No matter what upcoming plans Dishonored developer Arkane Studios has hidden in a velvet-lined box somewhere, it looks like CryEngine will be a part of it. A recent hiring push by the Austin-based Arkane and Battlecry Studios for artists and programmers to work with the Crytek game engine has surfaced, pointing to a project separate from the Unreal Engine 3-based Dishonored.

Dishonored publisher Bethesda's VP of marketing Pete Hines had already described the first-person stealth action game as a "franchise" back in July, but it's unclear if the CryEngine project is tied to that game or not. Arkane has offices in both Lyon, France as well as Austin and we know from the push for more designers that at the very least the Austin branch has a CryEngine game in mind.

While much depends on the what game artists and designers have in mind, the choice of game engine can influence the look, feel and scope of the final experience, not to mention its development process. Notable current and upcoming games that use CryEngine technology include Star Citizen, MechWarrior Online, and of course, Crysis 3.

Hat tip, IGN.

Everybody knows that if you try to get a cat to do what you want—sit up, fetch a stick, search for explosives—it will do nothing more than stare at you with contempt. That’s why console pitches to PC gamers tend to fall flat: we’re generally not as interested in hearing how a bunch of suits want us to play our games. Nvidia took a much different approach with the Shield, on the other hand, that seems to account for what PC gamers have in common with cats: give us great hardware and the freedom to do whatever we feel like doing, and we’ll show ourselves a great time.

And oh, what hardware! Closed, the Shield looks like a largish Xbox 360 controller, with a handsomely textured plastic chassis and contrasting magnetically-attached silver plate on top (called a “tag”) that can be swapped for glossy or carbon fiber tags (available separately at $20 each). The top flips upward on a firm hinge to expose the 5-inch, 1280x720 glossy LCD touchscreen display and controller surface. The layout of the controller combines the best of the Xbox 360 and PS3 controllers with dual analog thumbsticks, a D-pad, A/B/X/Y buttons, left and right analog triggers and bumpers on the shoulders, as well as five buttons in the center for system controls.



At 1.3 pounds the Shield isn’t lightweight, but the ergonomics are nearly perfect—including a smoothly contoured undercarriage that allows your ring fingers to rest beneath the device—so I was able to play well over an hour before any fatigue set in (and over ten hours on a single battery charge, although that included a half-hour sandwich break and finger yoga). Only the slightly recessed thumbsticks felt a bit awkward at first, but the slight arch in my thumbs necessary to work them actually made depressing them easier.

On the Engineering deck you’ll find the brawniest Android hardware you can fit in a jacket pocket, centered around Nvidia’s own 1.9GHz Tegra 4 processor (with a 5-core CPU and a 72-core GPU) and 2GB RAM. The Shield also includes 802.11n dual band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS, an internal gyroscope and accelerometer as well as 16GB of internal flash-based storage and a MicroSD slot where I’m currently storing 32GB of movies, music, emulators, and disc images I ripped from vintage games (more on that in a moment).

But the real stroke of genius is the Shield’s unmolested Android 4.1 (“Jelly Bean”) operating system, by far the most popular mobile operating system in the world. All you have to do is pop open the Shield, hop onto your wireless network, and help yourself to any of the hundreds of thousands of Android games available through the Google Play store. The Shield wisely highlights Android games with controls and visual enhancements customized for the device and its Tegra 4 proc, as not all Android games support game controllers or control remapping, and not all the ones that do aren’t guaranteed to work well with the Shield. And you’ll want to be very wary of games designed specifically for touchscreens: while some are a pleasure, such as the enigmatic puzzle game The Room, there’s simply no way to comfortably play others, such as the Android port of the classic adventure game The Last Express which bizarrely only supports portrait orientation.



The games tailored for the Shield, on the other hand, play beautifully, with super-crisp detail and unflappable smoothness—especially first- and third-person action games such as Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, zombie abatement shooter Dead Trigger, and Max Payne.

The Shield’s most unique feature—no, make that its most downright bitchin' feature—is PC streaming. You can launch any supported game from your PC—via the Shield interface or Steam’s Big Picture mode—and play, oh, let’s say Dishonored, in the bathtub. Which I did. Or Tomb Raider on the couch. I did that, too. I won’t tell you where I played BioShock Infinite, but the main idea is that your PC does the heavy lifting and squirts the results to your Shield with—under ideal conditions—negligible latency. But Nvidia was right to label this a “beta” feature, because getting it to work is something of an adventure in itself. Non-Steam games need to be manually added to your Steam library in order to work, and the hardware requirements are extremely steep: You need at least an Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 (laptop GPUs aren’t supported yet), and your results will depend on the speed and sophistication of your router and the strength of your wireless signal. I used a $180 Asus RT-N66U provided by Nvidia, and even then, in the labyrinth of dead spots that is my home, it took a great deal of experimentation to figure out where to put it—and how far away I could move away from it—so that I could stream without excessive lag or hiccups.



