What would you want to see in a Dishonored sequel? [SPOILERS]

Allegedly Dishonored sold well, prompting Bethesda to suggest that there could be a franchise sometime in the future. So, if there is another Dishonored game, what would you want to see in it? Personally a few things spring to mind:

• The ability to disappear momentarily - other characters in the game seem to have the ability to disappear, so it stands to reason that Corvo should be able to too.
• Permanent Dark Vision - Yes, I'm aware that they probably don't want people spending the whole game in dark vision; but it can get annoying having to turn it back on again when it times out. Or maybe they could only allow Dark Vision whilst standing still. Whatever the case, it's frustrating to have Dark Vision turn off at inopportune times.
• Being able to visit the other islands - I was hoping that we would get to see more of the world during the game; I was a little disappointed that there actually were so few places to visit in the game.
• More non-lethal take-down moves - I was going for a non-lethal playthrough, which meant I was heavily reliant on sneaking up behind guys and performing the exact same animation over and over. Some way to mix it up a bit would be nice.

A protagonist that speaks.

@Garfield518 said:

A protagonist that speaks.

Honestly, I don't mind the whole silent protagonist thing, but the parts where you selected dialogue choices but didn't actually verbalise them did seem a little jarring...

A narrative would be good.

The world of Dishonoured is fascinating. I dig it. I want to dive real deep into it. A sequel should take us to places that are interesting, like the ancient city unearthed under Dunwall. Honestly, I don't want another Steampunk Kinda Sorta Half-Life game. I'd really like for them to go balls deep into the magical aspects of the world. Really explore where it came from and how it works. Also learn about the reason most of the world is flooded, perhaps. And the Outsider, what the hell is it?

There's a lot of mystery and a lot of intrigue, and answers can be satisfying when handled carefully. If the next game winds up being another revenge tale with no catharsis and it ends like a wet fart, then I don't think I'll be playing it.

Oh and proper stealth mechanics, too. That'd be good.

I'd take a better story. Also I could go for some more varied locations (and a bigger game in general) and a richer look at the backstory. I find the whole idea of things running on whale oil super interesting along with the plague, would really like for that to expand.  I imagine you could add some more powers and stuff as well. 
 
I agree that a quick invisibility power would be cool. I could see them just having the fully upgraded blink at the start along with the agility.  Maybe expand on the original powers, maybe you can choke someone while in control of an enemy or something).  
 
@Garfield518 said:

A protagonist that speaks.

Also, glad to hear it sold well. It deserved it.

Having just finished the game, what I most want to see from a sequel is more of a general point than anything else: a better narrative and a world that's fleshed out in a more engaging way. Dishonored is a good game, but I'm trying to work out why it never made me go "aw shit that was awesome, this game is amazing!". Maybe it's because I was playing low-chaos - and apparently got the shitty ending in the process, grr - but generally I think the problem with the game (and maybe the genre as a whole - I've never played any of the Thief or Deus Ex games) is that it is too mechanical for its own good. My actions felt quite divorced from having any real impact on any sort or world or story, and I only played clean out of my own ridiculous obligation to be a man of honour whenever I play games; if a game gives me a non-lethal option, especially one that could be fun to try out, you bet your arse I'm picking it. It feels like a game that's all about giving you a world and letting you do crazy shit in said world, but I never felt compelled to try out the amazing badass stuff I've seen in the videos, like guys being killed by their own bullets. The game needed to have some sort of way of rewarding people for playing stealth - if they thought that that ending was supposed to satisfy us then they were very, very wrong.

4 star game. Good - at times very good - but never great. For something that was sold to me as a GOTY candidate, it can't hold a candle to XCOM or Crusader Kings II or Journey. Maybe a second playthrough will change my mind.

Right, now that that's done, I'm off to find out what all the fuss is about with this Walking Dead game...

