Okay I'm gonna fuckin do a thread about how awesome Dishonored's mechanics and storytelling are because I want to and I got shit done today. Here we go. Here is why Dishonored Is Great aside from all the other stuff that makes it great of which there is a lot

The core of this is probably the morality system, which is expressed in terms of "high" and "low" chaos. It's more complicated than that, but let's start there.

Many ethics systems in other games work thusly: you make a good or a bad choice at key moments and good or bad things happen as a result culminating in a Good or a Bad ending.

That is not how the chaos system works. The chaos system is about how actions affect the entire world.

I have not played every game in the entire world and I'm sure others do similar things, but the closest analogue I can think of is Mass Effect's Paragon/Renegade system. Which is very similar. But I think it differs in terms of what it affords in characterization.

The P/R system allows lots of different ways for the story to go, but in so doing, it doesn't actually leave much interpretation up to the player. Dishonored does this in some very important ways.

High and low chaos affect *how the entire world works*.

Now, this is simpler than it might be. High chaos gets you a darker world, more plague victims, more rats, more cynical NPCs playing out worse versions of the cutscenes. But the effect is very compelling. The feel of the game itself changes dramatically in almost every respect.

The level of chaos is determined by your choices at key moments regarding which assassination targets to spare and which to kill, yes. But even more it's affected by *how you do and do not fight*. Kill more people in more brutal ways, high chaos. Minimize the killing, lower.

And *this* is one of the coolest things about it. It's a way if directly tying combat mechanics to story mechanics. It's almost seamless.

This is something most games do not even attempt to do.

Take the classic case of Uncharted. So you got Nathan Drake the charming quippy Whedonesque character in the story, and Nathan Drake the remorseless and sometimes racist mass murderer in the combat. That... does not work very well.

But in Dishonored, everything you do, from key story choices to the mundanities of killing or not killing NPCs, *is who you are*.

This requires some imagination and emotional investment on the part of the player, but let's go with it.

So when I play high chaos, which I love to do, I'm horrible. I'm monstrous. I not only kill NPCs who go up against me, I seek out people to kill and I kill them in the most brutal possible ways. I am the lord of sadistic vengeance. I AM A VERY GOD OF DEATH.

IT IS AWESOME

BUT ALSO

It would be easy to separate my choices from Corvo Attano's choices. It's how I play the game, nbd, a lot of us love to be as violent as possible. Whatever.

Dishonored does not make it easy to maintain that distance.

The things I do, Corvo is doing, and they mean something. I can see this in a very material way, because the world is or isn't crumbling around me. Darkness is or isn't falling. This is a character who has a real identity, and how he fights determines that.

*How I fight* determines that. Again, it's nearly seamless if you let it be.

And here's where characterization comes in. Oh boy.

So the events of the game are kicked off by four major connected inciting events. The first is the murder of Corvo's Empress gf. The second is the abduction of their daughter by said murderers. Third is that Corvo is framed for it. The fourth is six months of torture in prison.

(Yeah, Jessamine gets fridged, it sucks, the gender politics of the next game are much improved. Also Jess does come back as a ghost in a clockwork heart that Corvo carries around with him everywhere as a witness to his corruption or redemption THAT IS A WHOLE OTHER THING)

But the key to understanding the combat mechanics and the chaos system is in using them to analyze the way this is a story about trauma and pain and revenge.

Because what you the player make him do is what decides how he reacts to these inciting events.

If you play high chaos Corvo? Then he's a man driven by rage and hatred and nihilism, who potentially is developing a deeply unhealthy relationship with his daughter, who will burn down the entire empire and see it die bleeding from the eyes if it means he gets revenge.

OR

He's a man who's gone through hell but is holding onto his honor, who values life for its own sake, who is capable of showing mercy toward the people who tried to destroy him, who wants to build a better world for his daughter.

This is all determined by how you fight.

Story choices, yeah. That too, just like in other narrative-driven games.

But mostly it's the combat.

That is so heckin cool.

And it's progressive as the game progresses, but mostly it comes down to two things: how you as the player tie who Corvo is back to these four crucial events that take place *before you start really playing as him*.

So there is something very interesting going on re structure.

And this is why I say one of my fics where he's a monster is IC, and another one where he's a really nice guy is IC, and both are simultaneously IC. And yeah, you can do stuff like that with ME all day, but again: IT'S ALL IN THE COMBAT

So what's so cool here is about mechanics. The combat mechanics, the story mechanics, and how you as the player understand who this man is through the choices you cause him to make.

I just. I'm flailing. I love this game so much.

So there's also the fantastic worldbuilding and how amazing the second game is with race and gender and how great the characters are and the fabulous aesthetic (STEAMPUNK BUT WHALES) but while I know we're all tired of the term "ludonarrative"... yeah.

I want to stress that I know the franchise isn't unique in what it's doing. I know there are similar games doing similar things. I got it.

But I cannot think of another game that's aggressively doing it on such a holistic level, and making it work so well.

Fucking Dishonored. Oh my God. The end.

(I KILL PEOPLE WITH RATS. I CALL RATS TO DEVOUR MY ENEMIES JUST BECAUSE I CAN, WHO DOES THAT)

(Corvo Attano, apparently)

(BUT WHY, WHY WOULD HE)

(That is the interesting question)

(Also if you want to read the thing I’m posting that I love a lot where post-third game human!Outsider is incredibly anxious and awkward and falls in love with Corvo and Cannot Cope, it’s here, I’m really happy with it) https://archiveofourown.org/works/18651547/chapters/44231866

(Ex-Chthonic god of secrets is a precious muffin, protect him at all costs)

Okay, sorry, here are two more things I love so much about these games not actually related to mechanics

- one of the main PCs is canonically asexual
- in the third game you play as a Black disabled cyborg lesbian

FUCKIN DISHONORED

Seems like there's actually a little debate about that - she's been with a couple of men, yeah, but it's pretty clear that she vastly prefers women, and lesbians don't have to be women-exclusive to be lesbians - but yeah, I wouldn't say that's incorrect.