That’s frustrating, but in a sense, it’s also inspiring. Because PC gamers have always been tinkerers, and we’re used to adapting hardware to our needs; at the very least, we’d rather have the option than not. Nvidia cut no corners on the hardware, so I was able to watch my MKV rip of “The Brothers Bloom” Blu-ray without recoding (using VLC). I played my FLAC files of Tomáš Dvořák’s tasty soundtrack to Machinarium through the superb speakers (which are better than most laptop speakers, though light on the bass). And by pairing the Shield with a Bluetooth keyboard for experimenting with command-line instructions, I was able to play the gruesome DOS classic I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream (with the $3.50 DosBox Turbo utility) from a ripped ISO of my dusty CD-ROM. I plugged in the Shield to my PC, and as it charged over the USB connection, I transferred a rip of The Neverhood through Windows Explorer and ran it on the Shield using the free “Windows, Linux, Unix Emulator” on the Google Play store—and played it on my living room TV via the HDMI-out. I used a PlayStation emulator to play Fear Effect on a warm night on my fire escape. I even surveilled my backyard with the AR.Drone 2.0 from Parrot, with a live color video feed from the hovercraft streamed to my Shield.

That’s not to say these feats were easy—not all of them were. But they’re possible, and don’t require “rooting” or workarounds as a result of file system lockouts. You have the same freedom to improvise and experiment that you expect from your PC or laptop—and don’t ever get from console manufacturers. Instead, you get the benefits of an operating system with an open architecture in a handheld that’s several orders of magnitude more sophisticated in hardware and design than any handheld that came before it.

If you have the desire and patience to exploit the Shield’s whopping potential, it’s a must-have—if you tried to take this thing from me I’d tear your arm off and make you eat it. If you don’t, it’s a tougher sell without reliable PC streaming and iffy compatibility with many Android games. Either way, the Shield is a magnificent funmaker that’s worth every penny, and if Nvidia can bullet-proof the streaming and continues to promote compatibility and support among developers, it has an even more glorious future ahead of it.

Remember when buying a game didn’t feel like a guarantee of seeing the ending? There are still hard games out there, Dark Souls flying the flag most recently, but increasingly, the challenge has dripped out or at least softened, often leading to sadly wasted opportunities. What would Skyrim be like, for instance, if its ice and snow wasn’t simply cosmetic, but actually punished you for going mountain climbing in your underpants?

With a quick mod – Frostfall in this case – you’re forced to dress up warm before facing the elements, and things become much more interesting. That’s just one example, and over the next couple of pages you’ll find plenty more. These aren’t mods that just do something cheap like double your enemy’s hit-points, they’re full rebalances and total conversions. Face their challenge, and they’ll reward you with both a whole new experience and the satisfaction of going above and beyond the call of duty.

Misery
Game: Stalker: Call of Pripyat
Link: ModDB



All those weapons scattered around? Gone. Anomalies? Now more dangerous. Magic mini-map? Forget it. Valuable quest rewards? Good luck. Things you do get: thirsty, and factions who send goons after you if you anger them. On the plus side Pripyat is much more active, with a complete sound overhaul, and new NPCs to meet – who all have to play by the rules too, with no more infinite ammo. If you can survive here, you’ve got a good chance when the actual apocalypse comes.

Project Nevada
Fallout: New Vegas
Link: Nexus Mods



Nevada is a good example of making things more difficult without being openly psychotic. Levelling is slower, players and NPCs get less health, and obvious features are now in, such as armour only being a factor in headshots if the target actually has head protection. It’s also possible to toggle some extra-hardcore options, such as food no longer healing and taking care of hunger/thirst/ sleep on the move. There’s a sack of new content, and an Extra Options mod is also available, offering even more control.

Brutal Doom
Game: Doom
Link: ModDB



Despite what modern ‘old-school’ shooters would have you think, Doom was a relatively sedate experience – fast running speed, yes, but lots of skulking in the dark and going slow. Not any more! Brutal Doom cranks everything up to 11, then yawns and goes right for 25.6. We’re talking extra shrapnel, execution attacks, tougher and faster monsters, metal music, and blood, blood, blood as far as your exploding eyes can see. It’s compatible with just about any level you can throw at it, turning even E1M1 into charnel house devastation. The enemies don’t get it all their own way, as Doomguy now starts with an assault rifle rather than simply a pistol, and a whole arsenal of new guns has been added to the Doom collection – including the BFG’s big brother.



