Don't Do The Cool Thing

Dishonored and Moral Choice Systems

Late To The Party

Recently I played through Dishonored, The Knife of Dunwall, and The Brigmore Witches. I’ve read every shred of lore I could find about the series and watched Let’s Plays of the first game, its DLCs, and part of Dishonored 2 but never played any of the games myself.

The Dishonored franchise has one of the most fascinating imagined worlds I’ve come across in the past decade, and I was content to osmose information about it but eventually found myself wanting to experience the emergent and ludic parts of the narrative that I was unable to grasp from second-hand materials.

I went into the games fascinated by the world of Dunwall and the Outsider but I found myself dwelling on the game’s Chaos system more than anything else. I was able to keep this mechanic at arms length while I wasn’t making active decisions as a player but found it much more immediately relevant when it was affecting my experience as I played through the game.

Revenge or Redemption

From the games earliest moments players are told in extremely overt ways that their actions will affect the game world. More violent actions will result in more adversaries in the form of rat swarms and humanoid enemies along with a darker story.

While the game does offer up some hand-wavy explanations as to why the player’s actions affect the game world (rats feed on corpses, so dead bodies mean more rats and thus more weepers. More guards are stationed in response to violent actions) it seems hard to believe that the handful of people you encounter in each mission would actually have a palpable impact on the world in such a short period of time. However Dishonored lets the reasons for the world changing shape remain metaphorical–things change in the game world because the story being told is changing. For example, Admiral Havelock is either a remorseful and somber person quietly contemplating what they’ve done, or a vengeful and self-destructive man depending on what story is being told. It’s not like Havelock needs to be an internally consistent character in both stories.

Dishonored (and its DLCs) goad the player into wanting to take revenge during in-game scenarios, which is exactly how things play out narratively if you go the High Chaos route. When you encounter certain assassination targets you’ve learned enough about them through cut scenes, written notes, and ambient audio that you really dislike them and have a strong urge to see them behalf the worst fate imaginable, which you are free to make happen. Indeed the game provides ludic incentives to go after these options as well–assassination targets have unique execution animations and will often taunt the player if confronted openly. However the games always make an attempt to push back on the scales and show targets are more nuanced as opposed to cartoonishly evil providing a sense of uncertainty and doubt in the player. This is a brilliant example of ludic experience overlapping with narrative elements–the players and their character will often be inclinded towards revenge but not totally sure if their revenge is justified or not.

“Don’t Do the Cool Thing”

Pivotal Points

Each player character is shown at a pivotal moment in their life, a fact emphasized by their visits from The Outsider near the start of their respective stories.

Corvo has been betrayed (multiple times) by people he thought friendly and forced to take action in response. He is depicted as an upstanding sort with modest upbringings, in a relationship with an empathetic and kind empress, and a loving and protective parent.

Daud is shown as a ruthless and efficient Assassin who has a loyal group of followers that he cares deeply about.

Corvo and Daud are foils, with the former embodying a “Low Chaos” starting point and Daud a “High Chaos” route. Both characters can, through player actions, follow along their original path or radically go against their backstory.

This puts players in an interesting position where, ideally, something that works narratively and ludicly for Corvo would likely not work for Daud and vice versa. After all they are both starting for different narrative starting points and

An Idea of Neutrality

The Outsider, who acts as the narrator, sets the tone of the game–he is depicted as truly neutral, only acting out of desire to watch something interesting happen after millennia of ennui. As he says “… I give my mark sparingly, and I don’t play favorites…” The Outsider embodies the intent of the game–no matter which path the player takes, the story should be interesting, whether that means the story is one of revenge, redemption, or a mix of the two.

We can see this by comparing a snippet from Dishonored’s High Chaos ending speech by the Outsider

I don’t know about you, Corvo, but I’ve had a lovely time. Intrigue and mystery, butchery and betrayal.

To a snippet from his Low Chaos ending speech

You watched and listened when other men would have shouted in rage. You held back instead of striking.

Neither line is overtly condemning or affirming, but more so a commentary on what has happened along with a subtle nod that things were interesting.

This seems to be the games central thesis–any course of action the player takes should be viewed neutrally and “a lovely time” regardless of what happens.

If we take as an axiom that the games want to have the story arc bent by player actions but ultimately have any given approach be equally favorable narratively, resulting in a story of vengeance or restoration of honor the question is how exactly does the game deal with this idea from a narrative and ludic standpoint?

