Dishonored Stories Filled With Whale Oil And Clone-Faced Guards

Lastweek I spoke briefly about Mark of Ninja’s impeccable blend of visual aesthetic and stealth. Since then, I’ve put another few hours into the game, which have served to reinforce my initial perceptions of the game. I’ve also begun thinking more and more about Dishonored, a game I played a while back which felt fairly similar.

Of Whale Oil and Clone-Faced Guards

Much like Mark of the Ninja, my time with Dishonored was largely positive. Much of my impression of the game was due to its tone, pace and relatively open maps, which offered the flexibility to approach missions in a large number of ways—similarly to Mark of the Ninja.

More than these qualities though, I felt that much of the story that transpired throughout my time with Dishonored was forgettable: the sociopolitical machinations that served as the subtext for Corvo’s actions throughout the game felt wafer thin in terms of their depth, and belied what could have been a much more captivating tale about whale oil. That’s about the only lasting piece of terminology that has stuck with me about Dishonored.

Fortunately, the general lack of compelling storytelling was offset by the carefully constructed aesthetics surrounding each mission. While the world’s locations, culture and history all felt non-existent or else poorly conveyed to the player, my imagination tended to naturally populate these unknowns, thanks in part to how wonderful the art direction was for the game.

What resulted was a compelling personal narrative which I built over the existing story. My Corvo was a contemplative loner, who chose to keep silent because he felt contempt for the lack of solid writing which went into characterizing him and his world. Killing felt unnatural because all of the guards he had the option of killing looked exactly the same. My Corvo secretly feared that he too looked like these guards under his mask, and so chose to avoid killing anyone altogether.

Of Human Oil and Clone-Faced Guards

Similarly, I fitted a contextual narrative around Mark of the Ninja while playing it. I began as an earnest ninja, silently moving past enemies. Once I completed my first mission, I was presented with a scorecard, detailing all the enemies which I left alive. For not killing anyone, and for not being detected, I was awarded a paltry amount of supplemental points; what amount to the equivalent of killing and hiding six guards was reward for passing through a level in which there was easily three or four times this many guards. Sure they left my ninja cave and went home to study for their finals in looking like clone goons, but I was poorer for it.

As the game progressed, I opted to become an increasingly efficient assassin, and would kill every guard, carefully hiding them afterwards. Now when I escape from castles and derelict buildings, I leave only dogs alive. The rest of the enemies are carefully tucked away in vents and bins. Maybe their bodies eventually smell something fierce, and eventually decompose into what I assume is human oil.

Essentially, I feel that both Dishonored and Mark of the Ninja’s subdued storytelling is to their benefits.  As a result, I am able to make sense of my actions much like I would in a character-creation Western RPG, such as Elders Scrolls or Fallout.  I wondrously await the next half-baked story to bastardize and populate with a wholly inaccurate rendition of the world that the developers intended for the player. Until then, I suppose.