After two main entries and some solid side stories, the story of Dishonored’s original cast of characters is winding to a close with the advent of its latest—and apparently final—set of DLC in the form of Death of the Outsider. This standalone chapter of the acclaimed steampunk-flavored stealth-action series is a definitive, world-altering move to tie up any remaining loose ends, and the title is a pretty clear indication as to how it intends to achieve that. By shifting the focus from the heroes of the main series back to the empress-murdering Daud and Billie Lurk, whose regicidal ways kicked off the events of the franchise, Dishonored returns full circle to a murder of a different sort: that of the Outsider, the black-eyed trickster god whose seemingly random gifts of superpowers have wrought no end of chaos and misery through the land of Dunwall, and whose rule over reality itself heightens the stakes immeasurably. Unsurprisingly, it marks a pretty definitive ending to this particular set of storylines, which in turn offers the game a sense of vicious, visceral freedom that helps to ensure this arc’s send-off is indeed a worthy one.
While the world of Dishonored is characterized by its pervasive nastiness and darkness, there are few more weary of its cruelty than Billie Lurk (voiced again with wonderful depth by Rosario Dawson), whose shoes you step into this time around. As a former street urchin and one-time professional assassin, Billie has spent many years mourning everything and everyone that’s been taken from her, most of which can be traced back to the Outsider himself. When she finally tracks down her long-lost mentor, Daud (voiced once again with gravelly gravitas by Michael Madsen), he reveals that he’s learned of a way to kill the god and put an end to his anarchic accordance of incredible powers to those that should never be burdened with them. From there, Billie soon finds herself in possession of special powers of her own, and on the hunt for the means to put a stop to a deity whose capricious gifts have all but toppled empires.
It’s actually a fine bit of relevant story-telling that this becomes an epilogue that closes off the plot cycle that Arkane Studio has used since the first downloadable add-ons, The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches, which initially felt like a side story for Daud and his crew of assassins, but were in reality a full-blown prequel chapter for Dishonored 2. It’s a slight shame, then, that your towering goal tends to bleed off any immediacy from much of the work in getting there; once you’ve set your sights on breaking into the dimensional Void to murder a god, it’s hard to feel overly invested in taking out a few mid-ranking human foes guarding a book.
That’s not to say that Death of the Outsider isn’t a blast to explore; true to its roots, this outing represents the refined, bloody sandbox experience that the series is known for, and that’s somehow still true even with a significantly pared back set of powers. Gone is the upgradable skill tree, replaced with a static set of supernatural tools that expands only slightly as the plot progresses. This means that rather than spending time hunting down runes to step talents, you’re left only with the many scattered bonecharms, which alter abilities in specific ways. This simplification is not a bad thing: while it pares down the customization, it forces a focus on very specific approaches offered through the still-plentiful bonecharms. If you’re more inclined to lob grenades and slit throats, this approach offers opportunities to increase blast radius and sharpen your sword; if sticking to the shadows is more attractive, then there are opportunities to equip charms that will instead reduce your visibility. It is of course somewhat contradictory to suggest that it’s a good thing to cut down on the range of options that helped to make Dishonored 2 such a dizzyingly flexible space, but it somehow works very well and makes a lot of sense here.
It doesn’t hurt that the powers that Billie has available to her are in fact a nice improvement over those that were at the disposal of Corvo and Emily. The theme of uniquely wondrous movement skills returns, in the form of the Displace ability; rather than the immediate place-to-place zap of Corvo’s Blink, Billie must instead place an invisible, silhouetted marker where she would like to end up, and then transport there with a separate button press. This necessarily slows things down, which can be jarring at first. However, as the game goes on, it becomes clear that it not only requires a more thoughtful approach to moving around levels, but also creates emergency escape routes by allowing for a quick teleport to a safe spot when things get tough.
Because setting a marker requires a direct and unblocked line of sight, this pairs well with the new advanced scouting tool, Foresight, which pauses time and lets you flit about the level in ghost form as you mark patrolling enemies and items of interest before snapping back to your body. This, too, is better than the previous heartbeat/footstep revelations in prior iterations, and can be used with Displace to drop a marker in spots behind barred windows or spaces that might not otherwise be accessible. Additional welcome stealth options also open up through the Semblance skill, which allows for Hitman-style thieving of enemies’ appearance for temporary navigation of crowds or restricted places, and makes it much more reasonable to keep to the streets rather than the rooftops. Billie even has a modified riff on the beating, talkative heart that would whisper Dunwall’s secrets in the two main titles; instead, she has access to a tool that lets her listen specifically to the city’s many rats. While its introduction is narratively clunky, and its use only occasionally turns up useful information, it still allows for some extra understanding of Karnaca, even if that understanding is just where a rat might find an extra bit of meat to chew on.
The similarities between these skills and those that had been previously seen in other titles tend to fade a bit once it becomes clear that the energy required to use them now replenishes automatically, rather than requiring constant ingestion of special elixirs. In practical terms, this translates to much more frequent use as energy returns fairly quickly, and there’s no concern about having to conserve powers until a certain number of elixirs are found. This provides much more freedom to experiment, without making Billie too powerful or too dangerous to worry about the intricate sets of challenges at the heart of the still-sharp level design.
This same element of freedom characterizes Death of the Outsider’s removal of the series’ infamous Chaos and Order system. In previous games, using too much violence to achieve one’s goals would visibly result in a much darker world, and a more negative ending; this served as an effective balanced challenge by providing real incentives to avoid slicing and dicing through to the finish line, but it also tended to flub the immersion by highlighting the player’s constant struggle against the parameters of the game proper. Here, though, its removal makes sense, and to a very large extent, it works. The DLC’s status as an epilogue, along with its incredible finality, means there are very few long-term, overall consequences of incredible violence. It also certainly matches the personality of Billie, whose status as an exhausted but highly motivated former assassin would surely have few qualms about slitting whatever throats need to be slit. In practical terms, it frees up the player to vent their rage and to play around with the many instruments of violence, with precious few downsides. While this tends to sand some of the edges off the overall challenge, this is counterbalanced fairly effectively by the new Contracts system, which assigns Billie rewards for completing specific tasks. In some cases, these can encourage stealing an item without being detected, or other stealthy goals, allowing for an approach that is tailor-made for each contract you may choose to pursue. Not to say that all are focused on stealth: in fact, one side mission calls for the murder of scores of guards, which nudges you to just go ahead and let rip with her destructive arsenal. It’s a well-balanced mix of options that caters to a variety of playstyles, which along with the wealth of tweakable options post-game, lead to a considerable degree of replayability and make this a truly worthy addition to the canon.
Overall: 8/10
As an epilogue to one of the best stealth-action series of modern times, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider is more than capable, even if the elevated stakes of the titular action drag down some of the rest of the narrative. This is perhaps the most refined take on the franchise’s mix of sneaking and supernaturally enhanced powers, and its truncated length belies the sheer extent of its flexible gameplay. By stripping some of the series’ more cumbersome tropes down to their essence and unshackling the player from the pesky morality of widespread murder, this particular entry is a sandbox that encourages slaughter as much as stealth, with few penalties for engaging in either. It’s a fine send-off for this cast of characters, and offers enough of a twist on the formula to make this final journey one well worth taking.
(This review is based on a copy provided by the publisher.)