[Emperor Smeat]

In the interview, lead designer Dinga Bakaba and creative director Harvey Smith focused on the new abilities and combative opportunities Dishonored 2 will offer. As we learned during the initial announcement at last year’s E3, the sequel adds the option to play as a second protagonist, Empress Emily Kaldwin, in addition to the returning (and newly talkative) Corvo Attano. Emily has an all new set of abilities that open up a vastly different playstyle from Corvo. Take, for instance, the Domino ability, as detailed by Smith and Bakaba. This power can be cast on a number of individuals, hostile or otherwise, and any action you inflict on one participant will translate to the rest. That opens up strategies both overt murder—linking multiple guards together and killing the one who’s isolated so the others die—and subtle—the devs described a playtester who linked a civilian and a guard, and then gave the civilian a harmless push at ground level, which caused the guard to fall off a ledge and to his death. Smith also elaborated on the increased focus on stealth since the first Dishonored with new abilities rewarding non-lethal playthroughs as much as those in which blood is spilled. The melee combat system is seeing some overhauls as well with new options like grabbing enemies in the middle of a fight. The enemies in question have some improved capabilities of their own. They are permitted to utilize greater verticality in Dishonored 2, often chasing the player across rooftops if there is an appropriate path.

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