4/5 ★ – elmodonnell's review of Dishonored 2.

Some incredible level design, art direction and natural escalation on the thematic and gameplay philosophies of the first game, with a story that I found pretty much just as engaging. The structure worked a lot better for me here with each level feeling much more defined and memorable, though after the initial shock of 'holy shit this is cool' I'm not sure I get the Clockwork Mansion hype compared to some of the other great levels! Gotta appreciate the ambition of the character choice here- I went with Emily and loved how her abilities served similar functions to the first game but were very much distinct, and she was fleshed out into a pretty great protagonist. I felt there was maybe some untapped narrative potential with her relationship with Corvo- it's a strong 'hook' for the player to have us work our way back to Dunwall to save the protagonist of the first game, but I feel like the game could've done more through interactions with other characters/flashbacks/audiographs to develop Corvo and adult Emily's relationship. He's barely mentioned by most, and it's weird that Delilah and The Outsider have little to say about him. I will say this though, I kinda found this a little bit too easy? The combat's still tough, but for my super low chaos Emily playthrough I never really found myself needing anything other than sleep darts, domino and far reach. Hell, for several levels I was able to skip past pretty much the entire core conceit and most of the enemies- for the final Karnaca mission with the Duke and the Grand Palace, the first natural entry point I found was right at the real Duke's balcony with only a couple of guards- I never needed to talk to the body double or even try to deduce who was who, the mission lasted about 30 seconds before I went rune hunting. I never really found a situation where Doppleganger or Shadow Walk (other than rat tunnels) could help me, and other than sleep darts and the occasional howling dart I never switched up my equipment either. Looking forward to a high-chaos kill everyone NG+ run with Corvo to properly try out all the gadgets and abilities, after a bit of a break. Still kicking myself for not fully committing to this series earlier, but I'll definitely be trying Death of the Outsider out, as well as Prey.