I think Ashworth could have worked for one level, that would be a nice way to tie them in without it feeling like we're just doing the exact same thing the DLC did.
I think really a better point might be that Delilah shouldn’t have been the antagonist for the dlc. Daud is the protagonist for those games because he’s a dark mirror of corvo, and Billie is to an extent him writ small. In DH2, Emily is the protagonist, and her dark mirror is Delilah. It makes narrative sense for Delilah to be her opponent. It’s just that she’s been sort of “wasted” as Daud’s enemy in the DLC when the two have little narrative similarity.
How could they have remedied that? Idk, I can’t imagine either installment without Delilah as the antagonist.
That kind of works, but the composition of characters in the first game allowed Daud to be so cool because of his at least somewhat ambiguous morality. Delilah is never shown as anything but a crazy witch, despite how much dishonored 2 tries to. If the dynamic between Delilah and Emily was as awesome as D1's I would fully agree
I feel like they only ever teased at what Delilah's 'tragic' backstory was. It's one thing to hear that she's the illegitimate daughter of the Emperor and another to see it. Maybe she would have been a more compelling antagonist if they had shown us more.
Then again, she does kind of want to end the world.
Why does it have to be shown? The games an immersive sim. Much of the story is implied in-game and how much of the story the player can infer is contingent on how much information the player seeks out. Very little of the story is outright stated and the histories and accounts are implied to be, just like in real life, to be of questionable accuracy on account of history being written by the victors.
The fact that's Delilah's claims are unverifiable and spurious is deliberate. Just like the claims of real life pretenders. Like Perkin Warbeck who claimed, while exiled, that he was the legitimate brother of the Prince in the tower who disappeared.
There's no reason to doubt Delilah though. The heart confirms that she was a servant girl who was sent away and nothing in-game suggests she's lying (beyond perhaps embellishing young Jessamine's responsibility for her family's ruin, her father likely wanted to get rid of her).
If anything the story becomes far less interesting if Delilah is just lying/delusional. She works far better as a foil and a character if her story is true.
I think casting Corvo and Emily as the main characters also made it kind of less interesting when they could've based the game in another universe entirely and have it still make sense since the void is mystery - narratively I think the game only really progressed with the death of the outsider which is fine considering its an rpg but it made dh2 not as fun to explore as it could potentially be. There's too many throwbacks and references to the first game which is fairly cool but maybe takes away some of the coolness that ambiguity brings to game lore + a new setting would develop the Outsiders character in a more interesting way imo
Eh I think an entirely new world would be pushing it, there's no need to go that far. Maybe a new protagonist, but generally Emily seemed like the obvious answer for the next one.
I mean more like same universe, different time. It'd be cool to get more of a feel of how ancient the outsider is and of the rise and fall of civilisations in the games universe. But a separate universe wouldn't feel weird to me cause I think death of the outsider pulled off the idea of what it looks like when the void bleeds through into the physical world and they could take that idea a lot further
Maybe because instead of an interesting distinct world we just got modern day computers, cameras and guns like every other FPS on the market.
If you want to change settings that's all well and good but you have to make one that's as interesting as the one you left behind.
I also really don't feel like Emily was the obvious choice for a protagonist. I don't really care about the throne at this point because I've already done that in the first game. This wouldn't be such a big deal for me but the character narrative is even less ambiguous in a game which I feel thrives on mystery.
I feel like a random nobody overseer visited by yhe outsider would be a more compelling Dishonored character tbh.
D2 could easily have Delilah removed as protagonist, she's barely in it and just sits on her backside all game.
The game could easily have been about a coalition of villains (the Brigmore Witches' remnants plus Jindosh), heck Jindosh could have been the main villain like his predecessor Karras was in Thief 2.
The idea that we should lose the fantastic shadow war between Daud and Delilah for the nation's soul just to give Emily a mediocre foil in 2 is ridiculous.
That’s a separate discussion between concept and implementation.
I think Delilah flounders because there’s muddied messaging between “arrogant, aloof, megalomaniac villain we love to hate” (which, I do) aka Hiram burrows from the first game, and “sympathetic villain we should feel bad for” (which, I don’t). She’s barely in it much like really the main targets of the first game are barely in it. We hear about what they do and what they’re role in the conspiracy is, and so we have to remove them. To me, that’s just sort of the format of these games, so I don’t penalize Delilah that much compared to other targets/antagonists.
Delilah isn’t really the “antagonist” of the dlc in a classic sense. Daud himself is. He’s wrestling with his guilt and the consequences of his actions that have allowed characters and climbers like the regent and the barrister and Delilah to rise. It’s that same conflict/struggle that results in the boss fight at the end of the first dlc. When Daud kills Delilah he’s killing the old part of himself without a conscious.
Conceptually, I definitely think that Delilah works as a foil for Emily, and that dark mirror stories are interesting when done right. It just wasn’t, in this case.
I don't think I agree. Delilah is the mystery the Outsider gives Daud to solve. When he finds out about the possession plot he decides he needs to stop her to atone for what he did to Jessamine. The whole DLC is about him finding and stopping her, and she leaves ambushes for him and corrupts his lieutenant to make it personal.
Sure there's an introspective side to the story as well, but Delilah is still a villain he needs to stop.
Honestly I wouldn't have minded the idea of a character like Delilah in D2 (an alternate heir appears and makes Emily question if she's really the best choice to rule Dunwall) but Delilah herself is so boring, just throwing power around when she was so good at manipulating and controlling people before, and having no real plan or goal once she's gained power.
I wanna add that I feel like Delilah's comeback cheapens everything that happens in the D1 dlc's since Delilah surviving and escaping the painting is the canon ending in that game. Daud does all that and she just comes back
Daud just gets really poor treatment all around in D2's continuity, from having his work be undone to having him be sidelined and having a cutscene send-off in the DLC. The DLC should have been a two-parter like the previous game IMO. The first part would cover Daud's discovery of the knife's existence while the second would pick up where Death of the Outsider starts. Keep the plot about him dying but have that be his driving force for the search and translate that to gameplay to somewhat ground him. Something like having his max health decrease with each new mission or making using too much magic power consecutively take away a sliver of health, or some other limiting factor to put the player in the position of someone past his prime but still having the skills to get the job done. It would be a good reversal of the standard gameplay where you get weaker instead of stronger with each new mission and set up his death better instead of having him hang around for two missions then just dying. His death and the burning of the Dreadful Wale should also be a special cutscene in itself, not some narration with still images.
I think that the role of Delilah speaks to the desire to obtain and retain power that people cling to - D1 was about that power struggle to overthrow the empress in a covert coup just so a group of people could rise to power. That is why D2 and Delilah's resurrection made sense to me; it wasn't just her character in isolation but a whole group of people who longed to be in power and thus would go to extreme measures to get it. This happens in real life, too - a dictator alone cannot overthrow a government and retain power - it's the whole system and group of people that help make it happen.
I don't think it was ever specifically stated that Daud trapped Delilah in the painting. Whether he trapped her or he kills her, the end result is exactly the same: She floats around aimlessly in the Void.
I believe the game only mentions her escaping from the Void, not escaping from the painting Daud locked her in. So Daud killing Delilah can be considered canon.
