Great job, Arkane. I feel that Dishonored is nothing short of a masterpiece. I love the freedom to complete missions any way I see fit and I absolutely adore the artwork, the atmosphere and the style that went into creating Dunwall.

I just wish the voice acting could have been better.

Most of the dialogue is well written, but the delivery is very flat and uninteresting, and it lacks emotional depth. The result is bland and uninteresting characters, and very few memorable scenes. Also, the villains sound like parodies of cartoon archetype villains. Most of the major characters are rather boring to listen to. Emily seems to be taking the death of her mother rather well, and admiral Havelock is a very bland character.

I don't know if this is intentional, but I feel a bit disappointed that more effort was not put into the voiceacting. It seems like a wasted opportunity when you have created such a rich world with such an interesting story of revenge. It would really have made me much more emotionally invested in the story and boosted the immersion.

I also think it would have been great to flesh out the relationship between Corvo and Jessamine and Emily even more before killing off the Empress.

But thanks for a great game nonetheless ^^ great job.

I have to disagree. I think the voice acting was good, especially Emily. imo the voice acting came across as believable and real. Many other games has the voice acting going to far. As in overacting and cheesy. I found the voice acting in dishonored "down to earth" and believable.

Ofcourse we have the right to disagree.

On specific characters.

Emily: Children and grownups react completely different when facing loss. Emily came across as very sad about it. Denial and piling up your emotions on the inside is not uncommon. Just because she doesent burst into tears doesent mean she doesent grieve or isnt crying "off screen". She is quiet a strong girl (Even if not she tries to be), and her way to deal with her mothers death was believable imo.

Daud and Havelock may be "unemotional" but I never felt this was because of the voice actiong, but because they are both killers. The heart even says "He has killed many, many men" about havelock. The "I dont care" or "I have a heart of stone" was reflected well in their voice acting and was also very well done imo.

Most are good, a few are great, others hits or miss.

Granny Rags and Samuel are really good. Calista is very well voiced. Piero and Wallace are pretty good. Emily has some good delivieries. The rest is serviceable.


This, I agree with.


It's a. been six months since her mother's death, and b. children regularly handle death much better than advlts do.


Only you can answer whether your disappointment is intentional or not. Or did you mean "warranted" instead of "intentional"?

I agree they could have done more with the story in general, and some of the voice actors could have been better selected, but as it stands the voice acting is ... okay, with a few outstanding moments. I think you have to have a very clear vision of what you want out of a game from the very beginning (unless you have unlimited money for unlimited iteration, a la Valve) to create a great story with it. I think what happened with Dishonored is that the game design and the story developed in tandem, so it feels a bit cobbled together. Again, it's serviceable, and there are outstanding moments, but it could have done with (much?) more finessing.

Martin. Damn it, he had NO emotion in his voice whatsoever! You save him and his voice doesn't change at all!

Some of the VO's are rather flat. Maybe part of the problem is a sound design issue?

I never considered that. Perhaps you're right.

But overall the voicework is just bland and soulless. With very few exceptions, it feels like the actors were only there to read their lines, pick up their paychecks and get it over with. And that's one of the reasons why I never get excited to see major hollywood 'stars' in a game. It reminds of something someone once said: 'Don't hire celebrities. You just can't pay them enough to care'.

While most is passable, some are downright ridiculous. I mean, a guy getting eaten alive by a pack of rats and another burning alive, and they shout with as much emotion and conviction as an extra in a Godzilla-movie. It felt really cheaply done most of the time.

The only SEVERE problem I had is with the Bottle Street Gang's informant on the audiograph. God, that sounded so terribly delievered and cheasy.

There's only one part in the whole game where I think the voice acting is completely stupid. I wont say though.

I keep forgetting to mention Cecilia. She's quite well acted, and seems to have the better part of the script.

Well its no Mass Effect, but its good. I mean atleast its better then Skyrim voice acting.

I thought Daud's voice actor did a excellant job, a also loved Lady Emily's voice actress, I thought overall the acting was top notch.

Product of money spent on big names instead of proper voice actors. I was playing and Granny Rags was talking some nonsense or whatever and my girlfriend who was half asleep on the other side of the room was like "Is that Susan Sarandon? Talk about immersion breaking.