Dishonored 2, despite all the baggage, has earned its spot among the best games of 2016. Its list of positive features is almost never-ending. Deep, layered missions and side missions, level design like you’ve never seen before, and characters we’ll be referencing for years to come.
But, as Arkane Studios has reminded us, Dishonored 2 can still offer us even more (beyond a PC version that works for everyone). The one major feature that’s being added in a free update is New Game+, which can be seen as a glaring omission. But the second feature is much more complicated: customizable difficulty.
But what does this mean, exactly? The better question is “what can this mean?” Let’s explore the possibilities of what Dishonored 2 can bring with its custom difficulty settings and what we want it to bring.
No Alerts/No Kills
Say what you want about 2014’s Thief being a lame rip off of Dishonored and a shame to the series, but it had customizable difficulty down pat, and if Dishonored 2 went ahead and ripped off them in retaliation, I don’t think many would complain.
One of the premier settings Thief had was called “No Alerts.” This meant that, if anyone saw you – human or animal – you failed the mission. While Dishonored 2 invites you to play the game as a Ghost, without being seen, a No Alerts mode would actually enforce it.
Also a big deal in Dishonored 2 is the ability to check your status in the pause menu to see if you’ve been seen or if you accidentally killed someone. But, this wouldn’t be necessary if the game failed you when you were seen. You wouldn’t need to check it in that case.
Black Market Closed
The Black Market is a great resource for restocking your supplies, whether it be arrows, elixirs or Rewire Tools, for example. Wouldn’t it really up the ante if you couldn’t buy those things? While this may seem to make the game impossible, that idea overlooks the fact that you can pull off a heist at every Black Market in Dishonored 2.
If you were unable to purchase goods at the Black Market, you would be forced to find out how to rob every single one or go hungry, so to speak. This would cause players to raise the bar on their own performance and mine even more depth out of the game.
While I’m tempted to just say “No Money,” as a rule for this custom difficulty setting, that would also restrict blueprints for new weapon upgrades – which isn’t really the intention of this restriction. So, perhaps a more specific restriction on the Black Market would be necessary, like “No Ammo or Consumable Purchases.”
No Weapon Upgrades
But while we’re at it, why not give us the option to remove the ability to upgrade your weapons altogether? While this definitely would adversely affect those who play a non-Merciful, High-Chaos game, it wouldn’t be a cake walk for stealthier players either. Remember that Incendiary Bolts are the best Bloodfly killers, and being able to open up alternate paths by taking out Bloodfly nests is essential to a stealth playthrough. Let’s not forget the upgrade to Sleep Darts that makes them take effect instantly would also be unavailable, and is absolutely clutch for stealth play.
But hey, even if you played through in a more violent way, this is the whole point of customizable difficulty. Do something hard just to say you did it. If you played through violently without any weapon upgrades, I’d say that’s worth a pat on the back.
Combine this mode with the Black Market Restrictions, and you’re a badass indeed.
Power Limits
Dishonored 2 was nice enough to have a built-in option to play the game without powers, but why not give us the opportunity to have powers, but restrict them slightly. Maybe let us choose a limited number of powers to use, like one or two?
While many people may play the game this way, anyhow, it would be nice to not give us the temptation to buy our way out of difficult situations when we know there’s a power that could make all our problems go away.
Of course, this option would eventually phase out the need to search for Runes to use for upgrades, but whatever.
Ironman Mode
Not original at all – many games have done it before, but man would it be great to have in Dishonored 2. Die or fail a mission, and you’re done. All progress lost. Back to square one. Dishonored 2 offers you myriad ways to avoid death in the game, so this may not even be too hard, depending on your playstyle.
This would be even better when paired with something like No Alerts or No Kills, this would up the stakes considerably.
I’m just spit-balling here, but these would all make Dishonored 2 even better on a second playthrough. While you can, of course, choose to playthrough the game with any of these settings unofficially enforced, it’s always better if you give us the option to take away our options.
What do you think? Tell us in the comments section what custom difficulty settings you would like to see in Dishonored 2.
