Bethesda brought Dishonored 2 to their conference this year, after announcing it in E3 2015.
We got our first look at Dishonored 2's world this time around. The game takes place in a new city named Karnaca, in the country of Serkonos. Karnaca is made to be based around the people who live there. To realize this city and make it look as good as they can, the developers have built a new engine named the Void Engine. It's used to give the game better lighting and audio.
The goal is also to make the environment both plausible in a lore way and for gameplay. It features old advertisements and histories for the shops and alleyways in each game. Notably, robots were walking around, a new threat for Corvo and Emily. That said, if you like Dunwall, don't worry as the game will both begin and end in Dunwall giving you a chance to revisit the old city.
Harvey Smith also spent some time talking about the plot. Taking place 15 years after Dishonored, Emily is running Dunwall and is trying to find a way to save it. Someone is targeting Emily's enemies and trying to frame both her and Corvo for it. After an attack during a memorial for Emily's mother, the two must escape Dunwall. You can play as either character, and both are fully voiced this time.
There is a promise of many pathways and ways to complete your missions. We then got our first look at the "Dust District". Here you have to bring down either the Overseers or the Howler Gang to advance your goals, and you can side with either gang. Or you can side with neither gang and take them both down. At our first look in gameplay we got to see a vast and beautiful world. The blink ability returns, and there is a bigger focus on vertical space so players can explore. One neat feature is how the weather will change the gameplay, where a dust storm lowers both your own and the AI's vision.
A fight in gameplay shows off some abilities. The jump attack also returns, and Emily pulls out a gun to open fire on enemies. She also uses a form of TK to pull an explosive towards her then at an enemy. After she takes an enemy hostage to protect herself and throw around. Later sneaking around saw her use a memorize ability to cause enemies, including a new-looking dog enemy, to focus on a glittering orb and forget that they even saw Emily.
Once they got to the target Emily used a domino power that causes things to happen to multiple targets even though it only happens to one. A single guard is hit by a stun mine, and the domino ability caused the other two guards to take the hit. Following that, Emily used a shadow walk ability that let her turn into a showed and crawl towards her target before pulling him apart violently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNFtACeifcU
A second gameplay demo saw the characters going through an old abandoned manor, and use a device that let them switch between two time periods: the present when the manor is a wreck and the past when the manor was still guarded and full of life. You can also watch one timeline without stepping into it using a device provided by The Outsider.
It was also announced that Dishonored 2 is coming to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on November 11th. They concluded the showing by showing off a gameplay trailer. The trailer featured some new characters, abilities, and violent assassinations.
Dishonored 2 will also be getting a collectors edition with some really neat goodies inside of it. The biggest is a replica of Corvo's mask from the first game. Also included is a replica of Emily's ring with a display case for it, a propaganda poster, and a special steelbook cover for the game. You also get a special "Imperial Assassin" pack which includes some in-game items, an in-game lorebook, and some in-game cash to spend on things. The collectors edition is preordable right now and costs $99. Anyone who preorders Dishonored 2, either the regular version or the collectors edition, will also get a free digital copy of Dishonored: Definitive Edition.
Find more of our E3 coverage at our E3 2016 Coverage Hub.
