Dishonored 2

Dishonored 2 moves the action to the southern city of Karnaca, where after a coup the player must choose whether to play as Empress Emily Kaldwin or her father Corvo Attano. Each character has her own set of supernatural powers, so Emily can bind enemies together with an invisible link or slip through shadows, while Corvo blinks short distances and can command rats. The gameplay lets the player decide completely freely whether to slip through a level unseen or leave it as a merciless killer, and the game remembers that choice and reflects it in the state of the city and in the ending.

The game's greatest strength is its level design. The Clockwork Mansion, with reconfigurable walls that pivot with the flip of a lever and open up entirely different paths, or the mission that travels between the past and the present, rank among the finest things the stealth genre has ever offered. On PlayStation 4 the game struggled a little with smoothness in larger scenes at launch, but later updates improved the situation. The visual style blends painterly stylization with Victorian technology powered by whale oil, and the music works with restless strings and a guitar that gives it a southern flavor.

Contemporary reception was very positive, and many reviewers called the levels a textbook example of how to design space for players with a mind of their own. Criticism was aimed at the technical state at launch and at a story that remained mostly a backdrop. The influence on the genre is noticeable everywhere so-called immersive sim games are discussed today. Today it's a title that deserves multiple playthroughs, because only the second or third reveals just how many paths each level actually offers. The game also offers a variant without supernatural powers, turning it into a pure stealth challenge, along with the standalone expansion Death of the Outsider, which brings the world's story to a close.