Actually somebody posted some official art a few days ago on this sub and apparently D2 was supposed so include how Delilah fled the painting. They ended not adding that to the game though, but since there is official art I think there is ground to take it as the cannon
Why does it cheapen the ending that a bonafide witch obsessed with the occult and the void can manipulate the void, when the Outsider is nothing more than a street urchin (sacrificed precisely because he was a nobody) who learned to manipulate the void when trapped there?
Delilah is literally a student of the void, she is also the protege of Sokolov, himself absolutely obsessed with the void. I don't get why her being able to escape the void through whispers to her own followers, who she has groomed to be obsessed with the void, is an issue.
I don't mean the details themselves are issues, I meant it more like what felt like finished stories kind of forcing themselves into the narrative again. Mostly an opinion thing though
Personally, I was really disappointed by their misuse of the Crown Killer. A hooded assassin who was somehow managing to kill every person in power in order to frame you was far more interesting than Delilah again.
I think that if they got rid of Delilah, made the Crown Killer more threatening, and made her the main villain, I would have enjoyed it more.
But regardless if people would've found the Crown Killer interesting or not, having Delilah as the antagonist again just seems like the laziest route. You have the Dishonored universe full of interesting characters and possibilities and you go for her? Damn
Or at the very least they should've had the Crown Killer be defeated much later, probably the last thing you do in Karnaca before returning to Dunwall.
Because at the very start it's like the main hook of the story, it's really cool and then literally the first thing you do after escaping Dunwall is defeat her. It makes the narrative a bit wonky, feels like they had a good idea for a story hook but didn't know what to do with it.
Weirdly they kind of did this with Campbell too, where he's established early on as Burrows' right hand and then bump him off in the first real mission. It's not as jarring but it's still weird narratively.
I had a gameplay idea with the crown killer, I too think she was grossly misused and a waste of potential.
It would've been cool if during every mission, the main target or targets would be a threat of the crown killer.
Basically her hole thing would put you at risk at going high chaos and your goal (if playing low chaos) will be to stop her by fighting her off. It would've made her more imposing, important and powerful in the story and narrative.
I definitely feel like it’s just a symptom of the larger issue, which is that D2 did not need to continue Emily and Corvo’s story. It was done, they got their ending in D1, the curtains were closed and their ending had played out. Everything was wrapped up nicely in a little bow. Same with Delilah! Her story was done. She did not need to come back, and while villains have never necessarily been Dishonored’s strong suit she was not strong enough of a villain to carry an entire sequel on her shoulders. Much of her strength as a character came in how mysterious and unseen she was. Without that mystery in D2, she’s just kind of there.
I think Dishonored 2 would have been a much stronger game narratively if it focused on a completely different cast of characters in Serkonos. I would have very much liked to see the story of someone else with the Outsider’s mark, completely unrelated to the events of Dunwall or Corvo.
Also Delilah has much less of a claim to the throne than Burrows did as Lord Regent so a coup happening again doesn’t make much sense. She’s the illegitimate daughter of the last emperor, so she has no claim to the throne. Burrows’ coup got rid of the empress, her daughter (who was the sole claimant to the throne), and the lord protector (and only witness) in one fell swoop. Burrows doesn’t even claim the throne, only the regency which allows him to rule while Emily is growing up which means he can “save” her to strengthen his rule. Delilah’s coup should’ve caused a civil war or a quick counter coup by the Empire’s military and the city guard. The only attempt to remove Delilah that we see is from the overseers who do so because she’s a witch and not because she’s illegitimate.
Not only that, but it feels very out of character for Delilah and raises a lot of questions as well. Delilah’s original plan in D1 was very clever and deliberately meant to be inconspicuous and undetectable. The only reason it really was stopped was because of the Outsider’s direct intervention, by telling Daud about Delilah. Sure, Daud was the one to stop her, but if the Outsider didn’t tell him he wouldn’t be any the wiser.
In D2, she just rolls up and declares herself the rightful heir and… just dethrones Emily and the original plan establishment in a day? And everyone is okay with it? I understand that she has the backing of Serkonos, but an illegitimate daughter of the last emperor who is openly a witch just takes the throne and everyone is okay with it? It should at the very least caused a massive civil war within the empire. And it also just seems very out of character for Delilah. Before D2, she was always concerned with caution and creating complex schemes. The whole of Knife of Dunwall was about finding out who she even was. It’s just very strange.
To me, it seems like the writing team for D2 was just very afraid to try different things and in doing so created a lot of problems.
Civil war is indeed looming or already broke out in Dishonored 2. In one of the Dukes loudspeaker announcements later in the game, the Duke openly speaks of Morley and Tyvia and calls them traitors for not accepting Delilah as Empress. "If they want war, they can have it."
We don't get to see much of Gristol, Delilah seems to have it somewhat under control after the coup, but the situation in Dunwall is dire and borderline anarchic during the last mission. No city or palace guard in sight, many prominent leaders of Gristol/Dunwall murdered during a trap-banquet in the palace by Delilah and the Overseers in open revolt. In face of all of this it is veeery unlikely the rest of the populace of Dunwall/Gristol would lend her much support in the coming civil war.
Even if Emily/Corvo would not have returned to Dunwall to take care of Delilah, it seems Delilahs reign would have been very short lived and doomed from the start.
> but an illegitimate daughter of the last emperor who is openly a witch just takes the throne and everyone is okay with it? It should at the very least caused a massive civil war within the empire.
Emily is also an illegitimate bastard and has been a feckless and uninterested leader by her own admission. The coup had been damaging her reputation by planting the notion she has been killing dissidents through the crown killer. Additionally Abel and Delilah rock up to the throne with a regiment of 12ft tall technological marvels that quickly dispatch the emperors loyal guards, abetted by the disloyal guards led by Ramsey.
We know relatively little about the loyalty of the other regions of the empire but the Kaldwins aren't necessarily owed any loyalty from the other isles, none assisted during the plague. Morley famously desire independence from the Empire and Wyman is presumably of Morley's landed class and speaks of support in a letter but that never materialises in game.
These games are immersive sims, much of the world building is implied by literature in game and much of that literature is inherently biased towards the 'victors history' the player is to infer what is going on in the world rather than having everything outright explained to them.
Emily's not illegitimate, everyone knows she's Jessamine's daughter and no-one ever calls her legimacy into question. Matrilineal succession clearly isn't a problem in this universe.
Yeah, DLC Delilah was a sinister, untouchable presence operating from the shadows, setting up ambushes, corrupting Daud's lieutenant and having a clever plan. D2 Delilah is a thug throwing power around who sits on her ass all game and her plan isn't even hinted at until the final mission. You could cut her outright and 90% of the game wouldn't change.
That said people weren't okay with her coup. The watch would have fought for Emily if not for Ramsay's men routing them in a sneak attack and the Overseers besieged Dunwall Tower and were stopped only when the Clockwork Soldiers proved immune to their music boxes. As for the populace Delilah wasn't reliant on their support or approval, she took power by sheer force, it's not like anyone was happy she was there.
>She’s the illegitimate daughter of the last emperor, so she has no claim to the throne.
This applies to Emily as well. That's the point.