Narrative Incentives

Increasing chaos or using more violent approaches will result in the game world changing in subtle and unsubtle ways. Story characters act more hostile and chide the player during candid interacts and cutscenes. The game’s last level The Light At The End gets notably more ominous, including the weather shifting from sunny to a fierce storm at night.

There are large tool tips and tutorials telling you in very overt terms violent approaches will result in more adversaries and “a darker ending”. There are special achievements for completing the game without killing anyone, but there are no achievements for murdering everyone in a level or taking particularly brutal approaches. The end of mission menus also push you to consider non violent approaches–there’s a large checkbox for “didn’t kill anyone” and counter for number of people killed, including civilians. The game follows the convention that “lower counters is good”–notably there’s a counter for number of times spotted, which is generally supposed to be close to zero. So having a counter for kills and civilian kills leads to the association of “high number of deaths are bad”.

Further each game after Dishonored and its DLCs had to make a decision regarding what a “canonical” game ending was. Dishonored 2 and Death of The Outsider assumes that Daud and Billie Lurk are alive and Daud has given up his life as an assassin while Corvo took the Low Chaos route in his story. For both permutations, a permutation of the Low Chaos, non-lethal story is considered canonical. This decision, if players are aware of it, greatly pressed on the scales of dictating what a “right” course of action is. After all, if we know that Corvo canonically took a particular path, what does that mean for game play experiences that differ from that path? Are they non-canonical? While the post-modernist in me says that a sequel that makes a particular narrative choice doesn’t dictate what is and isn’t canonical, it seems hard to reconcile with the idea of Dishonored ending with Dunwall in ruins in the High Chaos route only to have it back to a peaceful and just state at the start of Dishonored 2.

Gameplay Incentives

The games rely on meticulous level design to allow players to approach problems organically. I found that if I had an intuitive idea of how a problem could be approached it was usually possible. Seldom are there artificial barriers to accomplishing a particular task. This helps build cohesion with the player character–both them and the player approach problems organically.

Non-lethal options for dealing with regular adversaries are fairly restrictive–you have a limited, fixed capacity of ranged sleep darts that cannot be increased, the ability to do non-lethal take downs that take a while to execute, or can avoid adversaries all together via distraction or evasion. Due to the limited resources and techniques available non-lethal it is often not possible to neutralize every adversary in a given section of the game, which makes exploration of an area, or collection of key items or completion of key objectives more difficult. This is exacerbated by not having an easy way to hide unconscious adversaries. Knocked out enemies must be carried somewhere out of sight. Non-lethal approaches slow down gameplay noticeably, favoring a slow and methodical approach to situations that are characterized by tense moments of trying not to be seen.

Each assassination target can be handled non-lethally, which usually require a sequence of sub-objects to be completed which are usually longer and more complicated than lethal options.

There are notably more ways to deal with adversaries lethally than non-lethally. Further you are given more resources that favor lethal options–for example, while you cannot increase the number of sleep darts you can hold, you can increase the number of lethal bolts.

Usually lethal approaches to assassination targets require less time and effort to execute–it is much easier to walk up to someone and stab them then complete a sub-objective.

There are special actions that play out if a player chooses to engage targets lethally. Notably fighting with assassination targets is occasionally given special music and gameplay elements. In Dishonored if the player chooses to openly confront Daud they will be treated to a clash of supernatural powers that feature unique visual effects. If they choose the quiet approach where he is knocked out without being seen none of this plays out.

There are visual cues that constantly remind the player that lethality is an option–most notably the player character always carries a sword prominently in their right hand, which appears whenever secondary equipment is used.

Conclusion

The clash of gameplay incentives favoring violent approaches to gameplay situations while the narrative elements strongly favor non-violent approaches leads to, and I am going to go there, ludonarrative dissonance. This concept isn’t inherently harmful or indicative of a flawed narrative, but it’s worth examining the ramifications for Dishonored. It seems reasonable to wonder if this choice was intentional–after all, the player characters are both struggling with wondering what to do after being thrown into a pivotal situation in their lives. This dissonance somewhat echoes the confusion and uncertainty both Corvo and Daud face when it comes to reshaping their lives and respective story arcs.

However, I don’t think this is the case. For both Corvo and Daud going completely against their respective narrative starting points feels too radical–it’s hard to suspend disbelief enough to imagine Corvo going full blown murder hobo or Daud deciding to completely wipe his hands of killing after a lifetime as an assassin.