Dishonored
Incredibly detailed steam-punk world. Play the way you want - stealth or shoot/slash ‘em up.
– Real player with 288.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Assassin First-Person Games.
If Bioshock and Assassin’s Creed/Far Cry had a baby, this would be it.
Super fun and highly recommended!
– Real player with 44.7 hrs in game
Dishonored 2
Dishonored 2 - is this a game for you?
Right now, the game is undergoing a spell of patching after a very poor PC release. The game worked for some, but not for many, and so your mileage will vary depending on your PC (not necessarily how powerful it is either - but how balanced, how much VRAM you have and such). As most reviews already centre around performance issues, I won’t spend too much time on those because I’d rather review the game itself but please bear them in mind (they are mentioned in the ‘not so good’ section below)….
– Real player with 111.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Assassin First-Person Games.
My experience with this game can be summed as thus: every update I found myself testing the changes, nodding in satisfaction, then quitting the game to await the next update.
Arkane knows how to make a good game. No question. But if you film an Oscar-worthy movie and the lens is smudged while filming, you can’t judge what’s underneath without acknowledging what’s been marring your experience the entire time.
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PERFORANCE
Everyone is aware of the performance issues, and these still persist to this day. It runs much better than at launch, where it was literally unplayable, but that’s because the game looks worse than before - the most noticeable change being the extremely aggressive LOD scaling. Out of the corner of your eye you notice the shapes of window frames and posters on distant buildings morphing in shape, or the furniture at the opposite end of a long hallway suddenly blinking into existence. FPS dropped to 15 when stabbing a gravehound, so they simply removed the inky visual effect that was causing the problem instead of optimizing it.
– Real player with 111.0 hrs in game
Dishonored®: Death of the Outsider™
Caution: This review includes information that will spoil Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall and Dishonored 2 for some readers!
While Dishonored and Dishonored 2 focus more on the politics of the Empire of the Isles, the side stories – The Knife of Dunwall, The Brigmore Witches, and now Death of the Outsider – explore the playable characters’ inner conflicts, as well as the dark, supernatural sides of the game series’ lore. This allows the developers to expand on the game universe without over bloating the main series titles, and give the side stories their own tone and personality.
– Real player with 29.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Assassin First-Person Games.
Roughly a year after Dishonored 2 its expansion pack, Death of the Outsider, was released. Events take place just after its predecessor: we now take control of Billie Lurke and, initially, our job is to find her old mentor, Daud. Once he is located we are tasked with killing the Outsider. An interesting plot (even more interesting is the ending) that will continue in the 5 chapters the expansion pack offers.
New (albeit fewer) powers
It’s always nice to see what new ideas developers come up with. I thought Billie’d probably have Blink and Dark Vision and some new powers. Instead, even these powers have slightly been changed. We teleport by using Displace which first requires us to put a marker somewhere and only then can we finally complete teleportation. if the marker is put on an enemy he’ll die a gruesome death with bloody parts flying every which way.
– Real player with 28.3 hrs in game
Assassin’s Creed® Syndicate
Taking place closest in history to us, the game takes place in Victorian England following the Frye twins and their goal of taking back control of London from Templar hands, following the assassination of Edward Kenway years earlier. Having a unique opportunity to play as two different people, switching from one to another in a matter of a second, the game gives us two different perspectives from the same side, one that abides by the Creed and follows in her father’s footsteps focusing on the Piece of Eden, and the other swaying away from his sister’s goal to take matters into his brawling hands by forming a gang to take down Templar lieutenants, crippling their control. Gang members act in the similar way as Assassin recruits did in some previous games, helping protagonists in a more direct way rather than from the shadows.
– Real player with 99.5 hrs in game
A bit on the shorter side probably due to my 100% only if it seems fun approach. I love London as a city irl anyways and seeing all the places in ac-style was as awesome as it gets. The story is pretty light weight and after the first few missions you can go to pretty much the whole map. Some features from brotherhood I kinda missed and you look always so classy. Never really figured out how to do the multi finishers tho and refuse to learn it after completing all story missions and all side missions at least once
– Real player with 68.0 hrs in game
Styx: Master of Shadows
SLIGHTLY IMPERFECT BUT WELL-EXECUTED AND TRUE STEALTH GAME
There are three things you need to know about this game.
1. It’s chock full of potty-mouthedness, including from the main character.
2. It is NOT a game you want to play if you like being the alpha badass.
3. It ranks up there with the original Thief games and others (skip down if this is all you care about).
I’ll address these and more in sequence in this review. It’s a long one, but maybe worth the read.