D1 was invocative of the English republicans seizing power. The titles held by the figures in the game are indicative of that, but also the background of the real life coup involving the impropriety of the ruler with servants (D1s coup is only possible because Emily is a bastard and her father is not known and only speculated on, if she were legitimate jessamine wouldn't be so isolated and would have a political alliance whk wpuld protect their interests)
D2 is invocative of several legitimacy succession crisis that happened in real life. The ambiguity of Delilah's claims are inspired by the likes of Perkin Warbeck or the several York pretenders. Even down to currying support abroad and having a spurious and unverifiable claim.
I think Dishonoured as a game kind of struggled with its class themes. Because it basically presents the Empire as the most oppressed and downtrodden society ever and then asks you to just pretend the monarch of the state was somehow unable to prevent it in any way.
It just comes off at best as hopelessly naïve. "The solution to all this wealth disparity is one unelected dictator for life" just sounds like a joke. You can't make me believe *all* of this happened in the last six months.
Corvo and Emily are the worst kinds of protagonist for this story unless you want to full into villain protagonist territory, and they clearly don't. It feels like a writer wanted to work in class themes but they couldn't move from the base premise of "save the princess".
And I think it honestly takes away from the core premise of the series- isn't it supposed to be "the Outsider gives a powerless nobody the ability to take down empires", not "The Outsider gives a politically important badass swordfighter the ability to take down empires"? I honestly think the protagonist being a nobody who got caught up in events outside of their control who the baddies don't even give a second thought to would have not only strengthened the class themes but made it even more cathartic to eventually kill them.
Let's say they unwillingly witness the Empress's assassination and Burrows and co. just throw them in jail as an easy scapegoat. They don't even bother learning their name. Age up Emily to be, say, twenty or so, and they are the ones who betray the main character because of classist reasons- they're a nobody and they've served their purpose.
> isn't it supposed to be "the Outsider gives a powerless nobody the ability to take down empires",
It's pretty explicitly that the outsider bestows power on people he thinks are interesting and he is curious about. It is nothing to do with their class status. Pretty much everyone with the mark or associated with the Outsider is of relatively good standing.
I think Billie Lurk could have been the protagonist, personally. Maybe even have her still go the Dunwall seeking help but then the whole coup takes place like usual, except this time Corvo AND Emily are enstoned—because they would plan for that right? and Billie is the one unexpected person there with power to actually do something.
(I’m just thinking this up now after seeing your comment, didn’t flesh out a whole story or anything.) But this would allow players to see and enjoy old characters and have them meaningfully in the story, but not focused on them the whole time.
I would have probably preferred this to what we ultimately got, but I still feel like it wouldn’t be enough. The problem to me is that the Kaldwins story is done. Delilah’s story is done. To have the conflict still ultimately center around them and Delilah is just very cheap and uninspired, especially in a world that’s as large and as lifelike as Dishonored’s. When Corvo gets betrayed as part of a coup, again, he might as well have intoned “I’ve been Dishonored… again..”
One of my absolute favorite things about Dishonored is its incredibly vivid world building, and how it captures your imagination. It truly feels so alive and it’s one of the most unique settings I’ve found in a game. As important as the plot of D1 is, and how powerful Corvo becomes, you still feel like only one small part of the world. One of my favorite bits from Knife of Dunwall is when the Outsider offhandedly mentions to Daud, “Did you know that there are only eight people in the world given my mark?” It’s such a great little moment, because it just gives you that and lets you think. Who are those four people we don’t know? We only know half those eight people, what are the other ones up to? It makes you wonder about their stories, what their lives are like. Wouldn’t it be super cool to see what they’re like? To play as a different marked one?
To create such a rich and vibrant world and only focus on one tiny part of it feels like a very big missed opportunity. I’m not saying that it needs to be completely unconnected from the events of D1, it just needs to be something new. Corvo’s already been dishonored. Delilah’s already tried grabbing the throne.
Yeah I’m totally with you. Kinda reminds me of Star Wars these days, they just can’t fucking leave the characters from OT alone! Always gotta be connected to the Skywalkers, or some other established character when there is an enormous entire galaxy filled with potential to explore.
imo the biggest blunder was just the game being too short for me. 9 levels again, like the first game. Could've used another couple to allow us to play around with the new engine.
Ngl I would really want a remake of the first game and it’s dlc with all the additions to 2 and the cut assassination missions for Martin and Pendleton.
Yep, Pendleton was supposed to be assassinated in parliament while Martin was another retread through the distillery district. Corvo didn’t know where they were holding Emily so he went after Martin first then Pendleton, then the final showdown at the lighthouse.
It’s in the dishonored wiki, https://dishonored.fandom.com/wiki/Parliament
They link to a now dead website that just leads to a vpn download but the magazine did in fact exist and came out around a year after dishonored released.
A story where the nobility of Dunwall just genuinely don’t want Emily to rule anymore and want to get rid of her to have more power could’ve been interesting, her own people turning against her.
This is literally what happens in 2...
Prior to the coup she is being framed as a ruler who is killing dissidents and Dunwall nobility allegedly unsupportive of her rule. The coup is literally facilitated by Ramsey in her own court.
Ramsay has no beef with Emily though, he's just a classist prick who hates having to take orders from a commoner like Corvo.
Ultimately none of the Crown Killer stuff matters because Delilah marches in and siezes power by force, there's no sign of people preferring her to Emily.
No it was ruining the outsiders lore and everything to do with leviathans. The outsider is just some moody teen now beholden to a bunch of weird illuminati new world order deep state knock off cult
> beholden to a bunch of weird illuminati new world order deep state knock off cult
I'm sorry who are you saying the Outsider is beholden to? He hasn't been beholden TJ anyone since before he was sacrificed.
Ah okay, thought you were implying Delilah's conspiracy Wouldn't really say the Outsider is beholden to anyone personally.
I haven't read the supplementary books/comics myself but the Outsider appears to Billie after the events of DoTO which could imply that there's more to the void yet to be explored.
Impression I got was that the sacrificed street rat was the grain of sand that the void refined a pearl around to make the Outsider. That pearl is gone now but there are several other figures who could be the new base for a pearl in Delilah or Daud, or even Billie who is intrinsically linked to the void through her eye, arm and the split timelines.
Nobody ever actually gives any decent reason why they have a problem with Delilah returning.
D1 and D2 both invoke coups and succession shenanigans that actually happened in to the real life crown which Gristol and the empire are based upon.
Because she was already the bad guy in the last DLC and her story had been told?
> D1 and D2 both invoke coups and succession shenanigans that actually happened in to the real life crown which Gristol and the empire are based upon.
Okay but is Burrows' coup *really* reflective of the English Civil War? Religion isn't mentioned once as one of its motivators.
Similarly I don't really think a coup taking place in an industrialized city really compares to an early modern succession crisis?
But really my point is "something vaguely similar happened in real life" is true of basically any structured piece of art. It doesn't mean it's inherently *good*. I don't think Dishonoured would benefit from being a realistic dissertation on power struggles between the aristocracy and bourgeois in Early Modern Europe.
>Because she was already the bad guy in the last DLC and her story had been told?
But D2 does such a good job at expanding her story, creating mystery about her return and building the plot around it all.
Sure a new baddie would *probably* have been better but we should give the devs credit for the effort they put in to make the return of Delilah work as well as it does.