One of the best things about Dishonoured was the variety you could implement in play styles combined with the depth and interesting elements of the world. But the narrative was pretty specific and went down a pretty linear direction only altering the world around you based somewhat on how you played the game.

For a sequel I would love more depth to the systems. The powers and the thought process behind how the powers worked flowed very well. But more powers and more meaningful powers. Cater to all play styles as well as possible from a gameplay and narrative stand point. Base Dishonoured it's pretty much play non lethal or lethal and different varieties of those. It would be cool to have a differentiate of play styles with some more depth.

I also think they should make it an open world game. Open up the whole city, throw all your collectibles and other things in there and just let us explore the world. Consequences for who you kill and who you don't in Dishonored was pretty great, so having that in a full open world setting would be great. Throwing a strong enough narrative element into an open world setting specifically with this universe would be great as well.

Open world. Open world would be amazing. Dishonored is part linear (core missions) and part open world (side missions to enrich main missions) and I always felt conflicted. If I went on side missions, I was delaying the story (which deeply interested me), and if I didn't do the side missions I would miss out on all of the game's fleshing out (which also deeply interested me). I'd like to have the missions be their own thing that I go to, with the enrichment missions nearby, but also to have a sort of Just-Cause-2 feel with respects to world availability and freedom.

I want them to dig deeper into the world that they created. There's some quality worldbuilding in Dishonored, now they need to do something with it other than Revenge Story + Succession Crisis Story.

Dresses and skirts, whether worn by male or female. Enough of this "everyone wears pants!" bullshit.

Female assassin (That would be really cool)

Non-Silent protagonist

Disguises

More weapons? Maybe more stealth/non-lethal weapons?

I dont want Dunwall anymore. I want to see more of this world.

NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DISHONORED 1 storyline.

Built-in challenge mode ala Batman: Arkham Asylum/Arkham City

Just a new protagonist. I love Corvo and his mask and all that, but Dishonored has a great(or terrible) ending.

Also I'd love to see a possession mechanic with more interaction as that character. So you could sort of assume their role.

Maybe some stuff that gives me more info on The Outsider, I found his narration haunting and fascinating.

I'd love to see more of the world and to see them elaborate on the outsider some more. It's a super cool and interesting world with a protagonist that I didn't really care about. (And it's not that he's silent, I think Gordon Freeman is an awesome protagonist and he's super silent).

I'd also like to see them not punish you so much for lethal kills.

I'd like to see more places. The scope of the game was pretty limited in what you actually got to see. I'd like an actually good ending this time, also. More options for non lethal takedowns would nice, I pretty much snuck up behind everyone in the game, except when I used the knock-out crossbow bolts.

Deliver on the awesome world with a more engaging story. Expand on powers. New powers. New protagonist? Wouldn't mind him/her being silent again. More weapons! Open world hub splintering into bigger "mission arena's" would be cool. A few more missions/targets. Have the chaos system be a bit more dynamic, a bit less binary. 
 
Those additions would be welcome. Enrich the formula, but don't mess with it too much. The fundamentals of this game were great, rich, tight mechanics and systems and I had no real gripes with it. Can't wait to hear more about the sequel!

More side stuff to do. The first two missions were great and the side missions actually added length and some depth. Then after the first two missions, there wasn't any side missions aside from one later (at least from what I remember). The first two missions took me 6 hours because I was doing everything I could find. I continued to do everything I could find and finished the final 7 missions in 7-8 hours...

• More open, hub-like areas, à la Hong-Kong in Deus Ex.
• More interaction with NPCs
• Meaningful choices.
• More challenge in hard mode (no more magic leaning that renders you invisible)
• No more acid-spitting oysters or whatever they are. Seriously, fuck these things, I hate them with passion.
• A story... Like... a plot, with things happening in it. That would be great.

I want more feedback from my actions. Like, have some guards talking "Have you heard about this assassin? He only kills his target though, never killed one of us guards...maybe he is not as bad as we think?" Something like that. I didn't kill a single person in Dishonored but I didn't feel like the game, well....honored it in any way. (I now about the better ending and rat stuff but something a bit more obvious and subtle would be nice). I know there were some lines of dialog but that never felt really satisfying.