Full Combat Rebalance 2
Game: The Witcher 2
Link: RedKit



This streamlines the combat and makes the action closer to how Geralt’s adventure might have played out in the books. He’s more responsive, can automatically parry incoming attacks, begins with his Witcher skills unlocked, and no longer has to spend most fights rolling around like a circus acrobat. But he’s in a tougher world, with monsters now figuring out counterattacks much faster, enemies balanced based on equipment rather than levels, and experience only gained from quests, not combat. Be warned this is a 1.5GB file, not the megabyte Hotfix that’s claimed.

Requiem
Game: Skyrim
Link: Nexus



Elder Scrolls games get ever more streamlined, and further from the classic RPG experience. Requiem drags Skyrim back, kicking and screaming. The world is no longer levelled for your convenience. Bandits deliver one-hit kills from the start. The undead mock arrows, quietly pointing out their lack of internal organs with a quick bonk to your head. Gods hold back their favour from those who displease them. Most importantly, stamina is now practically a curse. Heavy armour and no training can drain it even if you’re standing still, and running out in battle is Very Bad News. Combine this with Frostfall, and Skyrim finally becomes the cold, unforgiving place it claims to be.

Radious
Total War: Shogun 2
Link: TWCenter



Not only is this one of the most comprehensive mods any Total War game has ever seen, its modular nature makes it easy to pick and choose the changes that work best for the experience you want. Together, the campaign AI is reworked, as are the skills and experience systems, diplomacy and technology trees. There are over 100 new units. Campaigns are also longer, providing more time to play with all this, with easier access to the good stuff early on in the name of variety. There’s even a sound module that adds oomph to rifles. Add everything, or only the bits you want. It’s as much of a tactical decision as anything else on the road to conquering Japan.

Game of Thrones
Game: Crusader Kings II
Link: ModDB



Real history doesn’t have enough bite for you? Recast the whole thing with Starks, Lannisters, Freys and the rest and it will. This doesn’t simply swap a few names around, but works with the engine to recreate specific scenarios in the war for the Iron Throne. Individual characters’ traits are pushed into the foreground, especially when duels break out. Wildlings care little about who your daddy was. It’s best to know a fair amount about the world before jumping in, and the scenarios themselves contain spoilers, but you’re absolutely not restricted to just following the story laid down in the books.



Realistic Weapons
Game: Grand Theft Auto IV
Link: GTAGarage



Guess what this one does. A bowling league for Roman? Cars that drive themselves? A character who appears to tell Niko “You have $30,000 in your pocket, you don’t need to goon for assholes” after Act 2? No, of course not. These guns put a little reality back into the cartoon that is GTA. The missions weren’t written with that in mind, obviously, but there’s nothing stopping you from giving it a shot. Worst case: murdering random civilians on the street is much quicker, easier and more satisfying. At least until the cops show up to spoil the fun. Range, accuracy, damage, ammo and fire rate are all covered, though be warned that you shouldn’t expect perfect accuracy from your upgraded hardware. This is GTA after all. Realism is not baked into its combat engine.

The Long War
Game: XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Link: NexusMods



You’re looking at eight soldier classes, many more missions, invaders as focused on upgrades as your own science team, and a much longer path to victory. Research is slow, not least to make early weapon upgrades more useful, while the aliens are constantly getting more powerful. Their ships are better, their terror missions are more regular, and more of them show up for battle. In exchange, you get to field more Interceptors, the council is easier to appease, and the ETs don’t cheat as much.

Ziggy's Mod
Game: Far Cry 3
Link: NexusMods



Ziggy makes Rook Island a more natural place, removing mission requirements for skills, cutting some of the easier ways to earn XP, increasing spawn rates to make the island busier, and throwing away the magic mini-map in favour of a compass. The second island is also unlocked from the start. Smaller changes include randomised ammo from dropped weapons, being able to climb hills that you should realistically be able to, and wingsuit abilities made available earlier to get more out of them.

Terrafirmacraft
Game: Minecraft
Link: Terrafirmacraft



Minecraft has a Survival mode, but it’s not desperately challenging. Terrafirmacraft takes it seriously, with hunger and thirst that must be dealt with at all times, and key elements added such as the need to construct support beams while mining to prevent cave-ins, and a seasonal cycle that determines whether or not trees will produce fruit. Many more features are to be added, but there’s enough here already to make survival about much more than throwing together a Creeper-proof fort.