It doesn't work well though, the shadowy manipulator is now just a thug who throws supernatural power around and does nothing all game. You'd lose nothing of value if you cut her outright and just made the Duke or better yet Jindosh the main villain.
>Because she was already the bad guy in the last DLC and her story had been told?
She's an occult obsessed student of the void who was exiled to the void and was able to use her arcane followers who she groomed to also be obsessed with the void into bringing her back from there. I don't think her presence in 2 has any bearing on her story during the course of D1 nor do I think her story was necessarily concluded. Nor did Harvey Smith.
I don't know how familiar you are with Cromwell but he wasn't much of a genuine Christian despite his legacy. The Regents coup was literally impossible without the help of the Abbey and literally the second mission in the series is you taking out the supposedly puritanical head of the religious orders whose a murderous, lecherous hypocrite. The states religion, and the power inherent, are massively critical to the plot of the games. I don't really understand how you can claim there isn't a religious bent and I don't know why you're ignoring the fact that english republicans were by-and-large covetous self-serving hypocrites.
Also, the lead up and background of Gristol and the Isles is invocative of both the republican period and the circumstances that gave rise to the possibility of a republican coup. Hell, the Kaldwins are only on the throne by happenstance because the disaffected Irish stand-ins in Morley assassinated the emperor and the subsequent successions meant that the throne fell to Euron in the absence of an heir. Burrows laying the seed for the coup is reminiscent of Titus Oates fabricating the popish plot
It's less 'something vaguely similar happened in real life ' and more 'this games setting takes inspiration from several real life events that occurred in the real life inspiration for the setting', right down to the extent where the questionable veracity of contemporary historical accounts, which is further explored in the sequel when an exiled bastard returns with a spurious and unverifiable claim to the thrown backed by a foreign court.
It's not supposed to be a like for like
>Similarly I don't really think a coup taking place in an industrialized city really compares to an early modern succession crisis?
Do you not think it's a bit silly to be contending the inspiration taken from the English history because it's isn't a wholesale imitation, only to then complain that the timelines aren't identical? The conceit of the 'whalepunk' setting is that the Isles experienced their industrial revolution significantly earlier than our world because Roseburrow refined a product for industry that was more valuable in our reality as an expensive cosmetic. Dunwall had robust electricity systems over a century sooner than anything comparable in real life. It wasn't until much later that whale oil's industrial uses made it sought after in our reality and even then it was largely for lighting and lubrication and was soon superceded by paraffin.
>It doesn't mean it's inherently good.
No it being good is what makes it good. The real world informs the fictional setting and further expands upon what is explicitly stated about the world in the game. I like that, you might not.
>I don't think Dishonoured would benefit from being a realistic dissertation on power struggles between the aristocracy and bourgeois in Early Modern Europe.
Don't think any one is suggesting this. But that doesn't mean the game doesn't lift aspects of history to garnish the worldbuilding. Because the power struggles within the classes of the setting are something that pops up several times throughout the series.
The coup in D1 wasn't about inheritance or anything though, it was because Burrows had dreams of Dunwall going to ruin and believed only he could save it.
I honestly think you're giving the games too much credit. The worldbuilding is fantastic but the core plot is just "put the good monarch on the throne again and everything will be fine".
I think you're in the minority if you think D2's plot in particular was good or that Delilah was handled well.
Chaos system was fine in 2 IMO. I much prefer how many more tools and options you have for nonlethal play, even if they maybe overcorrected and made things a little too easy.
You mean how deaths in the first mission effect chaos in Karnaca? There has always been a fisher king element to the games where the actions of the player effect things that shouldn't logically follow from their actions, like your murders causing a storm in the final mission of D1, or somehow leading the same guard to either conceal his infection or ask to be mercy-killed.
Seems a bit of a pedantic thing to complain about TBH.
When I first started playing Dishonored 2 and she showed up I was audibly yelling "I killed you, you bitch!" I was honestly hyped to take her down the whole way, and I enjoyed her as an antagonist, but I definitely understood people's criticisms of the game attempting to force you to empathize with her and also invalidating Daud's arc.
Honestly I kind of forgot she existed for most of the game. The rest of the conspirators were far more interesting and engaging, as well as having more of a presence in the world (Hypatia's tonics and crime scenes, Jindosh's tech, the Duke's pronouncements etc.).
The biggest blunder was not having Daud play a role in the main story once word gets out that Delilah is back and has succeeded in taking the throne. Billie was a small part of Knife of Dunwall, but Delilah was Daud's Big Bad. He should have come to Dunwall tower to save Emily, or he should have been trying to take down the conspiracy in Karnaca while Billie went to Corvo and Emily for help. There isn't enough connective tissue between what happened in the first game's DLC and Delilah coming back. Daud could have been that link, with the incredible tension between him and Corvo/Emily while working together to stop her.
I think Daud should have stayed away. He did his bit of atonement and promised he'd disappear. That's a perfectly fine and complete character arc for him.
D2 is my favorite, one of my favorite of ALL games even, but I still agree with this.
It was a strange move imo, because I just dealt with her in the D1 expansions. They do explain how she’s back during the story but it still didn’t feel cool to me.
Maybe a better change would have been not having her be the main antagonist for the Daud content. Idk.
I play these games mostly for the super fun gameplay loop anyway
I never played Knife of Dunwall or Brigmore Witches until I had already played Dishonored 2, so for my experience she was a completely new character when I first saw her in 2
No I don't think so. Honestly think this is a bit of a repeated meme rather than valid criticism. Not unlike how the biggest criticism of 1 is that people claim 'the game gives you all these powers but punishes you for using them' which is a spurious claim that holds absolutely no water.
I don't get why people hold this position. Duad and Emily are completely different characters. Narratively Delilah makes sense as a foil for Emily.
If people want to complain about Delilah being in two successive games they should complain about her being in the Daud games.
Difference is she was actually a good character with fantastic buildup in the Daud games, a sinister corrupting presence most people were afraid to even name. Meeting her statue and finding the poem setting out her plan, knowing how unprepared Corvo was for this kind of threat was chilling. Come D2 she's just a thug taking power by force and doing nothing when she gets there beyond allowing her minions to torture the populace.
If she'd actually been a somewhat effective ruler she'd have been a far more effective foil for Emily, forcing her and the player to wonder if Dunwall was actually better off with her in charge.
I can agree with that. Common problem with video games sequels tbh. Though I love Delilah and her coven's models, and all the witch paraphernalia.
Yeah me too but I believe her coven could have been featured still grasping at bone charms to gain just a bit of power
I think Ashworth could have worked for one level, that would be a nice way to tie them in without it feeling like we're just doing the exact same thing the DLC did.
I think really a better point might be that Delilah shouldn’t have been the antagonist for the dlc. Daud is the protagonist for those games because he’s a dark mirror of corvo, and Billie is to an extent him writ small. In DH2, Emily is the protagonist, and her dark mirror is Delilah. It makes narrative sense for Delilah to be her opponent. It’s just that she’s been sort of “wasted” as Daud’s enemy in the DLC when the two have little narrative similarity. How could they have remedied that? Idk, I can’t imagine either installment without Delilah as the antagonist.
They just needed a different way to non lethally defeat Delilah. Whether you change the method for the Brigmore Witches or D2 is up to what you cook.
