place back at the pub.

The Fifth mission in Dishonored is Lady Boyle’s Last Party, an incredible level in which you have to infiltrate a masquerade ball in order to eliminate one more of the Lord Regents allies.

You wake up in the attic, Emily is there, she tells you she doesn’t like the tower she stays in and believes it to be haunted by a ghost.

Going out to the yard, Corvo will meet with Havelock who intends to extract information from Anton Sokolov by torturing him, standing by a large crate filled with what appears to be plague rats. He questions Sokolov about the identity of the lord regents mistress, his strongest supporter, You can either scare the information out of Sokolov with the rats or you can bribe him by buying a bottle of King Street Brandy from Piero.

Either way, he tells you about Lady Boyle, but he does not know which one is the Lord Regents Mistress as there are three Boyle sisters who always dress exactly the same at these parties.

You head out to an evening on the town, too bad it’s possible that it ends in bloodshed. Travel through the Estate District, one of my favorite places in the game. There are several ways to get through and infiltrate the party, but the most fun by far is waiting outside the building in a certain area and catching an invitation that is dropped by someone waiting outside, Corvo can pick it up and use it to enter the party, This lets you walk freely inside the mansion without being seen as a hostile target, unless you act aggressively.

This is my second favorite mission in the entire game, the atmosphere is beautiful and shows us a more aristocratic bunch of people than the ones we usually hang out with. We spend the entire party trying to guess which lady Boyle sister is which. You can do this several ways as well, bribing, talking to others or wait for Lord Brisby who will simply tell you the name of the target, and reveal a non-lethal option.

All in all, a fantastic level, the atmosphere of the level alone makes me want to play it over and over again, the setting of Boyle’s mansion is straightforward, easy to make your way through the mission and it’s not too bad to look at either. It also doesn’t bog itself down with too many optional side quests and the focus remains strongly on finding your target.

It’s finally time, going back to where it all started six months previously. This mission takes us back to Dunwall Tower to deal with the Lord Regent once and for all.

Get to the tower with the help of Samuel and his boat, you can swim into the water lock and climb up the mechanism. You’ll have to avoid arc pylons in this level, so watch out and always look for a way to remove them.

Make your way to the roof outside to bypass guards and the wall of light, or you can slice and dice on your way to kill the man responsible for all the chaos in Dunwall.

Beware of tallboys as you traipse through the outdoors of Dunwall Tower, one hit from those bad boys and you’re as good as dead.

There are as always, many ways to enter the tower but what’s most important is when you are in the tower, no matter what way you came in, or what way you decide to play this level, You get to kill Hiram Burrows

This level is really satisfying, going back to where it all began and finally being able to put down the one responsible for Jessamine’s death. It has a very nice poetic feel to it, the mission taking place at night is a really nice touch because Jessamine was killed during the day, and avenged during the night.

Wonderfully put together, it’s incredibly fun to sneak through Dunwall tower and explore all it has to offer before your main target, Once you kill him, head back down to the boat, you’re going back to the pub. Upon coming back, Samuel informs you that everyone is celebrating inside the building, He does not join in. This is the first sign something is off.

As we walk inside, a cutscene plays and Corvo is greeted by Emily and a short applause from the loyalists. They congratulate him and offer him a drink.

Upon heading up to your room for the night, you will pass out and awaken to find the loyalists standing over you, revealing that they have poisoned you, They tell Samuel to get rid of the body, Samuel will lean down and whisper an apology to Corvo, stating that he only put half the poison in his drink.

Wonderfully nostalgic mission where you go back to the beginning and get the ultimate revenge, with an unexpected twist at the end, this mission is absolutely excellent.

This next mission deals with what happens to Corvo after he’s been betrayed and left for dead in the flooded district.

You wake up in a boat to Whaler’s looking at you and talking about the poison, saying that they don’t know what to do with you, but Daud might and thus you are brought to the assassin that killed Jessamine. He taunts you, throws your stuff down a shaft and takes you prisoner, keeping you under guard of his Whaler’s.

Getting out of Daud’s prison is easy, you simply have to pick up a rock and throw it until the wood breaks, then you can use your powers to leave. Recovering your stuff is the most important thing, so traversing through the sickly flooded district to get down to where your gear is is one of the main point s of this mission. River crusts will throw things at you as you make your way through, and occasionally you may have to deal with one of Daud’s assassins.