Synergies Mod
Game: Torchlight II
Link: Synergies Mod



This adds a new act to the game, over a hundred monsters, new rare bosses, a new class – the Necromancer – more and tougher monsters and the gear to take them on. There are also endgame raids to add challenge once the world is saved yet again, and more on the way – including two new classes (Paladin and Warlock). It’s the top-ranked Torchlight II mod on Steam Workshop, and easily the most popular. Be aware that it’s still in development, and has a few rough edges.

Civilization Nights
Game: Civilization V
Link: Steam Workshop



While Brave New World has officially given Civ V a big shake up, for many players Nights remains its most popular add-on. It’s a comprehensive upgrade, adding new buildings, wonders, technologies and units, with a heavy focus on policies and making the AI better. The single biggest change is how it calculates happiness, citizens adding cheer simply by existing, but the slow march of war and other miseries detracting from the good times. Annexed a city? Don’t expect too many ticker-tape parades. Yet keeping happiness up is crucial, as it’s also the core of a strong military. This rebalancing completely changes how you play, while the other additions offer plenty of scope for new tactics and even more carefully designed civilisations.

Ultimate Difficulty Mod
Game: Dishonored
Link: TTLG Forums



This makes Dishonored’s enemies more attentive, faster and able to hear a pin drop from the other side of the map. When you get into a fight, it quickly becomes an all-out street war. The biggest change is to Dishonored’s second most abusable ability: the Lean (Blink of course being #1). Corvo can no longer sit behind scenery, lean out into an enemy’s face and be politely ignored. He’s now much more likely to be spotted – especially in ghost runs, where his advantages are now limited to the Outsider’s gifts rather than the Overseers’ continued lack of a local Specsavers.

Hardcore
Game: Deus Ex
Link: ModDB



New augmentations! Altered AI! Randomised inventories! Also a few time-savers: instead of separate keys and multitools for instance, a special keyring has both, while upgrades are used automatically if necessary. Difficulty also changes the balance considerably, from the standard game to ‘Realistic’ mode where you only get nine inventory slots, to ‘Unrealistic’, which makes JC Denton the cyborg killing machine he’s meant to be, but at the cost of facing opponents who warrant it. In this mode he gets double-jumping powers, and automatically gobbles health items when he gets badly wounded. Good luck though, I still got nowhere.

There’s little chance Daud and Corvo would ever have been friends. One’s an assassin who killed an empress, the other’s a bodyguard who failed to protect one. Two inherently opposing forces, with blood and Outsider marks on their hands. Put them in a room without bladed weapons though, and they’d find they had a lot in common. Corvo is fighting to redeem himself in the eyes of the city. Daud accepts his damnation, and is just shooting for a little personal redemption. Both men get their chance.

As with the first part of the DLC, The Knife of Dunwall, playing as Daud feels immediately familiar but just slightly different. He has most of Corvo’s powers, plus a few extras such as summoning assassins to take out targets for him, and the ability to call in favours from his underworld contacts. More importantly, he gets a moral flexibility that Corvo lacked. Playing the former Lord Protector, ghosting felt like the ‘right’ approach. Playing Daud, that’s still possible, but helping to feed hungry corpse-rats or deciding “Nah” to a fiddly looking puzzle simply feels more appropriate.



His continued mission is to track down Delilah: a Brigmore Witch who lives down a dangerous river – a Brig over troubled water, if you will. It’s broken down into three missions, one re-using the prison from Dishonored, one set in Dunwall’s garment district during a gang war, and a final one in Delilah’s dilapidated mansion full of shrieking, rose-wrapped witches, living statues and other horrors. All are excellent. The first DLC started strong and then lost steam with a bland second mission, a boring, combat-heavy retread of the Flooded District, and absolutely no payoff. Each part of this finale however has a distinct theme and vibe we haven’t seen before, catering to both combat and stealth approaches, and Daud confirms himself as a more interesting character than Corvo ever was.

As with the main game, much of what’s good about it comes down to the details – the ability to buy Daud a uniform to go undercover in the prison for instance, or an elderly godfather’s reaction to you killing his nurse in front of him. The levels are packed with secrets, documents and general things to discover, and while most of the favours Daud can call on are a little boring, the ability to continue a save or get a ton of points up front means he gets to cut loose from the start.