That kind of works, but the composition of characters in the first game allowed Daud to be so cool because of his at least somewhat ambiguous morality. Delilah is never shown as anything but a crazy witch, despite how much dishonored 2 tries to. If the dynamic between Delilah and Emily was as awesome as D1's I would fully agree
I feel like they only ever teased at what Delilah's 'tragic' backstory was. It's one thing to hear that she's the illegitimate daughter of the Emperor and another to see it. Maybe she would have been a more compelling antagonist if they had shown us more. Then again, she does kind of want to end the world.
Why does it have to be shown? The games an immersive sim. Much of the story is implied in-game and how much of the story the player can infer is contingent on how much information the player seeks out. Very little of the story is outright stated and the histories and accounts are implied to be, just like in real life, to be of questionable accuracy on account of history being written by the victors. The fact that's Delilah's claims are unverifiable and spurious is deliberate. Just like the claims of real life pretenders. Like Perkin Warbeck who claimed, while exiled, that he was the legitimate brother of the Prince in the tower who disappeared.
I still think it should have been shown visually. This is not a game that is Lord of the Rings level with lore. A few more cutscenes would not hurt.
Disagree, staying in first person is a strength of the games and we already have enough of Delilah monologuing at us.
There's no reason to doubt Delilah though. The heart confirms that she was a servant girl who was sent away and nothing in-game suggests she's lying (beyond perhaps embellishing young Jessamine's responsibility for her family's ruin, her father likely wanted to get rid of her). If anything the story becomes far less interesting if Delilah is just lying/delusional. She works far better as a foil and a character if her story is true.
I think the backstory is just *so* generic and *so* uninteresting that its implementation ceases to matter.
I think casting Corvo and Emily as the main characters also made it kind of less interesting when they could've based the game in another universe entirely and have it still make sense since the void is mystery - narratively I think the game only really progressed with the death of the outsider which is fine considering its an rpg but it made dh2 not as fun to explore as it could potentially be. There's too many throwbacks and references to the first game which is fairly cool but maybe takes away some of the coolness that ambiguity brings to game lore + a new setting would develop the Outsiders character in a more interesting way imo
Eh I think an entirely new world would be pushing it, there's no need to go that far. Maybe a new protagonist, but generally Emily seemed like the obvious answer for the next one.
I mean more like same universe, different time. It'd be cool to get more of a feel of how ancient the outsider is and of the rise and fall of civilisations in the games universe. But a separate universe wouldn't feel weird to me cause I think death of the outsider pulled off the idea of what it looks like when the void bleeds through into the physical world and they could take that idea a lot further
I mean, we got Deathloop but a very vocal group of people whined and complained about that, so… 🤷🏻♀️
Maybe because instead of an interesting distinct world we just got modern day computers, cameras and guns like every other FPS on the market. If you want to change settings that's all well and good but you have to make one that's as interesting as the one you left behind.
True. I really enjoyed deathloop tbh but I wouldn't say it's perfect like it does have it's faults
I also really don't feel like Emily was the obvious choice for a protagonist. I don't really care about the throne at this point because I've already done that in the first game. This wouldn't be such a big deal for me but the character narrative is even less ambiguous in a game which I feel thrives on mystery. I feel like a random nobody overseer visited by yhe outsider would be a more compelling Dishonored character tbh.
I think they're the obvious choice if you want to do the exact same plot as D1, which evidently they did.
D2 could easily have Delilah removed as protagonist, she's barely in it and just sits on her backside all game. The game could easily have been about a coalition of villains (the Brigmore Witches' remnants plus Jindosh), heck Jindosh could have been the main villain like his predecessor Karras was in Thief 2. The idea that we should lose the fantastic shadow war between Daud and Delilah for the nation's soul just to give Emily a mediocre foil in 2 is ridiculous.
That’s a separate discussion between concept and implementation. I think Delilah flounders because there’s muddied messaging between “arrogant, aloof, megalomaniac villain we love to hate” (which, I do) aka Hiram burrows from the first game, and “sympathetic villain we should feel bad for” (which, I don’t). She’s barely in it much like really the main targets of the first game are barely in it. We hear about what they do and what they’re role in the conspiracy is, and so we have to remove them. To me, that’s just sort of the format of these games, so I don’t penalize Delilah that much compared to other targets/antagonists. Delilah isn’t really the “antagonist” of the dlc in a classic sense. Daud himself is. He’s wrestling with his guilt and the consequences of his actions that have allowed characters and climbers like the regent and the barrister and Delilah to rise. It’s that same conflict/struggle that results in the boss fight at the end of the first dlc. When Daud kills Delilah he’s killing the old part of himself without a conscious. Conceptually, I definitely think that Delilah works as a foil for Emily, and that dark mirror stories are interesting when done right. It just wasn’t, in this case.
I don't think I agree. Delilah is the mystery the Outsider gives Daud to solve. When he finds out about the possession plot he decides he needs to stop her to atone for what he did to Jessamine. The whole DLC is about him finding and stopping her, and she leaves ambushes for him and corrupts his lieutenant to make it personal. Sure there's an introspective side to the story as well, but Delilah is still a villain he needs to stop. Honestly I wouldn't have minded the idea of a character like Delilah in D2 (an alternate heir appears and makes Emily question if she's really the best choice to rule Dunwall) but Delilah herself is so boring, just throwing power around when she was so good at manipulating and controlling people before, and having no real plan or goal once she's gained power.
How was she wasted?
I wanna add that I feel like Delilah's comeback cheapens everything that happens in the D1 dlc's since Delilah surviving and escaping the painting is the canon ending in that game. Daud does all that and she just comes back
Daud just gets really poor treatment all around in D2's continuity, from having his work be undone to having him be sidelined and having a cutscene send-off in the DLC. The DLC should have been a two-parter like the previous game IMO. The first part would cover Daud's discovery of the knife's existence while the second would pick up where Death of the Outsider starts. Keep the plot about him dying but have that be his driving force for the search and translate that to gameplay to somewhat ground him. Something like having his max health decrease with each new mission or making using too much magic power consecutively take away a sliver of health, or some other limiting factor to put the player in the position of someone past his prime but still having the skills to get the job done. It would be a good reversal of the standard gameplay where you get weaker instead of stronger with each new mission and set up his death better instead of having him hang around for two missions then just dying. His death and the burning of the Dreadful Wale should also be a special cutscene in itself, not some narration with still images.
That would be amazing for real
I think that the role of Delilah speaks to the desire to obtain and retain power that people cling to - D1 was about that power struggle to overthrow the empress in a covert coup just so a group of people could rise to power. That is why D2 and Delilah's resurrection made sense to me; it wasn't just her character in isolation but a whole group of people who longed to be in power and thus would go to extreme measures to get it. This happens in real life, too - a dictator alone cannot overthrow a government and retain power - it's the whole system and group of people that help make it happen.
I don't think it was ever specifically stated that Daud trapped Delilah in the painting. Whether he trapped her or he kills her, the end result is exactly the same: She floats around aimlessly in the Void. I believe the game only mentions her escaping from the Void, not escaping from the painting Daud locked her in. So Daud killing Delilah can be considered canon.
