It was unfortunately a product of its time where moral systems ultimately amounted to binary good guy/bad guy outcomes which was the style at the time. The system was designed to make you want to play it twice. If you’re used to the more modern moral ambiguity in today’s RPGs I don’t think anyone can blame you for disliking it.
I grew up playing Fallout 1/2, Deus Ex, stuff like that. Dishonored framed its morality system as “chaos” rather than good vs. bad but ultimately I had characters complaining about my methods. You brought in someone to specifically be an assassin and then you’re outraged that he kills people? I shot the damn traiterous boatman in the head at the end of the game.
Well an assassin kills his targets. He doesn’t kill every innocent bystander he sees. In the first game, the guard enemies you see are your colleagues who are fully under the impression that you are a traitor who killed the empress. They are functionally your enemies during the game, but they are ultimately the good guys.
The rebel leaders, especially the admiral are going to complain about you killing who are also basically his men.
IIRC you still get the low-chaos ending if you only kill the targets. It’s just by going wild and killing everyone that you get high-chaos, and I think this fits in the moral framing of the game.
I do agree with your gripe that D1 gives you a lot of fun ways to kill people and challenges you not to use them, while at the same time giving you very little nonlethal tools. They addressed this well in the sequel IMO, but I did also love the challenge and the temptation knowing that these enemies would be so easy to defeat with a rat swarm but I just shouldn’t. Like I said, keeps with the moral framing about the slippery slope of mindless revenge IMO
I’m reminded of a show I was watching and lampshading. One of the characters is exhausting to watch and the other characters comment on how much the character sucks. That’s great an’ all but I’m still stuck watching this character suck. Commenting on it doesn’t make it go away.
Similarly I could not use the tools the game gives me but they’re there for me to use. If I’m not supposed to use them then I might as well instead play something that wants me to play it!
I understand what you’re saying (I think) but you know that… you can kill everyone, right? The worst the game does is throw a few more enemies at you (to kill) and some moral characters say mean things to you. Pretty standard RPG mechanics, IMO. It’s just a choice and like I said, the narrative framing sets you up to be a highly-trained stealthy assassin, not some mass-murdering juggernaut. But you can do that if you want
Similarly I could not use the tools the game gives me
Offers* you. There’s even an achievement for completing the game with just a sword and pistol, no upgrades or powers ;) Choices!!
Much like in Spec Ops: The Line the player can just stop playing. I mean, you’re not wrong, but it seems silly to me.
Some games handle this by making it the ultra-violent approach essentially non-viable but that’s not how Dishonored decided to roll.
the narrative framing sets you up to be a highly-trained stealthy assassin
I quietly took out guards rather than avoiding them. No alarms were raised, etc… Seems pretty stealthy to me.
Ultimately I just didn’t appreciate the mixed messaging of “here are tools for extreme violence” and “why did you commit extreme violence?”. If non-lethal means were such a priority why was I given tools that heavily favour lethality?
It was unfortunately a product of its time where moral systems ultimately amounted to binary good guy/bad guy outcomes which was the style at the time. The system was designed to make you want to play it twice. If you’re used to the more modern moral ambiguity in today’s RPGs I don’t think anyone can blame you for disliking it.
I grew up playing Fallout 1/2, Deus Ex, stuff like that. Dishonored framed its morality system as “chaos” rather than good vs. bad but ultimately I had characters complaining about my methods. You brought in someone to specifically be an assassin and then you’re outraged that he kills people? I shot the damn traiterous boatman in the head at the end of the game.
Well an assassin kills his targets. He doesn’t kill every innocent bystander he sees. In the first game, the guard enemies you see are your colleagues who are fully under the impression that you are a traitor who killed the empress. They are functionally your enemies during the game, but they are ultimately the good guys.
The rebel leaders, especially the admiral are going to complain about you killing who are also basically his men.
To be fair, that’s the best explanation I’ve seen. It’s been too long for me to remember the specifics.
IIRC you still get the low-chaos ending if you only kill the targets. It’s just by going wild and killing everyone that you get high-chaos, and I think this fits in the moral framing of the game.
I do agree with your gripe that D1 gives you a lot of fun ways to kill people and challenges you not to use them, while at the same time giving you very little nonlethal tools. They addressed this well in the sequel IMO, but I did also love the challenge and the temptation knowing that these enemies would be so easy to defeat with a rat swarm but I just shouldn’t. Like I said, keeps with the moral framing about the slippery slope of mindless revenge IMO
Playing as Emily in 2 is really fun. You have the option to ignore stealth, go all out with your powers, and still not kill anyone.
I’m reminded of a show I was watching and lampshading. One of the characters is exhausting to watch and the other characters comment on how much the character sucks. That’s great an’ all but I’m still stuck watching this character suck. Commenting on it doesn’t make it go away.
Similarly I could not use the tools the game gives me but they’re there for me to use. If I’m not supposed to use them then I might as well instead play something that wants me to play it!
I understand what you’re saying (I think) but you know that… you can kill everyone, right? The worst the game does is throw a few more enemies at you (to kill) and some moral characters say mean things to you. Pretty standard RPG mechanics, IMO. It’s just a choice and like I said, the narrative framing sets you up to be a highly-trained stealthy assassin, not some mass-murdering juggernaut. But you can do that if you want
Offers* you. There’s even an achievement for completing the game with just a sword and pistol, no upgrades or powers ;) Choices!!
Much like in Spec Ops: The Line the player can just stop playing. I mean, you’re not wrong, but it seems silly to me.
Some games handle this by making it the ultra-violent approach essentially non-viable but that’s not how Dishonored decided to roll.
I quietly took out guards rather than avoiding them. No alarms were raised, etc… Seems pretty stealthy to me.
Ultimately I just didn’t appreciate the mixed messaging of “here are tools for extreme violence” and “why did you commit extreme violence?”. If non-lethal means were such a priority why was I given tools that heavily favour lethality?
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You’re really not getting this lol
I think you’re confusing getting and agreeing with. I understand what it was going for, that doesn’t mean I like it.
yea, mofo sold me out & scolded me and he took an arrow in the ear for it