Once you recover your gear at the refinery, Go after Daud who is located near Central Rudshore, Daud’s hideout is hard to get around because you can’t exactly be stealthy in a place with so many assassins. Getting past them is hard, but not impossible, or you could simply kill them.

After making it all this way, you confront Daud and can have a fight with him, ending in Daud letting Corvo decide whether he should live or die. Alternatively, you can simply not confront Daud at all, steal his key and leaving his hideout.

From there, you can escape to the Rudshore gate, head into the sewers and through several more equally flooded areas, You will have to contend with guards, tallboys, and weepers throughout the zone. Once you get past the old Dunwall sewers, you will make your way back to the Pub to find out what happened to your old “friends” and what they might have done with Emily Kaldwin.

This mission is my all-time favorite one. Though many players seem to dislike it due to it’s hard to traverse areas and the seemingly never-ending supply of river crusts that do much more damage than they should. I loved the environment, being outside of the city for the first time in the game and getting to really see the grittiest places in Dunwall.

The Flooded District is Dunwall’s little secret, and it felt nice to be let in on that secret.

Back at the old pub again, you are in search of Emily Kaldwin after the assassination of Hiram Burrows you were poisoned and left for dead in the flooded district, you’re not angry, you just want to talk.

Unfortunately, it seems like there is no one you can talk to, the pub has been abandoned by the Loyalists and guards patrol the streets, as well as tallboys.

Coming up through the sewers, you find yourself in an old abandoned apartment where Cecelia stays, she informs Corvo of what happened, The outcome of what she tells you depends on your chaos level but no matter the chaos, Samuel has gone missing and Emily has been kidnapped.

You are also tasked to help Piero and Sokolov who have teamed up to create a new kind of arc pylon that works on a much large r range than the standard pylons. You have to find the blueprints, find a whale oil tank to power the machine and let it go, Every guard and tall boy will either be killed or stunned and you will be able to move about the zone freely.

Exploring the area for gear, sneaking or killing your way through the streets of the old pub and trying to find clues about Emily’s location, this is a pretty focused mission, enjoyable but with no real punch to it, It was nice to find out about what happened at the pub while you were in the flooded district, but the mission felt a little bit like filler. though I guess every good story needs a filler break.

Ah, you’ve come this far, This is the final mission, it takes you to confront the loyalists and rescue Emily from Kingsparrow Island

Samuel will show up by the pub in the previous mission after you send up a flair, on the way to the lighthouse he will summarise his feelings about Corvo, this and the rest of the mission are heavily dependant on chaos rating, if in low chaos there will be fewer guards located at Kingsparrow, the weather will be sunny and Samuel will be more respectful towards Corvo.

Though if the rating is high, more guards are present and the weather will be stormy, Samuel will condemn Corvo for his actions and announce him by shooting a gun into the air.

This area consists of two parts, the fort, and the lighthouse, You must sneak or fight your way past several guards and overseers who are carrying music boxes. Get past an arc pylon and a wall of light, which can be deactivated in the control room. Get through the fort’s courtyard and head to the gatehouse and you will be on the way to the lighthouse.

Upon arriving at the top of the lighthouse, Corvo must find and eliminate the remaining loyalists and rescue Emily, the scene plays out differently depending on chaos, in low chaos Emily is simply being held in a room in the lighthouse, in high chaos Havelock is holding her over the edge of the lighthouse, threatening to jump with her if Corvo moves any closer.

Once you save Emily, a cutscene dependent on your chaos level plays, letting you know that Emily became Empress, reigning over Dunwall for many years.

This mission was one of the best and worst, it wrapped up the story in such a beautiful way and I loved the differences in the level and story depending on the chaos level, but it was a really hard area to get through. The Lighthouse was a nice touch, but it did become a little tedious to try to stealth through the courtyard during different playthroughs.

In conclusion, a wonderful ending to a wonderful game, the atmosphere of this level was one of the best of the entire game, my personal favorite is when it is storming on medium to high chaos, it makes for a much more dramatic and intense showdown.

After all these years, Dishonored still manages to grasp our attention and leave us wanting more with its innovative level designs, it’s masterful chaos system and it’s stealth or fight play-styles. Certainly, a game worth playing and replaying.