Dishonored 2 - Background Details

Eurogamer takes a look back at Dishonored 2 and likes the attention to details in the periphery.

In an age of complex 3D environments, though, it's now all about looking up. "Players new to our games are not used to being able to climb everywhere on everything," explains Carrier. "I think it has to do with some sort of unconscious conditioning. In the first [Dishonored], some players were not climbing at all because they assumed that, if it was climbable, there would have been a UI prompt, so we had to add a prompt every time the system was detecting a possible climb. But we didn't do it for Dishonored 2, probably because we assumed that, nowadays, climbing and verticality were more common, with the Deus Ex, Assassin's Creed or Batman series being very popular."

Still, one of my favourite secrets in Dishonored 2 has gone unnoticed by so many players. Even if you haven't played developer Arkane's immersive sim, you'll probably be familiar with the Clockwork Mansion level. Filled with switches and pulleys that transform the construction around you, it's home to unhinged inventor Kirin Jindosh. In thrall to his own brilliance, he refers to his mechanical mansion "a testament to engineering itself". It's ironic, then, that the mansion's real creator, Arkane, presents this shifting maze to its players with no hint of self-importance. If players just glance up as they enter, they will see a skylight - they only need to shoot out the glass and use spectral powers Blink or Far Reach to teleport up into the rafters. From there, they are free to creep through the mansion's inner workings, ignoring the splendour of much of this reshuffling residence, never pulling a single lever to make the clockwork gears whir.