Dishonored review (2012)

Dishonored is a gorgeous, complex assassination sim set in the crumbling, steampunk-tinged city of Dunwall. It lets you play a supernatural assassin however you like: stealth and precise teleportation via the Blink power make infiltration rewarding, while first-person swordfights remain surprisingly fun and survivable when fights break out.

Missions unfold across huge, open regions you can explore on rooftops, through alleys and inside buildings, with side quests and incidental storytelling scattered throughout. Clues in books and notes steer you to secrets, and the game blends scripted solutions with emergent approaches—rewire security, rig traps, or improvise to reach your target.

Choices matter: how many people you kill alters later levels, increasing rats and plague zombies, and characters react if you leave too many corpses. Yet the nonlethal toolkit is limited—sleep darts and a slow sleeperhold are the primary options—so playing mercifully can feel more repetitive than using the many lethal tools the game provides.

dishonored, dunwall, assassin, blink, stealth, teleportation, swordfights, plague, rats, sleep darts