Dishonored Review
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Stealth & Combat Gameplay As I've alluded to, Dishonored plays like a combination of Deus Ex and Thief, with some notable influence from more modern games like BioShock such as in how health, upgrades and inventory (or lack thereof) work. For each mission, you'll be inserted into an area via a boat ride, and will be given free reign on how to reach your target, whether that's sneaking about, killing everything in sight, or a little of both. Although you are encouraged to take out your targets lethally, each mission has a few optional objectives, one or two of which will reveal ways to take out your target in an alternative way (sometimes earning them a fate worse than death). Levels, overall, are fairly varied - some take a more hub-like approach, while others are more linear - but they do get a little less dense later on, with fewer books and notes to read, fewer optional objectives to complete, and so on.
Stealth is clearly the game's emphasis much of the time, and it's here where things are both fun and a little disappointing. The good news is that the level design is set up excellently for stealth. Far from Deus Ex's "find the vent" design, instead Dishonored is closer to Thief, with multiple routes and opportunity spots throughout each area. In any given location, you might be able to crawl through the sewers, Blink from rooftop to rooftop (more on that shortly), climb up some pipes, or use ground cover. The levels have many more vertical elements than most other games, and many of the best paths to take are over rooftops or from window to window. Even if you play lethally or ultra-violently, these aren't so much "stealth options" as they are just options for any play-style.
Where stealth is let down a little bit is mostly in what it's lacking. The guards you'll need to avoid are generally pretty intelligent, investigating missing patrols, checking corners and spotting you at a distance, but they have a tendency to almost never look up, especially on the normal difficulty, which leads to situations where it's possible to perch yourself on objects just a foot or two above their heads and go completely unnoticed. Enemies also have an annoying tendency to instantly alert everyone in the area as soon as you are detected, as well, and they all magically know your exact location, making save-scumming far more preferable than trying to escape or hide if you want to avoid killing.
You also generally have fewer options available than in Thief for stealth. Light and shadow play a part, supposedly, but it is very inconsistent - hiding in shadows will rarely save you from detection, and there are precious few opportunities to manipulate lighting yourself. And, unlike Thief, the game lacks a lot of tools and toys to make sneaking interesting. There are no noisemaker, water or moss arrow equivalents, no gas grenades to knock out enemies - you're limited to tranquilizer bolts for your crossbow and silently choking people from behind. Thankfully, hiding bodies is still an important consideration.
