Now Playing: Death of the Outsider

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider is a standalone expansion for Dishonored 2 in which you play as Billie Lurk, on a final mission to kill the mysterious Outsider. I picked it up in a recent sale for 3.99 and I’m glad I did – not only because it’s a solid and enjoyable piece of content, but also that I didn’t pay any more for it.

‘Expansion’ feels like a rather generous description of DotO. There are only five missions, two of which share the same ‘hub’ area, and one of which is a recycled map from Dishonored 2. None of the missions are particularly substantial, and if you only focus on your core objectives, you can easily blast through the game in less than 5 hours. But because I’m a fan of the Dishonored world and story, I wanted to take my time, explore the maps, collect all the lore and complete all of the additional objectives.

Even so, I’d wrapped up my playthrough of DotO in less than 10 hours, and I can’t honestly say that any of the side content was really worth my time – it felt more like content added in purely to pad out the game and justify the ‘expansion’ label and higher price. I wouldn’t be so critical of how the game was sold and marketed if it was just released as a simple DLC, because that’s all it really is.

 

But if you’re going to call it an expansion and charge more than double the DLC price of say, the excellent Brigmore Witches DLC for Dishonored 1, you’d better back it up with a substantial piece of content – not five short missions, two of which share the same hub map and one of which is recycled from the base game.

I don’t want to hate on DotO too much for how it was sold, because if you’re a Dishonored fan then I certainly think it’s worth picking up – just don’t pay more than a few quid for it.

As far as the story goes, DotO essentially wraps up the remaining plot threads left dangling from Dishonored 1 and 2. In some ways, it could be viewed as the end of the Dishonored series as a whole. And despite my issues with the quantity of content, it’s not a bad way for the series to end. That doesn’t mean I hope we don’t see more of Dishonored in the future – but if we don’t, at least the series can go out on a satisfying note.

 

In terms of gameplay, DotO is pretty much identical to Dishonored 2. Billie has 3 supernatural abilities, all of which are useful and pretty fun to use, alongside several weapons and gadgets. The missions, though short, are pretty well designed and in some ways, I’d actually say they’re more interesting than those in the base game, many of which were disappointingly linear.

There’s not really much replay value here, but I’m sure one day I’ll play through the entire Dishonored series again. And overall, the quality of the Dishonored series – both the base games and the DLC – has been consistently great. So if you’ve never played the Dishonored games I’d highly recommend checking them out.

And if you’re already a Dishonored fan then Death of the Outsider is worth checking out too. But like I said – just don’t pay too much for it.

6/10