Consider Dishonored 2 pre-ordered.

Hot damn. This game has been peripherally on my radar for a long time now, but I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to buy it. I'm a huge fan of stealth games but the majority of the ones I've played recently have been really disappointing or had flawed stealth mechanics. In my hesitation I rented this game, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it does pretty much everything right.

First I want to mention my absolute favorite thing about this game: the universe that Arkane created. The whole world just feels so rich and well thought-out that I hunted down most of the books and bits of lore to find out more about this world I was in. The entire world of this game revolves around whale oil, and while this would merely be a throwaway piece of lore in most games, the ubiquity of whale oil powered devices, whale-related literature, and whale-related dialogue in this game just gives it a sense of authenticity that is hard to come across in most games. Beyond that, Arkane really did a great job at creating a consistent and convincing world around you. Everything from the books and conversations to the way people and the world react to your actions (both from a Chaos perspective as well as through overhead conversations and propaganda announcements), this world feels like a living, breathing place that your character actually inhabits. This is only further helped by the art design and the stylized, Victorian architecture and fashion (and I'm very impressed with how the game looks on consoles; the game must be stunning on PC). Very few games can create that tangible sense of place, and it is by far my favorite thing about this game.

But moving onto the gameplay itself, I have always been a huge proponent of wide open level design with multiple paths available to achieve your objective, and I hereby nominate Dishonored as the standard bearer for this design philosophy. I can't tell you how many times I came across a courtyard or street and planned my route through it, only to have my route blocked or intercepted by a random guard or spotlight. To my great delight there was always a ledge or window or vent or rat hole that I could escape to. Barring that I could always rely on improvised use of a Blink or Bend Time or Sleep Dart to escape to a safer spot and live to sneak another day. In most games, when you achieve your objective you don't really feel a sense of accomplishment because it feels like the developer basically pushed you down a very specific path to your goal. In Dishonored, when you get the drop on your target and shove your blade through his skull, you get that feeling of, "I did this. I accomplished this." The game is great at making you feel smart because it doesn't force you down a certain path. You can fight, you can hide, you can kill from the shadows or not at all. All are valid options, and all are satisfying in their own right. This also imbues the game with an amazing amount of replayability.

So thank you Arkane for making this game. I saw from the latest NPD numbers that this game has done quite well so far, and I am extremely happy with this. I am returning my rental tomorrow, but you can bet your behind that I will be buying a copy of this game and playing through it again to explore other ways of completing the missions. If there is a Dishonored 2 (which I sincerely hope there is), then please expand upon the things that Dishonored did so well. Let us see and learn more of The Isles! Flesh out the political structure and the business links of the various governments. Keep making large, interconnected areas with multiple paths and entry/exit points. And for the Empress' sake, please don't go mainstream with this series and ditch the stealth and open-ended approach that you took with Dishonored. This game represents exactly what I love to see in games, and I am very happy that there is at least one developer out there still honing the craft.

Finally, a good post in support of the game!