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For all its alluring, intricate world-building (those misty whisky tumblers, the squeaking bench clamps, the crackling electric cables, the perfect uniforms), and distinguished design, there's a part of my brain that recoils when presented with a game like Dishonored 2. It may indeed be possible to enter Karnaca as a kind of aristocratic Rambo, clattering through doors and windows without restraint, head thrown back in deafening laughter while you fire a pair of muskets into the enemy throng. But I can only ever play as a benevolent creeper, clinging to shadows, choking out guards with a whispered "sorry", before gently laying their limp bodies on a nearby banquette, and, of course, stopping to save my progress every few feet. Being spotted in a game like Dishonored 2 is, for me, a fate equal to death: it forces me to load my game in order to maintain the façade of a perfectly clean score sheet. A recent research paper found that games that allow their players to exhibit their "ideal-self characteristics" are more motivating than those the do not. In other words, if you always wanted to be a creepy boss who constantly hits on staff, then you're going to love Mass Effect, a game that allows you to woo subordinates in your downtime between, y'know, saving the universe and such. But with Dishonored 2, that's not quite it. No person who puts their thoughts into words and complacently publishes them for all to read could ever reasonably claim that their 'ideal self' is a character who cowers and skulks in the shadows hoping that they'll never be noticed. No, with Dishonored 2, my chosen approach is in response to how I believe the designers hope that I will play; I'm trying, in a way, to please them.
Immersive sims pride themselves on providing players with a range of possible ways to approach their problems and obstacles. But any game that reports, via its HUD, whether or not you've been spotted by nearby guards implicitly suggests that you're supposed to go un-noticed. And by offering an achievement to the player who makes it to the end without ever being spotted, Dishonored 2's designers surely betray their hopes: that you will play carefully, not recklessly, and that you will leave things much as you found them.
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