Also, a better story and a talking protagonist. And some small self-contained story per level like the Thief series has, that would be great.

Oh, also: NEW GAME PLUS. I'd love to replay the game with all powers.

I really, really loved Dishonored, probably in my personal Top 3 list but it had some flaws.

I would like to see a new character set in the same world (but not necessarily the same place) with the same theme of vengeance leading to chaos. Other than that, the sky is the limit on the particulars.

The non lethal way of playing the game needs to be more varied. Not that its bad or anything but playing the game as a murderous madman is just insanely fun and gives you ways to be creative in a ridiculous amount of ways. Other than that I can't think of anything else, goddamn I love this game, definitely my GOTY by far.

Most importantly, I don't think there should be any reason outside of personal preference to not play the game the way you want to. As it stands, the best ending requires a perfect no-kill run, which requires trial and error, but for me improvising your actions on the spot is what makes this game special and that can require a stabbing or two when you fuck up. I'd elaborate more but I'm on a phone and can't get to a good PC at the moment.

More Thief-2-like levels between the assassination parts--stealing intel from a security office, bribing people, tailing an enemy through a huge environment. framing an official to turn an important character to your side, etc.

Also more ways to solve a major task nonviolently. Having this option was great, but knowing each mission had only one and it was "do a favor for this scumbag and he'll make the target disappear" every time.

More Thief and a little more Arx Fatalis and this is basically my dream game. Also, the Dark Messiah kick and environmental combat stuff. I know these guys can pull it off.

Dishonored just left me kinda pissed off. Everything about the story, the characters, and the world was completely shallow. It was all done well enough that you wanted so much more from it. If they would actually give the game a proper story, in depth characters, and flesh the world out the way it should have been, I would like to see more. If they wont improve these things I dont want to see another Dishonored. It just ended up being a very meh experience in hindsight.

My favorite part of the game was how much freedom it granted in you in deciding how to move through the levels. I think I'd just like larger environments and more weapons, items, and skills.

Fleshing out the characters and story would be nice too, but it's not a primary concern of mine. The gameplay is what I care about mostly in this case.

@oraknabo said:

More Thief-2-like levels between the assassination parts--stealing intel from a security office, bribing people, tailing an enemy through a huge environment. framing an official to turn an important character to your side, etc.

I like that idea. I just want more reasons to explore the levels.

Good idea on the "more non-assassination missions" idea. Stealth missions to steal or sabotage things can be just as challenging.

@SlashDance said:

• No more acid-spitting oysters or whatever they are. Seriously, fuck these things, I hate them with passion.

Genuine laughs at this one. Those plant things were the toughest enemies in the game.

On topic, I'd like to see the hub areas opened up even more. i ran into some invisible walls in places, and it was confusing sometimes as to which building/high-points I could blink to or not. The system felt fiddly and there were too many times I was thinking, "Why can't I go there?"

Thief 4

@FancySoapsMan said:

@oraknabo said:

More Thief-2-like levels between the assassination parts--stealing intel from a security office, bribing people, tailing an enemy through a huge environment. framing an official to turn an important character to your side, etc.

I like that idea. I just want more reasons to explore the levels.

I think one way to do it would have been to have you locate the targets and not go into every mission knowing exactly where to go. The in-between missions could even be for finding out what part of the city they are in. Something like intercepting a letter or even swapping it with one to get a target to go where you need them to assassinate them would even be cool.

The best comparison I can find for this game is the first Assassin's Creed game. Lots of potential in some places, but also lots of room for expansion and variation. I'd love an open world, or at least a larger main hub that allowed for some exploration and some side-quests. It was a little odd--in most games, when you commit to a new story mission, you're doing the story mission. Here, what I wanted to do was run around and explore. But you can't do that, really. You either do the sidequests attached to the main mission or not. Clearly they wanted to find a way to get you to explore, and it works--but it feels like a compromise. They didn't have a full, open world, and so exploration is limited. I'm fine with it at some level, but I think a large, open, area with some hostile and some non-hostile areas needs to be a priority for a sequel.

