#I have seen one or two tidbits that interest me but base surface level he's not that funny.

[death-rebirth-senshi]

Would be funny if in the distant future I finally played Baldur's Gate 3 and was actually into Astarion like everyone else

#I have seen one or two tidbits that interest me but base surface level he's not that funny. #or at least no one's sharing anything I find very funny. #I keep forgetting he's a vampire. #Don't find him remotely attractive but in general Baldur's Gate 3 really isn't. Sexy to me. Despite it clearly having sex all over the plac #It lacks. Sensuality? Something. I don't usually get off to video games on their own anyway #people are also mostly sharing the jokes so you know. I don't have a very full picture here. #None of the men are really attractive to me except for Wyll #typically on find my own ocs hot anyway

[darknessfactor]

DOTO Thoughts

Spoilers below.

Game, I dub thee, “the game that had some cool ideas and a lot of potential and absolutely wasted all of it”.

I’m going to start with the bad, just to get it out of the way.  Bullet points are acceptable, yes?

Billie was given very little motivation of her own, taking her cues from Daud instead and making the game about him when it should’ve been focused on her.

People have already done a much better job of explaining why Billie and Daud’s motivations make no sense than I could, but anyway, their motivations make no sense.

The level recycling was a bit exhausting.

The scene where the Outsider shows up and takes Billie’s arm and eye is... very violent.  And I don’t necessarily mean that in the way you might be thinking, but I think it’s important to note that the Outsider, who has never shown any inclination to touch anyone before, suddenly manhandles Billie and essentially forces her powers on her.  There are some uncomfortable implications that go along with that, especially when you consider that he gave the Dishonored 2 main characters a choice, but not Billie.

The lack of the chaos system.  The game doesn’t have the stakes of the previous game, and it damages Billie’s character development immensely to have her be able to kill people indiscriminately without any consequences.

“Daud never stopped killing.”  This makes absolutely no sense to me, because the fact that he canonically let Billie go would mean that he would’ve had to be low chaos in Knife of Dunwall.  But according to Thomas (I’m assuming that was Thomas), he’s still the same assassin?  Sure, game.  Sure.

Missing pieces of lore.  Sure, killing the Outsider/turning him human renders him unable to give magic to people, but the game doesn’t explain what happens to those he’s already marked (of which I’m pretty sure the only one who’s left alive is Emily).  

Apparently Arkane has decided to stick with their insistence that all witches are evil.  Great.

Now, here are the things that I thought were interesting, or had potential, but didn’t end up going anywhere or were underused.

Billie’s connection to the change in time at Stilton’s manor.  Obviously this is important, as it’s the reason for her nightmares and the reason why she can see all the hollows, but for some reason the game never does anything with it.  Billie never expresses any interest in finding out why she has the dreams, and she never gets to find out that the reason she loses her eye and arm is because Emily went back in time and saved Aramis Stilton.  I personally think that the main plot of the game should’ve been about her figuring this out, but that could just be my fanfic getting to me.

The juxtaposition of Billie and the Outsider.  Again, the game had some interesting moments where it’s pointed out that the Outsider and Billie have gone through similar experiences - of not having a choice, and of undergoing childhood trauma.  It could’ve been a fascinating parallel throughout the game, except that it’s ruined almost immediately by - you guessed it - the Outsider not giving Billie a choice in accepting her powers.

And honestly this one upsets me on a personal level, because I love both characters and I love the idea that there was this connection between the two because of their similar experiences, and also because they’re both able to see the world in ways that ordinary people are not, but again: the game did nothing with it.

The relationship between Billie and Daud.  There was no tension between them at all.  I feel like there should’ve been some initial wariness and even some animosity between them at first - after all, it’s been fifteen years, and the last time they saw one another Billie had betrayed him.  They shouldn’t have just been like, “Yeah, it’s all good, let’s just do our thing.”  I expected more there.

The Eyeless.  On the surface, just another nut-job cult, but more insidious than they appeared.  But again, Arkane could’ve done a lot more with them.

There was the whole thing about Delilah’s witches joining the Eyeless after Delilah was overthrown, and it was clear that the witches had contempt for their fellow cult members.  To them, the Eyeless were just a bunch of wanna-bes.  Arkane could’ve taken this plot and run with it, could’ve turned it into an eventual civil war within the cult, could’ve given the player the ability to manipulate both sides - it would’ve been the perfect example of how it’s the choices we make determine our fate, because in the end the cult would have self-destructed.

I think, in general, I think that this game should’ve been about Billie taking down the cult, not the Outsider, because the cult is poisoning Karnaca from inside.  The game showed that the Eyeless are at every level of society; uncovering it would’ve been a way for Billie to continue her story, but I guess Arkane wanted to capitalize on the Outsider.  We know that the Eyeless are pretty terrible, and if Arkane had really wanted to get the Outsider involved, then you could make saving him an optional action at the end of the game.  At any rate, doing this would remove the issue with terrible motivation for Billie and Daud.

The ‘choice’ theme.  At least, I think Arkane wanted this to be a theme.  The Outsider talks about Billie having a choice, his whole creation revolved around him not having a choice, human beings are the ones who make their own choices, etc.  Once again, this is ruined by:

The Outsider not giving Billie a choice at the beginning of the game.

Billie basically being a robot who follows Daud’s orders, instead of choosing to help him for her own reasons.

And now, the things that I liked:

On a very superficial level, I like the non-lethal ending.  Yes, I am aware that realistically speaking, the Outsider will probably die within a few weeks because of his lack of real life experience, but I’m instead going to headcanon that he ends up living at Dunwall Tower as an advisor, becomes the biggest advocate for environmental awareness and reform in court, and adopts a lot of cats.  Like, a LOT of cats.  And names them after his marked.

Billie’s attempts to write a thanks-but-no-thanks letter to Emily killed me.  KILLED ME.  And yes, that’s almost entirely because I ship them.

The hollows were cool.  Kinda pointless, but cool, nonetheless.

It’s still fun to play.  If you completely ignore the character development and the plot, then you can still have a blast.  Billie’s powers are great, the exploration is fun, and the puzzles are still fun to solve.  

Those rare moments when Billie actually seemed like a person - “A secret knock?  Really?”  and “Cryptic little shit.”

The little tidbits of what happened to the Dishonored 2 characters.  I love that Billie keeps newspaper clippings about Emily and Sokolov.

Worldbuilding and the overall aesthetic was still pretty cool.

As you can, based on the above... the things I like about the game are not the things that are important to me in a game.  I can forgive a game with a nonsensical plot if the characters are still interesting and engaging (*coughLightningReturnscough*), but Death of the Outsider couldn’t even be bothered to do that.  Instead, most of the characters fall flat, and for the first time in my life I’ve found myself playing a game purely for the gameplay.  I haven’t seen a mess this bad since the KOTET expansion from SWTOR.

It wouldn’t be accurate to say that I’m upset.  After learning about That One Writer, I expected something like this.  But I am angry.  I’m angry on behalf of the people who are fans of Daud (even if I’m not one), and I’m angry as a fan of Billie.  And so, I will do as I have always done: I will turn to my fanfiction, ignore canon, and move on.

(But make no mistake, I’ll be low-key bitter for a while.)

#dishonored #dishonored 2 #dishonored: doto #death of the outsider #billie lurk #daud #meta #doto spoilers #amaya talks crap #currently my cat is on my lap #so i'm not as mad as i was #anyway wow this is long #goddamn #dishonored critical #also if anyone has anything to add #or feels like they need to call me out on something #feel free