Continuing my … series? Sure. Continuing my irregular series on, well, playing video game series and seeing how they change between them.

What I like about the first game is its depth in morality. Choices really do matter here. Side quests with outcomes that link to each other. Violence spurring more death and rats in the world. Other characters reacting to your violence. And to have so many choices in a “linear” game like this.

And I’m a sucker for good writing. The Outsider’s presence and preachy yet sassy rhetoric in this game is just soo good (“if he really wants to meet me, he could start by being a bit more interesting” and “either way, it’s [her] final party”).

For graphics, it’s meh. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful game, and they nailed the painterly style from the get-go. But the first game is very polygon-y. NPC animations are mostly meh.

I recently got to try its DLCs. Honestly, amazing. Probably one of the best DLC campaigns I’ve played for any game (hold that thought — replaying the Half Life 2 episodes, I’ll let you know). And it got to test some nicer graphics. Outsider has great lines as usual (“you’re running out of rope” gave me the chills first time I heard it).

The sequel has a lot of great advances. Stellar graphics, insanely detailed and stylized textures. Amazing worldbuilding. Getting to play two characters with different powers and styles.

Great level design experiments as well. But my hot take: I didn’t like the time travel level. Titanfall 2 did it better, end of story.

However, it pulled back on the quantity of meaningful choices of the first game. Makes sense, from a production standpoint. But definitely a more accessible game for a wider audience. To make more money, understandably.

Supposedly this game was meant to be a DLC for Dishonored 2, but its experimentation warranted a standalone game.

I felt it. And not necessarily in a good way.

Sure, graphics go harder. I could feel the VRAM filling up. Combat and kills are way more reflexive and visceral.

Overall, my highlights:

But it is far shorter than the other two games. I beat it a couple times (hard, “low” and “max” chaos) within ten hours. Great worldbuilding, but the story itself is average. Outsider, despite his name in the title, has surprisingly few lines, even in the final sequence.

And I miss the pistol, dangit. A wrist crossbow just doesn’t feel the same.

And I didn’t realize this until I looked it up after playing twice and being disappointed in the endings, but they removed the chaos system. Two endings for a choice at the end, but that’s about it. No real consequences for going guns-blazing, or a nonlethal ghost (apart from achievements).

Maybe this world is meant to be, at this point, the worst outcome anyway? But removing these choices felt like taking the spine out of the series. No meaningful choices that change the story later on.

As an actual DLC, I probably would’ve brushed it off. But a full game? Come on.

My real bone to pick though? The protagonist’s writing. Especially in the first few levels, she makes fun of story beats (“a secret knock? Really?”). It sounds like a young YouTuber afraid to commit to their own bits: “Yeah that was cringe, am I right?” (hey, yeah I know I do that too, that’s why I recognize it) Self-deprecation to protect yourself, which felt off-kilter compared to the rest of the series.

And if you do the optimistic ending, her mercy comes out of nowhere, because none of her dialogue changes to lead her there. I loved how the previous games changed dialogue based on how you killed bosses, so they emotionally headed towards the arc you play for.

I honestly quit the first time I played this over a year ago because of this writing, but managed to finish over a year later. It felt that bad for me.

One of the hardest aspects of sequels is commitment to the “pillars” of your games.

You need to experiment and expand so audiences don’t get bored (especially your players with the highest playtimes — the same mechanics get old quick). But you also need to stay true to your series so you don’t alienate your audience too much.

Dishonored’s core, if I had to answer:

Dishonored 2 raised its foot off the gas of the moral choices, but not all the way. It was still impactful. Death of an Outsider, in my opinion, distanced itself from it quite drastically.

The nice thing with having one of your pillars in an art style is that, studio artists can always lean into an art style further. They can make a world feel grittier with the animations and blood splatters and sound mixing.

But gameplay design? It’s not just one mechanic or style. It’s a bunch of decisions that integrate, conflict, clash, play off each other. And it can drastically affect budget + production time too.

Having moral choices from the first levels affect the last ones? That’s a lot of playtesting to invest in. Not to mention level design and finding all the ways to “break” it so you know how to keep it structurally sound.

No game-defining choices except for the ending? Far easier to manage.

Pillars is a common game development term. But this can be applied to other forms of art too. Something I’ve been working on this year is finding “pillars” in my art and content. What makes my work, me? If someone recommended my work over another’s, even if it’s quite similar, how would they justify it?

Something to keep in mind. Your pillars will change and fluctuate; we are human. But it is what people come back to. Keep that in mind.

Thanks for the read.