#post-doto

Should Dishonored 3 have time travel as a core mechanic, just like Deathloop has time loop? As much as I love the old formula of D1 and D2, I think it will change a lot, evolve into something else in D3.

But why change at all? Unfortunately the future of games like Dishonored, Deus Ex or Thief has been in trouble for a long time – they need to find a way to balance better the cost of development and lower sales. They are immersive sims - very expensive to make compared to linear games, as they need not only perfect combat, but also perfect stealth, interesting game systems to create emergent gameplay, great level design to make all these systems meaningful, highly interactive world to emphasize player choice and more. Even creating a simple narrative moment is a creative hell thanks to a huge amount of freedom given to players (like at least six ways to acquire the information from the archive in DOTO). In the same time, other aspects of immersive sims are expected to be on par with linear games: animations, graphics, gameplay’s lenght, plot.

All that costs are rarely compensated by good sale numbers. As „action games with brains”, immersive sims don’t appeal so much to general audience, despite being critically acclaimed games with a lot of rewards. Publishers know games like that are unlikely to turn out as breakout hits, so funding them is incredibly difficult. And Arkane Studio is probably the last bastion of the genre.

The amazing replayability of immersive sims is not easy for marketing (as a hook mostly for already hooked customers) and has become less valuable now in the still changing overcrowded game market - with a new game everyday, for sale, for free. A lot of people would play such games only once, judge it by a single experience, then move to another game and would never know how many things they have missed.

D2 is a game with the insane amount of work put into content, details, two characters with a different set of upgradable powers, gems like Clockwork Mansion and Crack in the Slab, but… with lower sale numbers than D1. I guess Arkane couldn’t just proceed with „we will do better with D3” – they needed to stop and rethink the formula for the franchise. If they couldn’t boost sales more, how can they lower the cost of development instead? Then Deathloop came out…

Deathloop as a bridge to Dishonored 3?

…and solved some of problems with clever creative decisions, for example:

Players complete the game experiencing not even tenth of scenarios you created for them? Make replaying levels the intergral part of the gameplay loop!

Art assets are the most expensive part of AAA game development? Play with time and space, so less of them is needed! (D2 and Deathloop have similiar gameplay lenght – now compare how many assets both games have...)

Cutscenes are super expensive? Avoid them with most of the plot told via radio communication.

Modeling and animating faces take a lot of time? Everyone wear masks now!

Manpipulating time was a part of Dishonored universe since D1, slowly building a stage for how everything is going to change heavily when the Outsider is finally gone. A few years ago there was a leak/hoax called „Darkness of Tyvia” – a next Dishonored game set in Tyvia, with versus-multiplayer and „annihilate the Outsider” as a goal. This and a few other things made me think that Deathloop could have been prototyped initially as Dishonored 3, but then the creators decided to bid farewell to characters of „the Kaldwin era” faster, building DOTO on D2 assets and making Deathloop first - to learn more how to handle games about time, what works there and what doesn’t.

That decision could leave Deathloop with only vague connections to Dishonored lore (letting fans to decide whether they believe this is the same universe or not), but also with a lot of creative freedom for Arkane. After all Deathloop’s gameplay turned out to be innovative and fun, but too far away from values that Dishonored series stand for, so it deserved a different story.

„I don’t like watching you die. I like killing you. There’s a difference.” by Julianna summs up Deathloop pretty well – it’s „high chaos, no consequences” fantasy. Using game mechanics to the fullest, killing dozens in a variety of creative ways, but enjoying the lack of a grimer outcome, no matter how terrible slaughter we have just caused. Dishonored shows us how our actions affect others, how every NPC is a human being, a part of this world: with hopes, fears, secrets, families to feed; with shocked and fightened face when we hurt them; mutilated body left behind for rats and bugs. Even villains like Daud or Billie might deserve a second chance sometimes. Deathloop does the opposite: NPC look like „made in China” crash test dummies, disappear with a puff after death, sometimes even commit careless suicides. They are here for the endless party and all things they brought to the Blackreef are plastic, garish, feel out of place; a lot of trash. Well, they are trash – just trash mobs, you realize later - you can kill them again and again, and it doesn’t change anything. The only exceptions in Deathloop are Visionaries and they don’t even need a mark „I’m the Visionary!” above their heads – they look like humans and killing humans matters in Arkane’s games:

„If you slaughter everybody — you killed the maids, you killed the old people, you killed the beggars — you’re great, here’s a medal, you’re a hero. We decided that sounds psychotic. It doesn’t match our values, it doesn’t match the way the world works, it doesn’t match the way any other fiction — imagine a novel where a guy wakes up in the morning, kills everybody in the house, goes down the street, kills everybody on the way to work, kills everybody in the office, and then at the very end of the novel, there is a scene where he is given a medal and made some sort of hero and anointed in some way. It doesn’t make any sense. What we wanted was to let you express yourself in the game, but to have the world react to that, at least in some way. Samuel Beechworth, betraying you and firing off that flare, was something we had to fight for." – Harvey Smith

DEATHLOOP SPOILER!

