Dishonored 2 picks up fifteen years after the events of Dunwall, and this time the coup happens in front of you. The witch Delilah walks into Emily Kaldwin's throne room, claims the crown, and leaves you with a choice that defines the whole game: escape as the young Empress herself or as her father and royal protector, Corvo Attano. Either way, you sail south to Karnaca, a sun-bleached coastal capital rotting under the Duke's rule, and start dismantling the conspiracy one target at a time. Arkane Studios built its sequel on the same bones as the original immersive sim, then widened every corridor, deepened every power and made the world answer for how you play.
A Revenge Story With Two Voices
Dishonored's silent protagonist is gone. Both Emily and Corvo are fully voiced, and each reacts to the same conspiracy from a different place: Emily as a ruler who never asked for the throne and is learning what it costs, Corvo as a man dragged back into the work he thought he had finished. The Outsider still hands out the Mark, but his gift is optional now, and refusing it turns the campaign into a pure blades-and-gadgets affair. The story bends toward your choices throughout, from the fate of each target to the mood of Karnaca itself, and it resolves in an ending that reflects the trail you left behind.
Choose Your Assassin
- Emily Kaldwin
- Emily's powers are built for control and misdirection. Far Reach pulls her across gaps and up to ledges, Domino links several enemies so that what happens to one happens to all of them, Shadow Walk turns her into a low, fast shape that slips under sightlines, and Mesmerize holds a whole patrol in a trance while you walk past. She plays like a predator who prefers to set the trap first.
- Corvo Attano
- Corvo returns with the toolkit that defined the first game, retuned and expanded with new upgrade branches. Blink still moves him instantly through a room, Possession lets him ride a rat, a fish or a guard through places he could not otherwise reach, Bend Time freezes a firefight mid-shot, and Devouring Swarm and Windblast are there when subtlety is off the table. He is the more direct of the two, and the more familiar.
Play Loud, Play Quiet, or Both
Every mission supports a full spread of approaches. Sleep darts, chokeholds and nonlethal drop takedowns let you clear a level without a single death; the sword, pistol, crossbow, grenades and springrazors let you do the opposite. Bonecharm crafting has been reworked so you can combine traits into custom charms, including corrupted charms that trade a penalty for a stronger effect, and each power now has its own upgrade tree with branches that change how it behaves rather than just how well. The chaos system tracks all of it. Leave bodies behind and Karnaca fills with bloodflies and extra guards, characters harden, and the finale turns bleak. Show restraint and the city, and the story, respond in kind.
Karnaca, Level by Level
- The Clockwork Mansion belongs to Kirin Jindosh, the Grand Inventor, and it rebuilds itself at the pull of a lever: floors rise, walls swing, rooms swap places, and his Clockwork Soldiers patrol the gaps. You can play it as designed or crawl through the machinery between the walls and watch it move from the inside.
- The Dust District is a mining quarter torn between the Howlers gang and the Abbey of the Everyman's Overseers, with dust storms that roll in and cut visibility to nothing. You can pick a side, betray both, or solve the Jindosh Riddle on your own and skip the whole dispute.
- A Crack in the Slab hands you a timepiece that flips Aramis Stilton's ruined manor between the present day and the night everything went wrong. Actions in the past reshape the present around you, and the mission is a strong argument for Arkane's level design on its own.
All of it runs on the Void Engine, Arkane's heavily customized branch of id Tech, which gives Karnaca its dense streets, long sightlines and the painterly light that the series is known for. The city is a character in its own right, packed with notes, audiographs, side rooms and black market shops that reward the player who keeps poking around.
Mission+, Black and White Mode and the Imperial Assassin's Pack
Signing in with a free Bethesda.net account from the main menu unlocks three extras. Mission+ lets you return to any completed campaign mission with every power and weapon available and experiment freely. Black and White mode reskins the game in monochrome, with only the blood left red, and can be toggled at any time. The Imperial Assassin's Pack, originally a pre-order bonus, adds the Duelist's Luck and Void Favor bone charms, an Antique Serkonan Guitar to play aboard the Dreadful Wale, the in-game book Goodbye, Karnaca - A Musician's Farewell, and 500 bonus coins, all waiting in your cabin.
The throne is Delilah's for now. Pick your assassin, board the Dreadful Wale, and decide how much of Karnaca has to bleed before Emily wears the crown again.