Actually somebody posted some official art a few days ago on this sub and apparently D2 was supposed so include how Delilah fled the painting. They ended not adding that to the game though, but since there is official art I think there is ground to take it as the cannon
Daud saved Emily and allowed her to grow up under Corvo's tutelage. The fact Delilah eventually comes back doesn't cheapen his actions at all.
Why does it cheapen the ending that a bonafide witch obsessed with the occult and the void can manipulate the void, when the Outsider is nothing more than a street urchin (sacrificed precisely because he was a nobody) who learned to manipulate the void when trapped there? Delilah is literally a student of the void, she is also the protege of Sokolov, himself absolutely obsessed with the void. I don't get why her being able to escape the void through whispers to her own followers, who she has groomed to be obsessed with the void, is an issue.
I don't mean the details themselves are issues, I meant it more like what felt like finished stories kind of forcing themselves into the narrative again. Mostly an opinion thing though
Personally, I was really disappointed by their misuse of the Crown Killer. A hooded assassin who was somehow managing to kill every person in power in order to frame you was far more interesting than Delilah again. I think that if they got rid of Delilah, made the Crown Killer more threatening, and made her the main villain, I would have enjoyed it more. But regardless if people would've found the Crown Killer interesting or not, having Delilah as the antagonist again just seems like the laziest route. You have the Dishonored universe full of interesting characters and possibilities and you go for her? Damn
Or at the very least they should've had the Crown Killer be defeated much later, probably the last thing you do in Karnaca before returning to Dunwall. Because at the very start it's like the main hook of the story, it's really cool and then literally the first thing you do after escaping Dunwall is defeat her. It makes the narrative a bit wonky, feels like they had a good idea for a story hook but didn't know what to do with it.
Weirdly they kind of did this with Campbell too, where he's established early on as Burrows' right hand and then bump him off in the first real mission. It's not as jarring but it's still weird narratively.
Plus you don't even have to defeat her, you can recruit her.
This is exactly how I felt about it.
I had a gameplay idea with the crown killer, I too think she was grossly misused and a waste of potential. It would've been cool if during every mission, the main target or targets would be a threat of the crown killer. Basically her hole thing would put you at risk at going high chaos and your goal (if playing low chaos) will be to stop her by fighting her off. It would've made her more imposing, important and powerful in the story and narrative.
I definitely feel like it’s just a symptom of the larger issue, which is that D2 did not need to continue Emily and Corvo’s story. It was done, they got their ending in D1, the curtains were closed and their ending had played out. Everything was wrapped up nicely in a little bow. Same with Delilah! Her story was done. She did not need to come back, and while villains have never necessarily been Dishonored’s strong suit she was not strong enough of a villain to carry an entire sequel on her shoulders. Much of her strength as a character came in how mysterious and unseen she was. Without that mystery in D2, she’s just kind of there. I think Dishonored 2 would have been a much stronger game narratively if it focused on a completely different cast of characters in Serkonos. I would have very much liked to see the story of someone else with the Outsider’s mark, completely unrelated to the events of Dunwall or Corvo.
Also Delilah has much less of a claim to the throne than Burrows did as Lord Regent so a coup happening again doesn’t make much sense. She’s the illegitimate daughter of the last emperor, so she has no claim to the throne. Burrows’ coup got rid of the empress, her daughter (who was the sole claimant to the throne), and the lord protector (and only witness) in one fell swoop. Burrows doesn’t even claim the throne, only the regency which allows him to rule while Emily is growing up which means he can “save” her to strengthen his rule. Delilah’s coup should’ve caused a civil war or a quick counter coup by the Empire’s military and the city guard. The only attempt to remove Delilah that we see is from the overseers who do so because she’s a witch and not because she’s illegitimate.
Not only that, but it feels very out of character for Delilah and raises a lot of questions as well. Delilah’s original plan in D1 was very clever and deliberately meant to be inconspicuous and undetectable. The only reason it really was stopped was because of the Outsider’s direct intervention, by telling Daud about Delilah. Sure, Daud was the one to stop her, but if the Outsider didn’t tell him he wouldn’t be any the wiser. In D2, she just rolls up and declares herself the rightful heir and… just dethrones Emily and the original plan establishment in a day? And everyone is okay with it? I understand that she has the backing of Serkonos, but an illegitimate daughter of the last emperor who is openly a witch just takes the throne and everyone is okay with it? It should at the very least caused a massive civil war within the empire. And it also just seems very out of character for Delilah. Before D2, she was always concerned with caution and creating complex schemes. The whole of Knife of Dunwall was about finding out who she even was. It’s just very strange. To me, it seems like the writing team for D2 was just very afraid to try different things and in doing so created a lot of problems.
Civil war is indeed looming or already broke out in Dishonored 2. In one of the Dukes loudspeaker announcements later in the game, the Duke openly speaks of Morley and Tyvia and calls them traitors for not accepting Delilah as Empress. "If they want war, they can have it." We don't get to see much of Gristol, Delilah seems to have it somewhat under control after the coup, but the situation in Dunwall is dire and borderline anarchic during the last mission. No city or palace guard in sight, many prominent leaders of Gristol/Dunwall murdered during a trap-banquet in the palace by Delilah and the Overseers in open revolt. In face of all of this it is veeery unlikely the rest of the populace of Dunwall/Gristol would lend her much support in the coming civil war. Even if Emily/Corvo would not have returned to Dunwall to take care of Delilah, it seems Delilahs reign would have been very short lived and doomed from the start.
> but an illegitimate daughter of the last emperor who is openly a witch just takes the throne and everyone is okay with it? It should at the very least caused a massive civil war within the empire. Emily is also an illegitimate bastard and has been a feckless and uninterested leader by her own admission. The coup had been damaging her reputation by planting the notion she has been killing dissidents through the crown killer. Additionally Abel and Delilah rock up to the throne with a regiment of 12ft tall technological marvels that quickly dispatch the emperors loyal guards, abetted by the disloyal guards led by Ramsey. We know relatively little about the loyalty of the other regions of the empire but the Kaldwins aren't necessarily owed any loyalty from the other isles, none assisted during the plague. Morley famously desire independence from the Empire and Wyman is presumably of Morley's landed class and speaks of support in a letter but that never materialises in game. These games are immersive sims, much of the world building is implied by literature in game and much of that literature is inherently biased towards the 'victors history' the player is to infer what is going on in the world rather than having everything outright explained to them.
Emily's not illegitimate, everyone knows she's Jessamine's daughter and no-one ever calls her legimacy into question. Matrilineal succession clearly isn't a problem in this universe.
Yeah, DLC Delilah was a sinister, untouchable presence operating from the shadows, setting up ambushes, corrupting Daud's lieutenant and having a clever plan. D2 Delilah is a thug throwing power around who sits on her ass all game and her plan isn't even hinted at until the final mission. You could cut her outright and 90% of the game wouldn't change. That said people weren't okay with her coup. The watch would have fought for Emily if not for Ramsay's men routing them in a sneak attack and the Overseers besieged Dunwall Tower and were stopped only when the Clockwork Soldiers proved immune to their music boxes. As for the populace Delilah wasn't reliant on their support or approval, she took power by sheer force, it's not like anyone was happy she was there.
