At long last, we were able to stop Delilah and save the Princess Emily from her fate as one of Delilah’s puppets. This is the end of Dishonored: The Brigmore Witches.
Overall, both this and The Knife of Dunwall go a lot to refine the base formula set by Dishonored, and address a lot of the concerns from the original game.
They also did a lot to put female characters in positions of power in both DLCs, which was a common criticism of the base game (where most of the female cast were in subservient roles as maids or prostitutes). Many of the quest givers and faction leaders in this DLC, even the main villain, are female. Heck, they even introduced Billie Lurk in Knife of Dunwall, who would go on to become one of the franchises most interesting characters.
For players of Dishonored 2, this DLC also introduces Delilah, who becomes especially relevant in that game. Her scheme to take control of Emily is interesting, even if I think it could further developed before the grand reveal. Overall, a really good DLC.
And speaking of: Next time, we start Dishonored 2. Look forward to it.
And so we being the second of Dishonored’s story-based DLCs: The Brigmore Witches.
Unlike the previous DLC, we weren’t able to finish the whole thing in a single session. The plan will be to finish the last mission and then transition into Dishonored 2 if there is time remaining.
What I find most interesting about the Brigmore Witches is the way it experimented with new gameplay concepts in Dishonored, and remixed a few old ones together.
The return to Coolridge is a intriguing from both a lore standpoint and a gameplay one. It’s always fun to see how a game designer can reuse old assets in new ways, and this was no exception. Further, it’s a complete inverse on the first mission in the base game. Where Corvo had to break out of prison, Daud needs to break in to rescue somebody. And as the stream audience pointed out, Dishonored is clever in the way it uses randomization to make sure that players still need to go through the motions, even on repeat runs. They can’t have magical foreknowledge of safe combinations or objective locations.
On top of that, we even see an (optional) return of the social stealth mechanic from Lady Boyle’s Last Party. It’s limited, and there are a lot of ways to break cover, but it feels good to hide in plain sight as I did in this mission.
As for the next mission, the most obvious mechanic being toyed with is conflict between multiple warring factions. We’ll see another twist on this core mechanic in Dishonored 2, but here it feels very much like they were testing the waters. They start with both factions hostile to Daud, but also each other. The player can use the tension between them to take care of guards without actually staining their own hands in blood. Then, once the Dead Eels become neutral to Daud, they feel the freedom of being able to navigate a space without being accosted by guards.
In terms of upgrades to the toolkit, this is where Corrupted Charms, that offer a positive and a negative effect, were first introduced. I have mixed feelings on them. While I like to make interesting trade-offs, Dishonored is a stealth game at its core. Therefore, it seems strange to take on effects that hinder the player’s ability to sneak around. Meanwhile, since combat is to be avoided, most players will ignore any adverse conditions that effect fighting prowess. It’s doesn’t matter if I take more health damage per hit, I shouldn’t even be getting hit in the first place.
The stun mines also start to finally give non-lethal players some utility in what they can do. They didn’t go far enough in The Brigmore Witches, but just starting to experiment with more non-lethal options opened the door for Dishonored 2 to refine a lot of what was introduced in both Brigmore Witches and Knife of Dunwall. It’ll be excited to speak more on that once we get to it.
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