The one disappointment comes in a cameo by Corvo, in a scene that frustratingly relies on Daud’s chaos level rather than – cough – a certain rather important decision made during Dishonored’s campaign to decide how the story ends. That aside, this DLC sends the game out in style. It’s more of the same, where ‘the same’ refers to quality rather than rehashed content – an honourable end, by even the Outsider’s ambiguous standards.


Expect to pay: £8 / $10
Release: Out now
Developer: Arkane Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Multiplayer: None
Link: www.dishonored.com

You fool! You didn't actually buy the excellent first-person sneak 'n stabber Dishonored, did you? As always, the fiscally sensible (read: boring) thing to do was wait for this: the Game of the Year edition, which has, with all the tedious inevitability of an Outsider encounter, just been announced. Of course, if you were really fiscally sensible (read: really boring), you wouldn't be buying games at all. And who wants to be that guy?

As you might expect, Dishonored: Game Of The Year For A Lot Of Publications In 2012, But Not PC Gamer, Because We Gave It To Mass Effect 3, Not That That's Really Important Right Now edition will bundle together the main game, the fun-but-throwaway Dunwall City Trials, and the two Daud-centric DLC packs, The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches. You'll also get the slightly problematic pre-order pack "Void Walker's Arsenal", which collects up all the in-game bonuses that were offered to early buyers, balance be damned.

But let's set aside facts and information, because you're probably wondering: "Phil, what does the front of the box that, due to digital distribution's dominance in the wake of retail's systematic failure at serving the PC market, I will never own *deep breath* look like?"

I'm glad you asked, incredibly convoluted question-asking person!



A topographical map of that one lead dude's mask, I guess?

Dishonored: Goaty Edition is due out October 11th, priced £29.99/€39.99

While Arkane did not fulfill our hope that Dishonored's next DLC would feature playable whales, I guess they've done as well as they can have without going the whole hog of adding cetaceous beings. Second and final story DLC The Brigmore Witches is out today, and judging by the launch trailer, it looks like the once-indiscriminate assassin Daud is now having some serious reservations about his chosen career.

Those slow-motion execution scenes are, as usual, rather grisly, making that pensive voiceover vaguely hilarious. Reflections on the meaning of life and death?Well, in our preview, Ian did find that the storyline was the most promising thing about this DLC, which is now on sale for $10 over on Steam. The Brigmore Witches carries on from where you left off in The Knife of Dunwall, even lifting your Chaos level and weapon upgrades from the savefile.

You'll probably know Polycount from their occasional Valve-partnered contests. Some of the site's users have made items now found in Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2. Those items have gone on to secure their creators big money hats, to be worn in a big money houses, built atop big money islands. (They made a lot of money, is what I'm saying.) The site also runs less lucrative, but equally creative contests - like this one in partnership with Sketchfab. The brief was to create low-poly gaming dioramas in the tool, and the results is a series of excellent, interactive tributes full of charm and detail.

You'll find a few (PC relevant) relevant examples below. Be sure to full-screen them for maximum impact, and remember: this is only a tiny portion of the full, frequently amazing thread.

Canabalt by adam



Dishonored by AzzaMat



Enemy Territory: Quake Wars by Shiv



The Secret of Monkey Island by hopgood



X-COM: UFO Defense by Saiblade



Mirror's Edge by robert.nally



I'll stop there before I accidentally embed the entire thread. Do go and browse it.

Voting for the contest's winner is due to take place next week. Good luck to everyone who entered.

Members of the Hatter gang hate Daud almost as much as they love hats.

Atonement can take quite a while, depending on the crime. After assassinating the empress at the beginning of Dishonored, master assassin Daud set out to redeem himself in Dishonored’s second DLC, The Knife of Dunwall. Now, Bethesda completes Daud’s story and puts him up against a new and dangerous enemy: the Brigmore Witches.

After a fitful dream featuring a cameo by a certain famous assassin, Daud wakes to find that he’s got a new mission. A coven of witches led by the mysterious Delilah Copperspoon is getting up to something at the expansive Brigmore Manor house somewhere upriver. “I cannot abide a mystery,” Daud intones, and charters a boat.

Or, he would, if he could ever do things like chartering a boat as easily as stepping down to the local travel agent. The best boat to take him past a blockade is run by a vicious gang whose boss, the scarred, tattooed, and abrasive Lizzy Stride, was recently busted and thrown into Coldridge Prison to rot. The bulk of Brigmore Witches is taken up by Daud working to free Lizzy and win the Dead Eels over to his cause.