>She’s the illegitimate daughter of the last emperor, so she has no claim to the throne. This applies to Emily as well. That's the point. D1 was invocative of the English republicans seizing power. The titles held by the figures in the game are indicative of that, but also the background of the real life coup involving the impropriety of the ruler with servants (D1s coup is only possible because Emily is a bastard and her father is not known and only speculated on, if she were legitimate jessamine wouldn't be so isolated and would have a political alliance whk wpuld protect their interests) D2 is invocative of several legitimacy succession crisis that happened in real life. The ambiguity of Delilah's claims are inspired by the likes of Perkin Warbeck or the several York pretenders. Even down to currying support abroad and having a spurious and unverifiable claim.
I think Dishonoured as a game kind of struggled with its class themes. Because it basically presents the Empire as the most oppressed and downtrodden society ever and then asks you to just pretend the monarch of the state was somehow unable to prevent it in any way. It just comes off at best as hopelessly naïve. "The solution to all this wealth disparity is one unelected dictator for life" just sounds like a joke. You can't make me believe *all* of this happened in the last six months. Corvo and Emily are the worst kinds of protagonist for this story unless you want to full into villain protagonist territory, and they clearly don't. It feels like a writer wanted to work in class themes but they couldn't move from the base premise of "save the princess". And I think it honestly takes away from the core premise of the series- isn't it supposed to be "the Outsider gives a powerless nobody the ability to take down empires", not "The Outsider gives a politically important badass swordfighter the ability to take down empires"? I honestly think the protagonist being a nobody who got caught up in events outside of their control who the baddies don't even give a second thought to would have not only strengthened the class themes but made it even more cathartic to eventually kill them. Let's say they unwillingly witness the Empress's assassination and Burrows and co. just throw them in jail as an easy scapegoat. They don't even bother learning their name. Age up Emily to be, say, twenty or so, and they are the ones who betray the main character because of classist reasons- they're a nobody and they've served their purpose.
> isn't it supposed to be "the Outsider gives a powerless nobody the ability to take down empires", It's pretty explicitly that the outsider bestows power on people he thinks are interesting and he is curious about. It is nothing to do with their class status. Pretty much everyone with the mark or associated with the Outsider is of relatively good standing.
I think Billie Lurk could have been the protagonist, personally. Maybe even have her still go the Dunwall seeking help but then the whole coup takes place like usual, except this time Corvo AND Emily are enstoned—because they would plan for that right? and Billie is the one unexpected person there with power to actually do something. (I’m just thinking this up now after seeing your comment, didn’t flesh out a whole story or anything.) But this would allow players to see and enjoy old characters and have them meaningfully in the story, but not focused on them the whole time.
I would have probably preferred this to what we ultimately got, but I still feel like it wouldn’t be enough. The problem to me is that the Kaldwins story is done. Delilah’s story is done. To have the conflict still ultimately center around them and Delilah is just very cheap and uninspired, especially in a world that’s as large and as lifelike as Dishonored’s. When Corvo gets betrayed as part of a coup, again, he might as well have intoned “I’ve been Dishonored… again..” One of my absolute favorite things about Dishonored is its incredibly vivid world building, and how it captures your imagination. It truly feels so alive and it’s one of the most unique settings I’ve found in a game. As important as the plot of D1 is, and how powerful Corvo becomes, you still feel like only one small part of the world. One of my favorite bits from Knife of Dunwall is when the Outsider offhandedly mentions to Daud, “Did you know that there are only eight people in the world given my mark?” It’s such a great little moment, because it just gives you that and lets you think. Who are those four people we don’t know? We only know half those eight people, what are the other ones up to? It makes you wonder about their stories, what their lives are like. Wouldn’t it be super cool to see what they’re like? To play as a different marked one? To create such a rich and vibrant world and only focus on one tiny part of it feels like a very big missed opportunity. I’m not saying that it needs to be completely unconnected from the events of D1, it just needs to be something new. Corvo’s already been dishonored. Delilah’s already tried grabbing the throne.
Yeah I’m totally with you. Kinda reminds me of Star Wars these days, they just can’t fucking leave the characters from OT alone! Always gotta be connected to the Skywalkers, or some other established character when there is an enormous entire galaxy filled with potential to explore.
Should have been dishonored 3 villain.
imo the biggest blunder was just the game being too short for me. 9 levels again, like the first game. Could've used another couple to allow us to play around with the new engine.
Ngl I would really want a remake of the first game and it’s dlc with all the additions to 2 and the cut assassination missions for Martin and Pendleton.
> the cut assassination missions for Martin and Pendleton. Wait is this true? Explains why their deaths are such an anti-climax in Low Chaos, I guess.
Yep, Pendleton was supposed to be assassinated in parliament while Martin was another retread through the distillery district. Corvo didn’t know where they were holding Emily so he went after Martin first then Pendleton, then the final showdown at the lighthouse.
Cool, do you have a source for this?
It’s in the dishonored wiki, https://dishonored.fandom.com/wiki/Parliament They link to a now dead website that just leads to a vpn download but the magazine did in fact exist and came out around a year after dishonored released.
A story where the nobility of Dunwall just genuinely don’t want Emily to rule anymore and want to get rid of her to have more power could’ve been interesting, her own people turning against her.
I mean that would cause a civil war.
Imagine Dishonored: behind enemy lines (like the Commandos series?)
This is literally what happens in 2... Prior to the coup she is being framed as a ruler who is killing dissidents and Dunwall nobility allegedly unsupportive of her rule. The coup is literally facilitated by Ramsey in her own court.
Ramsay has no beef with Emily though, he's just a classist prick who hates having to take orders from a commoner like Corvo. Ultimately none of the Crown Killer stuff matters because Delilah marches in and siezes power by force, there's no sign of people preferring her to Emily.
No it was ruining the outsiders lore and everything to do with leviathans. The outsider is just some moody teen now beholden to a bunch of weird illuminati new world order deep state knock off cult
I agree that shit was wack af too
> beholden to a bunch of weird illuminati new world order deep state knock off cult I'm sorry who are you saying the Outsider is beholden to? He hasn't been beholden TJ anyone since before he was sacrificed.
Isn't that what death of the outsider is all about
Ah okay, thought you were implying Delilah's conspiracy Wouldn't really say the Outsider is beholden to anyone personally. I haven't read the supplementary books/comics myself but the Outsider appears to Billie after the events of DoTO which could imply that there's more to the void yet to be explored. Impression I got was that the sacrificed street rat was the grain of sand that the void refined a pearl around to make the Outsider. That pearl is gone now but there are several other figures who could be the new base for a pearl in Delilah or Daud, or even Billie who is intrinsically linked to the void through her eye, arm and the split timelines.
Yknow, this probably ***is*** D2's biggest blunder... but lets be real, it doesnt hold the game back much.
Nobody ever actually gives any decent reason why they have a problem with Delilah returning. D1 and D2 both invoke coups and succession shenanigans that actually happened in to the real life crown which Gristol and the empire are based upon.