First off, as regards #1 above, if you’re too young, or if you, your parents, or your professed god do not approve of you being exposed to cussing and other adult humor, skip this game, cuz it’s not for prudes. That said, it’s all just words, put-downs, and sarcasm–only a little more advanced than the stuff that your average first-grader might hear daily on the playground or in the back of the school bus. I didn’t see any nudity or erotic content, so you won’t have to worry about that. Nobody was particularly racist, gay-bashing, etc., although masculine status does get insulted in a few spots. There was at least one subtle joke about masturbating–again, nothing that kids don’t know about already. Guards pee, and you can see the stream from any angle, but the source organ is never rendered; in fact, pants never come down, although associated movements do occur. I’d give it a PG-13 if it were a movie.
– Real player with 138.0 hrs in game
Caveat: the recommendation is intended for existing fans of the stealth genre. If you’re not familiar with espionage/infiltration gameplay, you’re unlikely to gain an appreciation for it in “Styx.” Though the story is decent, that plot progression is gated behind some maddeningly patience-trying stealth sequences, especially at the end.
Hope you’re looking for a challenge, because “Styx”, like DMX, is gonna give it to ya. Some of this difficulty is deliberate (enemies such as Knights and Elves, difficulty selections such as ‘Goblin’, mission insignias, etc). Sadly, some of it is a consequence of mixed design goals and sloppy controls/interface. What’s more frustrating than getting caught because, instead of dropping off the ledge to slip past a patrol, you instead slid across that same ledge and climbed up onto the next platform? Rather than the clever use of environmental interaction that worked in the same situation earlier, the same commands now send you on a completely unanticipated course, like some kind of slapstick scene in a comedy show. And in full view of the two Knights and elite crossbowman who had nothing better to do than hang out on the same balcony. All. Fucking. Night. The answer my friends is nothing. Nothing is more frustrating than that.
– Real player with 74.6 hrs in game
Thief
Thief is an Action/Adventure/Role-Playing/FPS (First Person Sneaker) game, set in a Victorian Gothic world but, with primitive electric lights and machinery typical of the early 20th century, as well as some unique and very imaginative devices. The characters are a blend of aristocracy, soldiers, commoners and beggers, some with British accents and, some who sound like they came from the streets of Brooklyn. The theme casts a hint of paranormal hope in a disease-ridden city of despair. The player is a thief named Garrett, who lost his female counterpart, Erin, in an accident which resulted in Garrett’s near death. After his recovery, amnesia swallowed most of his memories of the past year. So begins his search to find out what happened to him and, to learn Erin’s fate.
– Real player with 1322.5 hrs in game
I really wanted to like Thief - and so, in a way, I did. But it helped not to think of it as a Thief game but rather more Batman - if Batman couldn’t fight and also was a relentless kleptomaniac.
The game is a quick eight chapters, some better than others. For example, one takes place in a brothel, and is so predictable with its silly attempts to be lurid that it’s laughable. Another takes place in an abandoned asylum and is actually unnerving. The deeper into the game you go, though, the more pat the levels are, the less finished they feel, and the less engaging they are. And the less you care because the character development is so lackluster, and the dialog so poorly written, that you cannot get involved in the story, even if you want to.
– Real player with 161.0 hrs in game
Styx: Shards of Darkness
Ah, yes. Styx. You know, I’ve never actually finished the original. Got about halfway, then lost interest. So this game already did better in that regard, since I’ve not only gotten all achievements but actually enjoyed it enough to keep playing after. So what can you, a potential buyer expect?
Let’s get the obvious things out of the way first. It’s a stealth game. Not a stealth-action game like Dishonored. Pure stealth, which means that you’re not meant to fight fair. The combat system is very basic as a result, and on the highest two difficulties it’s outright disabled. If you get caught, you either flee or turn invisible.
– Real player with 106.3 hrs in game
After almost 75 hours of play, it’d be hard for me to say I didn’t get my money’s worth, but while I had a blast (most of the time) playing Styx: Shards of Darkness, I think it was frequently in spite of the game rather than because of it.
Shards of Darkness is a stealth-focused, third-person action game with some great, sprawling maps that often had many paths to your objectives. The main character, a chatty, 4th-wall-breaking goblin named Styx, has a ton of unlockable skills and tools up his sleeve that offer a lot of replayability, despite most of those maps being reused two or three times. The game is at its best when it drops you into a level with all your tricks and leaves you to yourself to find your way. Unfortunately, it also suffers from some hyper-annoying bugs and poor design that will account for the vast majority of your deaths and reloads.
– Real player with 77.7 hrs in game