Daud gathers his gear and heads out. The Favors system from Knife of Dunwall is still in place, allowing you to pay your network of assassins to bribe servants, sabotage doors and leave you caches of supplies nearby to help you through most missions. Most of the favors are outright bargains, and Daud has money to spend. Unlike Corvo, who lost everything at the beginning of his story, Daud is still sitting fat on a pile of dead-Empress cash. Daud can easily afford all of the favors and many of the upgrades available.

For the first mission, I spend 100 coins to purchase an old Overseer uniform. After skulking in the shadows for all of Dishonored and Knife of Dunwall, it feels bizarre and brazen to just stroll through the prison gates in a freshly pressed uniform, reeking of religious authority. Instead of skulking, I’m face-to-face with Coldridge’s guards as they complain about their duties. As I wander deeper into the prison to go about my fake Overseer business, I look for an interior door or unwatched hall to slip away and start to break Lizzy out of jail.

Of course, my false uniform is only good for as long as I act like an Overseer. As soon as I get spotted in a restricted area or found carrying an unconscious convict out the front doors, though, the ruse is up and it’s time to run.

Just like in the original Dishonored, the real pleasure of Brigmore Witches is found in moving through a mission without raising any eyebrows. It’s easy for part of the first mission, thanks to the Overseer uniform, but eventually Daud has to go back to being a ghost. But when things go wrong—and they will—Daud has a brand-new power to lean on. Pull unlocks Daud’s inner Jedi and allows him to levitate small items like keys, coins, and bullets, pocketing them from a distance. At higher levels, Pull can lift enemies off the ground and hold them until you disable or kill them. Daud’s trusty wristbow and summonable assassin helpers are also back for you to use if things really start to go pear-shaped.

Lizzy Stride. You may have rescued her from prison, but if you call her a "damsel" she will cut you.

When you do get in a scrap, new enemies mix up the sometimes-predictable rhythm of cutlass-and-pistol wielding city watch officers. The Dead Eels gang uses boat hooks instead of swords, giving them wild, long-range swings that you’ll need to get past to land any cuts. They also throw gaseous grenades of green river gunk that is less than pleasant.

The witches themselves are snarling balls of nastiness, and they fight like it. Members of the Brigmore coven throw frenetic combinations of spells and screams at you, making them especially dangerous. After a particularly bloody encounter trying to sneak past a trio of witches, I begin greeting members of the coven with a wristbow bolt to the head on sight: going toe-to-toe is just too risky. Some witches are accompanied by Grave Hounds, undead dogs that have a tendency to get back up after you’ve killed them once or twice.

All of the levels I play feel slightly smaller than vanilla Dishonored, but still feature a load of detailed world-building. As The Knife of Dunwall explored the whaling operations propping up the economy of Dunwall, Brigmore Witches spends a lot of time with the dockside neighborhoods and their warring gangs, and the steampunky flavor of the setting really starts to come out in the cobblestone streets and advertisements for Pratchett’s Jellied Eels.

Daud uses Pull on a Brigmore witch. She... seems irritated.

 

Though the levels have been designed with care, none of the puzzles I found were as difficult as the hardest missions in Dishonored. Those seeking incredibly difficult assassination missions may be disappointed. With Michael Madsen continuing as the voice of Daud and the story moving fast toward an inevitable confrontation with Delilah and the Brigmore coven, though, I think that the story itself promises to be the most satisfying part of this DLC.

Brigmore Manor is a beautiful setting for the DLC’s conclusion, and it’s a location I’m looking forward to exploring in full: just as I stepped onto the lush-but-unkempt lawn, I got a tap on the shoulder telling me I was cut off.

I’ll just have to wait until The Brigmore Witches is released next week to take a proper look around.

Perry recently told us about a mod called Gifts of the Outsider that imports the magic powers from Dishonored into Skyrim: Blink, Possession, Bend Time, Devouring Swarm, Wind Blast, and Void Gaze. I decided to the use the mod not just for its powers, but also to reenact the plot of Dishonored in Skyrim: the tale of an honorable man seeking revenge after being framed for a crime he didn’t commit. It’ll be just like Dishonored, only in Skyrim, and starring a furry woman with a tail. Just call me Khorvo.

Don’t worry, this will be supremely light on Dishonored spoilers, I'll cover a few of the activities you perform during the Dishonored campaign, Skyrim style. Let’s get started. What’s the first thing you do in Dishonored?

Play Hide-and-Seek with a Child

This is how REAL assassins train. Next: hopscotch.

I find some kids running around in Solitude, but they don’t want to play hide-and-seek, so we play tag instead. Minette Vinius and I chase each other around, forming a close personal bond that will surely keep me motivated in the dark days to come. I catch her and tag her and then I fast-travel to Whiterun so she’ll never be able to catch me and she'll be “It” forever.