I didn't think the story was bad in Dishonored, just very bare bones. We should get something a bit more complicated and wide-ranging. While I liked that the game changed itself based on your play-style (giving you more weepers, guards, etc., if you consistently went high-chaos) I'd appreciate some more visible and tangible changes to the world based on choices. I'd also like some light role-playing elements--character customization, some more diversity in armaments and armor, and more than just a few levels of power upgrades.

It sounds like a lot of things to change, but honestly I'm loving this game. The core of it is sound, it just needs a bit more ambition. I think the devs deliberately held back a bit here--it's a new IP, after all. They kept the scope small to avoid the risk of overreaching. I imagine a sequel is going to get a larger team, and larger budget, and probably give us most of what we really want to see.

A protagonist that speaks is always welcome as well as much deeper skill trees to cater for both play styles. Perhaps a disguise system that allows you to steal an unconscious/dead guard's clothes to allow you to blend in past certain areas but not all.

@Garfield518 said:

A protagonist that speaks.

This.

Also, abandon the morality system. It was really frustrating that the game gave me a bunch of tools to use but labeled most of them as "bad."

Dishonored didn't have a morality system as much as a strict requirement for endings. I would actually like them to expand upon the order/chaos idea where doing everything very stealthy and avoiding killing also alters the game as much as slaughtering everything.

A better story and cooler stealth powers.

I feel like all the powers are combat focused.

Actual story.

for the game to not punish me for doing my fucking job, aka, being an assassin... in fact, this trend really needs to stop, games where you play assassins punishing you in some way for being assassin-y. Hitman Absolution does the same with taking points from you, and there was another game I played recently where it constantly "reminded" you not to kill people. Thank god Mark Of The Ninja rewards you for being an assassin, another reason that game is awesome

An interesting and engaging story, and maybe expand on the powers. I wanted to like Dishonored and it plays fine but I could not have been more uninterested in the game's story, which is a bit of a deal breaker for me personally.

• A protagonist that speaks
• A story people can't see coming a mile away
• A more fleshed out world....Dunwall turned out to be dissapointingly boring as shit

A very hard difficulty where you are forced to use all the cool power and items mostly, also more dark-magic related lore.

How about an open world, and some of the sweet ass bokeh in Hitman Absolution. Could do a lot to clean up all those shitty ground textures.

i didn't particularly like the game because, as some have mentioned here already, it seemed to try to steer you toward stealth options that were far less enjoyable than the options that increased the chaos meter/rating/thing, thereby making the "bad" endings more likely. I think that a for a game to be satisfying it shouldn't really be necessary for it to steer you toward the "better" ending. It should happen naturally and the player should actually go towards it without having to try to. Part of what made the stealth frustrating to me was the limited awareness that comes along with a first-person perspective. So, I think a third-person perspective should be implemented as at least an option and probably as the default. Also, even though I enjoyed the combat more than the stealth, I didn't find it all that great, to be honest. I found the camera to be very swimmy during combat, and I had a lot of trouble keeping opponents in my view, especially when up close.

Give them a break , as far as I can tell its Arkanes first ever game and I personally think it could possibly be my favourite game ever , I would just like the same but better , maybe a few more environments

Give them a break , as far as I can tell its Arkanes first ever game and I personally think it could possibly be my favourite game ever , I would just like the same but better , maybe a few more environments

I loved the game, but there are of course some things I'd like to see improved in the future. A more expansive move list (especially non-lethal) and more mission variety. And, as others have said, a new game-plus function.

New Publisher - That's it, I just want this game put out by a more worthy publisher because Bethesda is full of thieves and liars.

A good game.