Dishonoured Review: Steampunk, stealth and swordplay

There aren't many games like Dishonoured. With the endless rise of first person shooters into mainstream gaming, stealth titles have been shoved aside and forgotten, but Dishonoured attempts to challenge and change this ruination of a superb genre. It's a tale with big ideas and big plans, but is it a truly great game?

Dishonoured makes it's home in the city of Dunwall, a one proud Victorian metropolis tearing itself apart with crime and corruption in the wake of a disastrous plague. You play as the unspeaking Corvo Attano, proud warrior and bodyguard to the Empress, whose world collapses when she is murdered and you are framed for her killing. Inevitably, you are released from prison by unseen benefactors and begin a quest to rescue the Empress's young daughter Emily and to take revenge on those who betrayed you.

It's a superb setup, but what really makes the game is the developers' phenomenal style and attention to detail in creating an amazing game world full of unpleasant characters. Dishonoured features a stunning voice cast including Susan Sarandon, Carrie Fisher and the brilliant Chloë Grace Moretz, who add a wonderful depth and development to a great set of characters. Not only are the characters exquisitely written and acted, the city of Dunwall itself is one of the best game worlds of recent years. Despite relatively small levels, developers Arkane Studios have created an incredibly stylised and believable city in Dunwall, which flits between locations as varied as royal places, shady back streets and colossal military fortresses. This variety is made believable by the almost unbelievable detail poured into everything from buildings to books and costumes to weapons. Dunwall merges Victorian London with a steampunk-esque look, creating an amazing fantasy city that is both gorgeous and disgusting at once, with little separating the deserted, rat infested streets from the glorious mansions of the most wealthy.

Of course, a dark, stylish world and wonderful characters would be little without strong gameplay, but fortunately there's a remarkable balance between presentation and gameplay at work in Dishonoured. As a general rule, each level sets you in a different environment with a task to assassinate a corrupt politician or some such unsavoury character, often with a bonus objective to consider too. How you go about taking out your target is where the game really gets interesting. Dishonoured gives you the usual tools of knife and pistol, with some additional weapons available including a crossbow with various attachments and bolt types. In addition to this, a number of supernatural powers become available as you collect runes throughout each level, and it's these powers that are your most useful tools in the game. Ranging through bending time to conjuring ravenous rats, each ability can be invaluable at many stages of the game. Blink, a short range teleport, is particularly useful for reaching high vantage points and evading the eyes of increasing murderous guards.

The great thing about Dishonoured's gameplay is the staggering level of choice available to the player, including dozens of routes location and scores of methods of taking out your target. Want to possess a rat and enter a building through a gutter, or clamber onto the roof, break a window and drop silently in? You can. In fact, it's actually possible to complete the whole game without a single kill, as non-lethal methods of removing your enemies always present themselves. The game actually contains a level of morality; violently wiping out everyone in your path in the early levels will lead to enemies being more alert in later stages, the Empress's impressionable young daughter Emily growing to despise you and you receiving the darker of the game's two endings. It's a superb system, and it's effects are noticeable even in the tiniest details, such as conversations between guards and Emily's facial expressions. It really adds a layer of depth to the story, and makes Corvo feel more like a real person than a mindless killer.

It's not quite a perfect game; a new game plus mode would be a supreme addition, the inevitable plot twist is somewhat predictable and the whole tale feels a little too short, but this doesn't matter. With Dishonoured, Arkane Studios have built a stylish, dark and brilliantly enjoyable game, which may just reignite the production of stealth games and give the genre back its deserved name.

9/10