Go To Prison for a Crime I Didn’t Commit

In Whiterun, I use a Frenzy spell on some guy standing around in the city. He goes nuts and starts attacking anyone nearby. The guards run over and arrest me while he is killed in the background. I’m shocked and outraged. I didn’t kill anyone! It was all him! You won’t get away with this! I will have my revenge! Looks like I’ve been... DISHONORED!

Can you believe the crime around here, officer? Wait, what did I do?

Escape from Prison

Not a problem! Pulling a lockpick out of my butt, I open the cell door, sneak through the prison, collect my gear, and slip back out into the streets. You’ll all pay for what you’ve done, I silently vow. All of you. It’s time to reclaim my honor. But how?

Meet the Outsider

Since I’m a wanted woman in Whiterun, I need to get away to plot my revenge. I head out to an abandoned house west of Riften, where I find a book and read it. I appear in Limbo, where everything is floaty and slanty, and meet The Outsider. He gives me the Blink power, which lets me teleport short distances. He tells me there are other powers I can collect by visiting his other shrines. Could these powers be the key to destroying those who wronged me?

I promise I'll only use Blink for good or for revenge or for fun.

Assassinate an Important Religious Figure

There are plenty of religious types in Skyrim, but when I think about one I’d like to assassinate, a particular zealot immediately comes to mind: Heimskr, the Nord Priest of Talos. Even if you don’t know his name, you know him: he’s the dude who stands in the middle of Whiterun and screeches incessantly about Talos, all day, every day. Oh, and is it a coincidence that the spot he stands in is just yards from where I was arrested for my “crime?” Not a chance. His death will mark the beginning of my quest to dis-dishonor myself.

This looks cool but I'm actually sliding off the statue for the 8th time.

I creep through Whiterun, using my new Blink spell. It’s neat, it really does zip you around, even on top of buildings, though I tend to slowly slide off. I blink onto the statue behind Heimskr, then to the ground behind him, and then I stab him in the back. I blink away onto a rooftop and the guards look around, confused, having no idea where I went. Actually, they don’t seem confused at all. They immediately shoot me with a bunch of arrows. I run away, but only because I'm in a hurry to reclaim my honor.

Now to just fold up my sword and OWW IT’S NOT A FOLD-UP SWORD

Now that Heimskr is dead, it’s time to find another Outsider shrine, collect a new power, and choose a new target. In the sewers under Riften, I find the shrine, caress the skull, and acquire the Devouring Swarm rune.

Assassinate Two People in a Brothel

Haelga’s Bunkhouse in Riften isn’t a brothel, but it sort of sounds like it could be. You know there are at least a few inappropriate back-rubs going on in there. I summon up a swarm of rats, and try to kill two people with them.

The perfect crime. Good luck trying to arrest swarm of rats, coppers!

Okay, the rats sort of killed everyone in the entire building. Those rats are NOT messing around. Having killed a room full of people with rats, a feeling seeps into my heart. I haven’t felt it in a long time, not since earlier today, but I know what that feeling is. It’s honor, slowly returning to me. I collect the Possession rune near the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary, and I’m on to my next mission.

Abduct a Doctor on a Bridge

The first step goes well: I head to Dragon Bridge. I run into a bit of a snag here, though, as there do not appear to be any doctors out for a stroll across Dragon Bridge today. For a lesser assassin, that would be a problem, but I’m clever enough to find the owner of a lumber mill sitting nearby. A lumberjack is sort of like a doctor for trees, if doctors killed all of their patients and cut them into pieces, right? (The answer is: right.) He’s not on the bridge, but that can remedied with my new Possession spell. I leap into his mind and run him onto the bridge, where I pop out of the back of his head.

Revenge is a dish best served inside an innocent lumberjack’s head.

Having gotten him onto to the bridge, it’s time to abduct him off the bridge, which means possessing him again. I steer him off the other side of the bridge and into the wilderness. Abduction accomplished! I figure I’ll just keep possessing him and repossessing him and making him run so far away he’ll never find his way back, thus completing the abduction, but thirty seconds later we run into a bear and the bear kills him.

Looks like I got out of this dude’s head just in time.

I’ve just used magic to get a lumber mill owner murdered by a bear. I’m one step closer to regaining my honor. I visit another shrine and collect the Wind Blast rune.

Kill a Fancy Woman at a Fancy Party

There actually is a dinner party quest in Skyrim, but I’ve already completed it, so I need to find another fancy lady at a fancy place and kill her, fancy style. For honor. I know! The Blue Palace at Solitude. It’s the fanciest place I can think of.

