Dishonored

Dishonored (2012) from Arkane Studios blended stealth action with supernatural powers in the dark, industrial city of Dunwall, inspired by Victorian London and Venetian architecture. Playing as Corvo Attano, a former bodyguard framed for a treason and murder he did not commit, the game handed players abilities like the teleporting Blink and a Chaos system that reshaped the story's outcome, characters' behavior, and the state of the world itself depending on how violently the player acted - from a plague-ridden city on the brink of collapse to a somewhat more livable version of the same place.

Dishonored 2 (2016) moved the action to the sun-drenched coastal city of Karnaca and, for the first time, let players choose between Corvo and his daughter Emily Kaldwin as the protagonist, each with a distinct set of powers and a different feel. The sequel is still best remembered for the Clockwork Mansion, inventor Kirin Jindosh's mechanically reconfiguring estate, widely regarded and cited as one of the decade's standout game levels. Between the two mainline entries, the shorter add-on campaigns The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches, starring the assassin Daud, further expanded the world and its characters, and the series was later closed out by the standalone spin-off Death of the Outsider, featuring Daud's former companion Billie Lurk.

From the start, the series distinguished itself through freedom of approach - from a silent, bloodless playthrough to outright massacre - carrying forward the immersive-sim lineage of games like Thief, an approach Arkane went on to explore further in later titles such as Prey.