The level design is borderline genius, with multiple different ways to bypass objectives and deal with elimination targets, giving you plenty of power over how you beat levels. If you're looking to earn the Platinum trophy, the trophies will dictate how you play to a certain extent, but the depth of possibilities is still to be admired, and every level location has great attention to detail with the options it lays out for you. They're not always obvious and in plain sight either, rewarding exploration and experimentation.
On the subject of level design, it's also important to shout out some of the level mechanics too. The Clockwork Mansion adding the extra level of intrigue by transforming it's layout based on the pull of a lever, and how this can be used to find secrets, new routes and plan escapes. Aramis Stilton's Mansion - Where you find a timepiece that allows you to go back in time to when certain areas of the building contained different features that help you progress objectives. It's so clever and is the standout feature of the game.
Dishonored 2 also builds on the supernatural powers system, offering a bespoke set of powers depending on which protagonist you choose to play as, and also includes a general complimentary balance to both sides of utter chaos and absolute stealth, depending on your playstyle. Acquiring Runes will allow you to unlock more abilities, and most abilities are tiered and can be upgraded to provide stronger benefits.
There are also much greater dialogue options too. Corvo was a silent protagonist in Dishonored, which left much of the lore down to the interpretation of the player. Both Corvo and Emily contribute large dialogue to what unfolds around them, naturally fleshing out the story. I wouldn't necessarily say it improves the story much though, which is a little bit disappointing given the fact the game actively opened up speech contributions for it's main characters. Alot like Dishonored, this is a tale driven by revenge and there's not much more to it than that.
The game does have other flaws too. Melee combat is unpolished. Hit detection is so wonky to the point where you could take as many as 5-6 swings to hit an enemy and still not register a blow. This also extends to the usage of powers too. For example, using Blink and Far Reach should be seamless, but you spend most of your time trying to line up your landing position to ensure you reach where you intend to and it ends up being way too finnicky.
These are small gripes though, and not to be held against the game too harshly. I think it's an improvement on the original and the improvements are big enough to help the game excel above it's predecessor.
Regarding trophies, this is a large list of 51 trophies, including the Platinum trophy, and is very reminiscent of the original game's list, with alot of overlap and recurring feats included. You'll also need to plan carefully, as some trophies are either specific to each character and their powers or specific to how you choose to play the game.
If you're tactful and plan well, you can get through this game in just a couple of playthroughs, though I did fumble on one trophy which meant I had to go through the majority of the game a final time, which is slightly frustrating given the fact it was just one trophy and I had to progress very close to the end in order to fulfil the requirements for achievement.
The "Clean Hands" trophy, awarded for Completing the game without killing anyone, returns from Dishonored, and underpins your low chaos playthrough of the game.
Due to the fact I earmarked this trophy as the hardest from Dishonored, I felt this was the place to begin, and carrying over previous experience would stand me in good stead for a playthrough where I also just focused on enjoying the game and collecting whatever I could in terms of trophies along the way.
The things you need to be aware of are exactly the same things you needed to be aware of in Dishonored. You'll need to make sure that you neutralise every assassination target you encounter throughout the story, rather than killing them, and you'll also need to make sure you don't kill any enemy soldiers, howlers, thugs or witches along the way. Non-human enemies, such as Clockwork soldiers and Hounds are dispensable, and you're allowed to eliminate these particular foes. They count as non-human enemies and therefore do not detriment the achievement of this trophy.
If you're neutralising normal enemies, you'll also need to make sure they're not left near any potential hazards that cause them to die when you're not looking. Things like dumping an unconscious body close to water is a risk, as is leaving bodies next to things like whale oil tanks and within sight of rat plagues that could digest the body. All of these things could cause unexpected accumulation of death counters that you may not be aware of at the time. I would always avoid conflict wherever possible and in the event of having to render a foe unconscious, ensure their body was placed carefully away from any potential hazards. Behind doors and secluded in rooms was always a safe bet.
The game will report back to you on stats after each level, and one of these stats is the number of deaths within the level. I always made sure this counter read 0 after every level, and ensured that I'd made a hard save to checkpoint my progress, just incase I got stung by an unnoticed death at some point later down the line. In worst case scenario, you can always reload the save and begin the level again, so it's a fairly foolproof method, and this statistics report is huge in terms of being able to track your progress towards this trophy.
Along the way, the game rewards you with a decent amount of progression-based trophies. Some of these are unmissable and pertain to certain plot points and some are based on story decisions that you'll be awarded an alternate trophy for later on as long as you ensure you make the opposite decision. The latter is important to make note of in order to prevent any additional unnecessary playthroughs of the game.
Pursuing this trophy also unlocked trophies for the following feats; Finishing the game with either Emily or Corvo (another trophy to be aware of making an opposite choice for later on). Finishing the game without supernatural powers, which is another decision you make early on and requires you to consciously choose to not obtain powers throughout the game. Completing the game without being spotted and completing the game in low chaos.