Making sure to avoid Minette Vinius (I don’t want to get tagged “It” again!) I run through Solitude and enter The Blue Palace, which is run by Elisif The Fair, a fancy woman. I creep into the throne room, where there are some people hanging around. Looks like a party to me. Sorry I didn’t bring any WINE, I growl from the shadows, but I did bring some WIND!

Get it? Wine. Wind. Almost the same word. And so forth.

They don’t seem to get my wine/wind joke, probably because they are being slammed all over the room by magic wind. It’s a great spell: it’s like the Unrelenting Force shout, only you can hold down the button to keep it on, sending everyone flying all over the place until your Magicka is drained. After blowing everyone around the palace for a while, I head to the nearby mountains to collect the Bend Time rune. It’s time to kill the most important person in Skyrim.

It’s Time to Kill The Most Important Person In Skyrim

I figure the Jarl of Whiterun is the most important person in Skyrim, except for maybe me. I sneak into his chambers in the dead of night, slipping past a couple guards after slowing down time. It doesn’t quite work how I want: I was perfectly hidden from them until I cast the spell, which made them aware of me. The spell slows down time just fine, though, and even having seen me, the guards don’t seem to care that I’m creeping around near the Jarl’s bedroom casting time-bending spells in the dead of night.

You can’t really tell, but he is dying in slow motion. I can vouch for that.

The Jarl has an honorable, slow-motion death as I hack at his sleeping body. The guards run over to arrest me, and I try telling them that I’d rather die than go to prison, anticipating a fun Blink-filled escape from Whiterun. Unfortunately, Skyrim does that thing where it doesn’t select the line of dialogue I’m pointing at, so I accidentally bribe the guards and they peacefully escort me to the front door. Oh well.

Skip A Big Part of Dishonored’s Story To Avoid Spoilers

My easiest mission yet! I collect the final rune, Void Gaze, so I guess we’re ready for the big finale:

Kill Someone At a Lighthouse

Back in Solitude, I run around the lighthouse long enough discover there’s no one important in the lighthouse or on top of the lighthouse. There’s only Ma’zaka, the lighthouse keeper, but he’s downstairs in his little chambers. I sneak in, and use Void Gaze, which works like Detect Life, letting you see people through walls. I could possess him, run him up to the top of the lighthouse, and Wind Blast him off, but when you’re possessing someone they can’t open doors, so I have no way to get him out of his room. If I want to kill him, I’ll have to kill him right here.

Yep. There he is.

This isn’t quite the grand ending from Dishonored, though. I know that killing people with rats and blasting a fancy woman into her own ceiling and getting a lumberjack bear-mauled were all necessary -- absolutely necessary -- to regain my honor. But killing Ma’zaka, a humble, harmless lighthouse keeper in his own bedroom to end the story... it would just be complete anti-climax, wouldn’t it?

Yep. It was a complete anti-climax.

Lesson learned: if you want Dishonored’s story, go play Dishonored. If you want to have fun with Dishonored’s powers in Skyrim, though, this mod works great.

Installation: I installed this with the Nexus Mod Manager, but the mod looks as if it's just a single bsa and esp file. So, if you're doing it manually, just download the files and plop 'em in your Skyrim data folder (Steam > steamapps > common > skyrim > Data). No magic required.

Looking for more Skyrim mods? We recently updated out grand list of the best 50 for your perusal.

I’ve never been much of a magic user in the Elder Scrolls series. Reading spellbooks, memorizing incantations, and finding robes with just the right thread count simply takes too much time for the busy rogue that I am. Luckily for me, someone has implanted Dishonored’s mysterious ability-giving being known as “The Outsider” into the world of Tamriel.

The Gifts of the Outsider mod grants you six of the powers you were given as Dishonored's titular assassin, Corvo, which include the ability to slow time, teleport across environments, and summon an army of rats to aid you in glorious battle. The teleport ability (known as Blink) was my primary means of transportation in Dishonored, so to see it in Skyrim’s expansive world is nothing short of a dream come true.

You can find the mod on the Skyrim Nexus website, which also explains how to endow yourself with powers through console commands, skipping the custom quest where you'd normally receive them. Those who also wish to don Corvo’s assassin attire can download the files here.

Between this and the amazing Falskaar mod (though you could practically call that one an expansion), it’s difficult to come up with something you can’t change, fix, or improve in the world of Skyrim. You want bunny mounts? Superhero costumes? Whatever the hell this thing is? The world is your modifiable oyster.