What’s worth to mention, the „good” ending of Deathloop is the one where Colt decides to not break the loop. How could he just return to a society after killing so many people? Is „they will reset at midnight” an excuse good enough for that? There is nothing and no one waiting for Colt out there anyway – his only relative is here, wanting to live as an overachiver god in this infinite hunting playground where everything is allowed, forgotten the very next day. Where they both can go for a beer, then have fun throwing Alexis into a meat grinder again and again. Colt and Julianna have become too accustomed to living without consequences to go back to the normal world.

END OF SPOILER

So, the point is: whatever kind of time manipulation mechanic D3 will have, it should take into account at least some consequences of our actions. It doesn’t have to work like D1/D2 chaos system or be as much restrictive, but players shouldn’t be able to murder everyone, then just press a reset button/go back in time like absolutely nothing happened. It wouldn’t feel like Dishonored otherwise.

How could time travel work in D3? Spoilers for D2, DOTO and The Veiled Terror book below!

Time works differently in the Void („All of time is meaningless here. Neither seconds nor centuries.") and in every places where the Void is leaking through (Stilton Manor, Void hollows). Some people with supernatural abilities can manipulate time a little bit (Bend Time, Foresight etc.), predict future (the Blind Sisters, Zhukov) or even travel in time (post-DOTO Billie Lurk).

Let’s play more with the old formula: So far dealing with main targets was simple: kill them or explore more to figure out a non-lethal option. Whatever we chose, it usually meant very little for the ending, determined mostly by the chaos system (with a few exceptions like Stilton, Duke or Paolo/Byrne in D2). What if our choices could have more meaning and we could learn about consequences of our actions sometime later, then have an opportunity to change them, now aware of how things will play out in the future? Go back in time, aimed with a knowledge about better solutions, alternative weapons, secret passages; reaching places unaccesible before (Void hollows create a lot of possibilities here), meeting people who wasn’t there. Saving people who will become our allies, neutralize people who will turn into tyrants. Figuring out the plan when we can’t be in all places at the same time, can’t make the world right – not at first try.

Nigthmares as a part of new chaos system? „The Void touches the minds of the dreaming and the dying alike.” After DOTO the whole Empire was plagued with nightmares for a few months, people screaming of fear and terror in the middle of the night. Some of them modified their own bodies (weird tattoos, bone charms pierced through their skin etc.) and became addicted to drugs, desperate to find a way to stop the dreams. It happened because someone was manipulating time. After altering the timeline in the Crack in the Slab mission, only the Outsider and Emily were fully aware of what has happened. He as a god of the Void, she as a time traveler. Billie didn’t remember anything, but later had constant nighmares about the moment when she was nearly killed by the Grand Guard, about terrible pain she experienced. She was slowly losing her mind, every morning taking awhile to know what's real. My theory: in D3 every person that was killed or harmed, but saved later with time travel, will have nightmares. The more they suffered the worse their dreams could be. People will go through sleep deprivation or even become insane like weepers or nest keepers. Maybe in the very, very bad scenario we could cause another Great Burning - an epochal event hinted since D1, which caused cultural destruction with people going from city to city, destroying and burning everything. Or maybe we will try to stop it?

The Void and its new deity:

Whatever time shenanigans we will go through, this all could end with a new deity restored to the Void. That's what the Abbey probably tried to do just after DOTO, recruting children through mysterious Trials of Aptitude for years, but they failed their mission and most of them went mad.

When the Outsider was still bound to the Void, he perceived time in the physical world as reapating in the same unending patterns. He disturbed that pattern by giving his Mark to people who would play pivotal role in the days to. He let them decide, but whenever they fell into routine and were no longer making a big difference, he lost his interest in them. Finally, he was able to spawn a chain of events that led to his end.

Without the Outsider the Void is destabilized, unmoored from the real world and Void rifts begin appearing across the empire, a chaotic bridge between the real and the unreal, fissures in the very fabric of reality. Manipulating time and space is now possible for individuals with a certain knowledge and abilities.