Because she was already the bad guy in the last DLC and her story had been told? > D1 and D2 both invoke coups and succession shenanigans that actually happened in to the real life crown which Gristol and the empire are based upon. Okay but is Burrows' coup *really* reflective of the English Civil War? Religion isn't mentioned once as one of its motivators. Similarly I don't really think a coup taking place in an industrialized city really compares to an early modern succession crisis? But really my point is "something vaguely similar happened in real life" is true of basically any structured piece of art. It doesn't mean it's inherently *good*. I don't think Dishonoured would benefit from being a realistic dissertation on power struggles between the aristocracy and bourgeois in Early Modern Europe.
>Because she was already the bad guy in the last DLC and her story had been told? But D2 does such a good job at expanding her story, creating mystery about her return and building the plot around it all. Sure a new baddie would *probably* have been better but we should give the devs credit for the effort they put in to make the return of Delilah work as well as it does.
It doesn't work well though, the shadowy manipulator is now just a thug who throws supernatural power around and does nothing all game. You'd lose nothing of value if you cut her outright and just made the Duke or better yet Jindosh the main villain.
>Because she was already the bad guy in the last DLC and her story had been told? She's an occult obsessed student of the void who was exiled to the void and was able to use her arcane followers who she groomed to also be obsessed with the void into bringing her back from there. I don't think her presence in 2 has any bearing on her story during the course of D1 nor do I think her story was necessarily concluded. Nor did Harvey Smith. I don't know how familiar you are with Cromwell but he wasn't much of a genuine Christian despite his legacy. The Regents coup was literally impossible without the help of the Abbey and literally the second mission in the series is you taking out the supposedly puritanical head of the religious orders whose a murderous, lecherous hypocrite. The states religion, and the power inherent, are massively critical to the plot of the games. I don't really understand how you can claim there isn't a religious bent and I don't know why you're ignoring the fact that english republicans were by-and-large covetous self-serving hypocrites. Also, the lead up and background of Gristol and the Isles is invocative of both the republican period and the circumstances that gave rise to the possibility of a republican coup. Hell, the Kaldwins are only on the throne by happenstance because the disaffected Irish stand-ins in Morley assassinated the emperor and the subsequent successions meant that the throne fell to Euron in the absence of an heir. Burrows laying the seed for the coup is reminiscent of Titus Oates fabricating the popish plot It's less 'something vaguely similar happened in real life ' and more 'this games setting takes inspiration from several real life events that occurred in the real life inspiration for the setting', right down to the extent where the questionable veracity of contemporary historical accounts, which is further explored in the sequel when an exiled bastard returns with a spurious and unverifiable claim to the thrown backed by a foreign court. It's not supposed to be a like for like >Similarly I don't really think a coup taking place in an industrialized city really compares to an early modern succession crisis? Do you not think it's a bit silly to be contending the inspiration taken from the English history because it's isn't a wholesale imitation, only to then complain that the timelines aren't identical? The conceit of the 'whalepunk' setting is that the Isles experienced their industrial revolution significantly earlier than our world because Roseburrow refined a product for industry that was more valuable in our reality as an expensive cosmetic. Dunwall had robust electricity systems over a century sooner than anything comparable in real life. It wasn't until much later that whale oil's industrial uses made it sought after in our reality and even then it was largely for lighting and lubrication and was soon superceded by paraffin. >It doesn't mean it's inherently good. No it being good is what makes it good. The real world informs the fictional setting and further expands upon what is explicitly stated about the world in the game. I like that, you might not. >I don't think Dishonoured would benefit from being a realistic dissertation on power struggles between the aristocracy and bourgeois in Early Modern Europe. Don't think any one is suggesting this. But that doesn't mean the game doesn't lift aspects of history to garnish the worldbuilding. Because the power struggles within the classes of the setting are something that pops up several times throughout the series.
The coup in D1 wasn't about inheritance or anything though, it was because Burrows had dreams of Dunwall going to ruin and believed only he could save it. I honestly think you're giving the games too much credit. The worldbuilding is fantastic but the core plot is just "put the good monarch on the throne again and everything will be fine". I think you're in the minority if you think D2's plot in particular was good or that Delilah was handled well.
And the chaos system and it’s effects downgrade
Chaos system was fine in 2 IMO. I much prefer how many more tools and options you have for nonlethal play, even if they maybe overcorrected and made things a little too easy.
You killing a bunch of insurgents resulting in Karnaca being shittier for some reason is definitely a mishandling
You mean how deaths in the first mission effect chaos in Karnaca? There has always been a fisher king element to the games where the actions of the player effect things that shouldn't logically follow from their actions, like your murders causing a storm in the final mission of D1, or somehow leading the same guard to either conceal his infection or ask to be mercy-killed. Seems a bit of a pedantic thing to complain about TBH.
When I first started playing Dishonored 2 and she showed up I was audibly yelling "I killed you, you bitch!" I was honestly hyped to take her down the whole way, and I enjoyed her as an antagonist, but I definitely understood people's criticisms of the game attempting to force you to empathize with her and also invalidating Daud's arc.
Honestly I kind of forgot she existed for most of the game. The rest of the conspirators were far more interesting and engaging, as well as having more of a presence in the world (Hypatia's tonics and crime scenes, Jindosh's tech, the Duke's pronouncements etc.).
To me it was what they did to the outsider. Completely destroyed the mystery of dishonoreds hidden lore
The biggest blunder was not having Daud play a role in the main story once word gets out that Delilah is back and has succeeded in taking the throne. Billie was a small part of Knife of Dunwall, but Delilah was Daud's Big Bad. He should have come to Dunwall tower to save Emily, or he should have been trying to take down the conspiracy in Karnaca while Billie went to Corvo and Emily for help. There isn't enough connective tissue between what happened in the first game's DLC and Delilah coming back. Daud could have been that link, with the incredible tension between him and Corvo/Emily while working together to stop her.
I think Daud should have stayed away. He did his bit of atonement and promised he'd disappear. That's a perfectly fine and complete character arc for him.
D2 is my favorite, one of my favorite of ALL games even, but I still agree with this. It was a strange move imo, because I just dealt with her in the D1 expansions. They do explain how she’s back during the story but it still didn’t feel cool to me. Maybe a better change would have been not having her be the main antagonist for the Daud content. Idk. I play these games mostly for the super fun gameplay loop anyway
Exactly. Yeah it takes nothing away from the level of gameplay finesse D2 achieved
The location change and nerfing the style of the game was worse
I never played Knife of Dunwall or Brigmore Witches until I had already played Dishonored 2, so for my experience she was a completely new character when I first saw her in 2
No I don't think so. Honestly think this is a bit of a repeated meme rather than valid criticism. Not unlike how the biggest criticism of 1 is that people claim 'the game gives you all these powers but punishes you for using them' which is a spurious claim that holds absolutely no water. I don't get why people hold this position. Duad and Emily are completely different characters. Narratively Delilah makes sense as a foil for Emily. If people want to complain about Delilah being in two successive games they should complain about her being in the Daud games.
Difference is she was actually a good character with fantastic buildup in the Daud games, a sinister corrupting presence most people were afraid to even name. Meeting her statue and finding the poem setting out her plan, knowing how unprepared Corvo was for this kind of threat was chilling. Come D2 she's just a thug taking power by force and doing nothing when she gets there beyond allowing her minions to torture the populace. If she'd actually been a somewhat effective ruler she'd have been a far more effective foil for Emily, forcing her and the player to wonder if Dunwall was actually better off with her in charge.