Cynical Quickie: Dishonored Death Of The Outsider

Like the title? It's something new I'm experimenting with for short reviews. Also, holy shit, Cynical's actually publishing another review, it must be the end times. This will have spoilers below the break.

Anyways, this is just a quick little review for Dishonored: DOTO, a stand-alone DLC for Dishonored 2 meant to put a wrap on the original storyline. It starts off with Billie Lurk, Daud's apprentice from the first game and Emily's boatwoman in the second writing at her desk,
musing on the events that led to her trying to track down Daud. It's established that the canonical ending of DH2 is low-chaos Emily,
something that I approve of greatly. From here, the basic plot of the game is the following:
1. Find and rescue Daud
2. Assassinate or otherwise deal with leaders of the cult known as The Eyeless, creepy as fuck nobles who worship the Outsider
3. Break into a bank and steal the blade that killed the Outsider, which also happens to be Zhukov's knife from the novels
4. Kill the Outsider

Fairly simple. In fact, a big problem with the game's story is that it's too simple, as while there are five main targets in the game, the only one the game actually cares about is the Outsider himself. All of the other targets are just glossed over. Along with this, Daud is wasted in the game, only appearing briefly before getting killed OFF SCREEN, hardly a respectable sendoff to one of the most popular characters in the franchise. Billie herself is fine, her voice actress significantly better here than she was in Dishonored 2, and her character overall is understandable. We get a few tidbits of information on what Emily and the others have been doing, showing that Hypatia is still alive, Sokolov lives in Tyvia now, and the empress is attempting nation building. Good stuff for the lore, hopefully it will be expanded upon in the future novels and comics. However, NOTHING can counteract the piss-poor ending. You get two choices: Make the Outsider human, or just kill him. Neither are particularly interesting in the end. Plus, the game tells you that killing him is the "dark" ending, but the difference between the two BARELY FUCKING EXISTS! Spare him? He becomes human and lives with Billie. Kill him? He dies... and that's it. Nothing else happens. This is such bullshit compared to the last two games, where there were tons of different endings depending on your actions.

Where the game shines, however, is the sidequests, lore, level design, and gameplay, as standard for the franchise. The new Contracts system is excellent, encouraging exploration and careful planning with monetary intensives. The fact that you only have one shot at completing them forces you to actually plan out your actions before making a move. The powers are good, Displace being a little weird at first but a joy as the game went on (I laughed my ass off the first time I accidentally teleported inside someone), Foresight was unique and allowed for nice planning, Semblance was well-balanced and useful, and whatever the sword power was called was fun to fuck around with people. Though I must admit, I'm rather disappointed that those are the only new powers, even if you can use Corvo and Emily's powers once you beat the campaign. The level design was on-point as always, offering tons of routes to do your crimes. The lore in the books and conversations you can come across were also excellent, far better than the main story.

TL;DR version: On its own, the game is pretty good and only suffers from a terrible ending and wasting a character that's supposed to be important. However, as what is stated to be the conclusion for the storyline of the the first two games, it is an incredibly disappointing finale, something that might have put a much bigger dent in it if it weren't for the future books. So, overall, Dishonored:
Death Of The Outsider gets a
7.5/10

I'm the Cynical Brony, and I need a new catchphrase.