“Emily!”

The Empress turned around at the sound of her father’s voice and smiled as he approached. “What’s up Dad?” she asked.

“Have you seen the Outsider anywhere? I can’t find him,” Corvo asked, a hint of worry in his voice and eyes.

Emily smirked and crossed her arms. “Why, yes actually, I have. He was in the gardens last I saw.” She pointed behind her with a thumb.

Corvo nodded and then gave her a pat on the shoulder before rushing off to the garden. The Empress simply chuckled and shook her head as she moved on with her day.

It didn’t take long for Corvo to find the Outsider. The young man was standing in front of a hedge with many colored flowers poking out of it. However, there were an over-abundance of purple ones ranging from lavender, lilac, morning glory, bell flowers, and there was even some traces of wisteria woven through the green hedge. Corvo was surprised at just how many flowers there were. The Outsider was standing in front of a collection of them, his hands weaving in between the flowers and plucking certain ones. A small smile was on his face as he was humming something.

post-DOTO

Jagged cliffs. Floating darkness, deeper and more impenetrable than he had ever experienced. He tries to move, but his body is chained to the cold stone. The faces are all around him, their chanting drowning out his feeble attempts at crying for help. The blade is above him, raised and in position, and he tries to struggle, tries to get away, but his hands are stuck, and he can’t move. The blade falls, both too fast to follow and too slow to miss, and he can’t breathe, his mouth is filling with blood, and he tries to cough but there’s only blood, more and more and more, he can’t breathe, there’s tears in his eyes he thinks and he gasps but there’s only more blood, he feels as it runs down his neck, down the stone, and he knows this. He knows. He knows what’s supposed to happen, he longs for it, because after the Void fills him up at least he can breathe again, but there’s nothing. Nothing but blood, and tears, and his attempts to breathe, and the blood runs down his face now, and the faces are all staring down at him, like stone masks, he can’t blink, he can’t turn away, there’s blood and he can’t breathe and he can’t move and he can’t-

“Easy!”

His eyes flew open, but it took several seconds before the Outsider could see the differences between the endless darkness and the soft tones of Corvo’s bedchamber lit up by candles. Longer still before he managed to get himself to breathe normally, held tight by a concerned Corvo who kept murmuring reassurances that the Outsider couldn’t understand. Not yet. He was too busy realizing that he could breathe, that there was no blood in his mouth, that he wasn’t chained down.

“It’s okay, it was just a nightmare,” Corvo murmured into the Outsider’s hair while the Outsider tried to will his fingers to unclench from around Corvo’s arms. “I’m here, you’re safe. Nothing will harm you here. It’s okay.”

“I was not aware dreams were so- intense,” the Outsider muttered, frowning at how hoarse his voice sounded, even to his own ears. 

Corvo must have somehow acquired the ability to read his mind, because when he leaned back to look the Outsider in the face he said, “You were screaming. Or, trying to. It was as though there was something blocking the sound.”

Blood, so much blood, no matter how wide he opens his mouth he can’t breathe for all the-

“It was just a nightmare,” the Outsider echoed Corvo’s earlier words, finally getting his hands to move. “Just a nightmare.”

He carefully avoided looking up at Corvo’s face, instead studying his hands. They were shaking, and he couldn’t for the life of him understand why. He had seen countless humans be affected by their dreams, pleasant or terrifying as they were, but for all he had watched he couldn’t truly understand it.

“You’re a human now. Humans have nightmares. It comes with the deal, I’m afraid.”

The Outsider looked up at Corvo’s crooked smile. There was nothing hidden there, no sneer in the back of his dark eyes, no mocking in the corner of his lips. He was still holding onto the Outsider, his touch somehow bringing with them a sense of stability, of relief. With a sigh the Outsider leaned forward, pushing up against Corvo.

“It’s just something I will have to learn to live with then, I presume?” he said, his breath hitting Corvo’s neck.

Corvo held him tighter at that, possessively, protectively. “You won’t be alone,” he promised.

The Outsider stayed quiet for some seconds, feeling the last of his shivering slowly die out. But there was still the unease. “I’m not sure I especially want to go back to sleep just yet.”

“Then don’t. I’ll stay up with you for as long as you need. I still have nightmares too, sometimes, about Jessamine and prison... about Daud.” Corvo’s voice was low, so soft it was almost hard to hear, and the Outsider’s heart ached.