T w e n t y S i d e d

Re-reading the note at the start of this episode, I’m pretty sure we misinterpreted it. I assumed it was the reward for the non-lethal option. But now I think it’s just a reward for not killing all three of the Boyle sisters. It’s not a bug, it’s just confusing and really odd.

How did this woman get you this message? She’s an associate of the current regime. There should not be lines of communication going from there to here. Moreover, how did she even know that the conspiracy exists? And if you did the non-lethal option, then Lady Boyle vanished in the care of Mr. Creepy. He could have kidnapped her on his own. The point is, there’s no reason for her to know where her sister went, who was responsible, that they worked for the conspiracy, or how to contact them.

All of that aside, you killed or kidnapped her sister. And so she sends a gift saying, “Thanks for not pointlessly murdering the rest of us”. I can understand why the game designers want to pat you on the head for making the effort and not just shanking everyone, but the entire premise of this letter leaves a lot of goofy holes in logic and characterization. She shouldn’t be able to send this message and she shouldn’t want to.

In honor of Josh becoming a fish, I’ve composed the following cheat sheet for those of you scheduled to take your astronavigation exam this week:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Dishonored EP15: The Dudeless Way”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

It’s like the designers just wanted to establish that Piero was a creep, and it didn’t occur to them that the players would want to respond in some way. Once you catch him spying on Callista in the bath, you’re forced into a conversation with him. But you can’t really do anything.

You can’t blackmail him, even though he has something you need. You can’t wait until later and tell Callista that she ought to watch out for this sort of thing. (I talked to her later and didn’t get the option. I don’t know what your dialog options are if you barge into the bathroom.) You can’t even tell anyone else about the situation.

Even if you didn’t want to script a branching sidequest where the player might blackmail Piero and also might optionally betray him later once they get what they want, there’s still so much you can do with this setup. Just letting the player ineffectually tell people would make for interesting character development. Maybe Pendleton would think it’s just the most delicious gossip that such a brilliant man is taken to such base behavior. Maybe Havelock doesn’t like it because it shows Piero lacks discipline. Martin would be offended by the immorality of it and see it as a religious problem. Maybe all of them would urge you against taking action now, suggesting that they’ll deal with Piero once you kill the bad guy. There: A tiny sip of characterization, the illusion of player choice, and a foreshadowing of the coming twist.

Like the torture, like your alleged fatherhood of Emily, and like your supposed relationship with the late Empress, this is an interesting set-up with no delivery. This is why the game often felt so detached and emotionally vacant to me. The gameplay is fun, but even the characters themselves don’t seem to care about what’s going on.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.