Despite a sporadically shaky PC port, Dishonored 2 still offers a multi-layered gameplay experience. Throughout the game, you'll be able to make certain choices about how you play – do you want to kill anyone? Do you want to go through the game without no special abilities? Do you want to never be seen?
Respectively, these are referred to as Merciful, No Powers & Ghost. They all offer a their own unique challenge – and Merciful can often go hand-in-hand with ghost – but for this guide, we will be discussing the Ghost run. Here are the five essential tips to playing Dishonored 2 like Casper – friendly or otherwise.
Quick Save
A lot of games use this feature, but only a handful absolutely require it – S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl comes to mind. If you want to play Dishonored 2 as a Ghost, you'll want to make sweet and repeated love to the F5 key.
I would recommend quick saving at the beginning of every mission, before you do something risky and after you accomplish that risky something. All quick saves and autosaves can be accessed from the main menu, so, if you screw up a risky maneuver, you can hop back right before that.
Now, the in-game menu will keep track of your progress as either a Ghost or Merciful, and you might be strolling along through a level, only to check your progress and find that you've been seen or that someone saw a body you forgot to hide (we'll get there). But here's the catch: you don't know where it happened. That's why the quick save at the beginning of each level is so important. In this worst case scenario, scrap it and try again.
Hide Bodies
Now I did a mostly tongue-in-cheek article about hiding bodies in Dishonored 2, but, in all seriousness, it's an essential part of playing the game as a Ghost, and to achieve the low-chaos ending. Even if you do everything right and take guards out without being seen, a civilian can walk on by your handiwork and blow the whole thing up.
So hide your bodies really well. Look for dumpsters or metal crates or dark corners. Heck, plan your attack in advance and scout out the places to hide bodies before you take someone out. That way you'll have a direct course of action after taking a guard out.
You can also make use of Blink or Far Reach to teleport to higher locations where people either can't get to or don't patrol, and you can do this while holding a body. So grab your body, teleport to a rooftop somewhere and set him down gently.
You Can Kill People
While it may seem like you have to also be Merciful if you are a Ghost. This is not the case. You can kill people and still be a Ghost, you just have to do it right. Find someone when they're off on their own and crossbow them to the head for an instant, lethal takedown. They'll never see it coming – and they'll never see you coming either.
If you are going to shirk Merciful entirely while playing a ghost, there's one ability you'll want to get more than anything else. That's Shadow Kill. For those familiar with the original Dishonored, you'll remember this ability well. It makes it so any person you kill who is unaware (either shot them in the head from out of sight, or behind-the-back assassination) will be automatically turned to ash.
This ability is relatively cheap – you can get it for two runes – making it so you can get it very early on, and there's no need to upgrade the ability at all. The sceond level of that skill makes it so people who are aware of you also turn into ash, but if they're aware of you, you've already lost out on Ghost. So don't bother.
Beware of Certain Side Quests
There are several optional quests that may make the game easier for you down the line, but that will almost certainly get you seen.
For instance, early on you may run into a woman behind the black market in Karnaca who will shut off the electricity on the train tracks – giving you a direct path to your next objective staying completely out of sight. However, her task requires you to bring her a specific dead body.
If you noodle this through, you'll find out that while it's easy to get the dead body, it will be virtually impossible to get it back to her without being seen by a civilian, since the area she's in is crawling with them. Civilian sees you with a dead body, you're not exactly a ghost anymore, regardless of whether or not that body belonged to you.
Know When To Avoid Contact
You've got a lot of tips so far about how to maintain your Ghost status regardless of your body count, But, when it comes down to it, people can't catch you with a body or find a body you left lying around if you didn't leave any.
I'm not saying don't kill or knockout anyone – that's rather difficult. But be judicious with how you apply the use of force. Unless you're trying to explore and loot every nook and cranny, there are going to be several guards that you can simply leave be.
Watch their movement patterns, look for a way around them, use your Far Reach skill to teleport. But, you'll find that the more bodies you rack up or throw in dumpsters, the greater your margin of error.