One thing I took away from Dishonored was that I'd mismanaged the trophy list, and my learning from that was that I was going to be much more efficient in Dishonored 2, and looking how to best maximise earning as many story completion trophies at once, and minimising replay necessity. All of the above trophies are best done in tandem and compliment each other perfectly.
If you're focusing on not killing any enemies, then refusing to take supernatural powers makes the most sense, as many of these are used to bolster your arsenal. Similarly, if you don't kill anyone, you'll naturally finish the game in low chaos and therefore, it's the perfect fit for these trophies to compliment one another. Engaging in combat means you'll be spotted, so again, if your primary aim is to get through the game without killing anyone, it also makes sense that you strive for the trophy that rewards you for not being spotted. Tactfulness pays off in Dishonored 2, especially when it comes to tackling the trophy list.
By the time I'd completed this initial playthrough of the game, I'd unlocked 25 trophies - Exactly half. Much of this was the aforementioned non-missable, progression-related elements of the list but I did manage to accidentally stumble upon a few secrets that I wasn't necessarily looking for, but happened to award trophies in the process.
Even though I still had half the list to earn, there was only one primary focus remaining. Beat the game again, but on high chaos, which is where the the majority of the remaining trophies lie.
What was remaining at this point were alot of trophies focused around earning kills, which are simply incompatible with a playthrough that requires you to beat the game without killing anyone, so this grouping of trophies had to be reserved for the high chaos playthrough. There is also a trophy awarded for beating the game selecting Corvo, but that was the only other thing to take into account, and the challenges on a second run lay with other parts of the list instead.
The list technically has 27 trophies which are deemed to be missable, and this is alot to juggle if you're intending to beat this game in just a couple of playthroughs like I did. Some of these trophies are missable because they're married to another trophy that are both awarded for making opposing choices at certain spots in the game. Some are missable because they're tied to collectibles that you won't be able to go back to collect once you reach a certain point in a level (this would sting me later). Some are missable because you have to perform specific actions within certain levels and whilst the game does include a mission select feature, this will overwrite your progress automatically, so it's better to just make sure you grab these trophies during a normal playthrough.
The game is especially heavy on collectible trophies and this is what ultimately caused my undoing with this list. Acquiring all collectible paintings, collecting all the decorative objects for the Dreadful Wale, Finding 60% of the available loot throughout the course of the game. Even the more cryptic trophies such as Finding 2 musical duos across Karnaca, and listening to their songs, Killing Paolo three times and Robbing Galvani multiple times are technically collectible because you need to trigger a certain instance multiple times, and should you miss one, you'd have to dedicate a fresh playthrough of the game to obtain the relevant trophies for each of these tasks.
Dishonored was exactly the same, and it elevates the trophy list into an intricate level of planning and research. It's also one of the main reasons I led with the non-lethal playthrough. It would be overstimulating to have to deal with not being spotted and/or killing anyone whilst attempting to balance all of these collectibles, and high chaos just simply requires less focus and allows you to shift your attention to ensuring you're fully focused on not missing any collectibles. And even then, I still did.
It's not exactly notable in it's own right, because in reality, any of the above mentioned trophies could have slipped through the net - It just so happened to be the "Royal Spymaster " trophy, awarded for Perusing all journals and audiographs by Meagan Foster and Anton Sokolov aboard the Dreadful Wale. Between each chapter, the Dreadful Wale acts as a hub where you can see mementos you've collected, gathering intel and collect more lore. New lore becomes available between each mission, and I'm not quite sure what happened, but I suppose I missed something that meant the trophy didn't trigger when it was meant to.
This meant I had to spend an additional 5 hours playing through the game once more. I managed to rush through for the most part, and the final group of collectibles comes just before chapter 10, which is near the end of the game. It's nothing more than a slight inconvenience really, but it's frustrating having to juggle so much and see just one small thing slip through a gap. It was probably just missed amongst the tracking of all these collectibles, but frustrating nonetheless. I would have had this Platinum trophy much sooner had I not fell foul here.
Overall, I'd probably put this roughly on par with Dishonored in terms of difficulty. Both trophy lists are very similar and there are many parallels to draw upon across both lists.
The experience I carried over from Dishonored certainly helped with the forward planning for this game, ensuring I could earn the Platinum in a much more logically thought out manner and within less playthroughs too, despite having to put in a bit of extra time due to a slight oversight with the collectibles.
The game itself does not require you to play on a specific difficulty setting for any of it's trophies, meaning you can tackle these challenges freely to your own preferences. I chose hard difficulty for both main playthroughs and still didn't notice many difficult parts of the game. When you're striving to not be seen or kill anyone, avoiding combat will naturally dampen the difficulty anyway, and you're less likely to notice any spikes in challenge regardless.
I've put it just a notch below Dishonored, just for the simple reason of being able to come into this with enough experience to plan more appropriately and tackle the list with a better equipped knowledge of what to expect from a game that carries much of it's ideas over from the original. It's a shame that I had to speedrun a third playthrough, but this didn't put me out too much, and probably wasn't enough to bring the overall score up.
Notable Trophies -
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| Clean Hands - Complete the game without killing anyone. |
Hardest Trophy -
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