At the beginning of Dishonored 2, players will play as Emily before coming to a point in the narrative where they must choose between continuing to play as Emily or switching to Corvo, according to Mashable.
Once the decision is made, it is permanent for the entire playthrough. While some would surely have enjoyed being able to swap between the two characters from mission to mission, Arkane Studios says playing as one character or the other will feel noticeably different.
“Emily fights with a little more finesse than Corvo does,” co-director Harvey Smith said in an interview with Mashable. “Whereas Corvo has the very classic Possession, Rat Swarm, Blink, Emily has Far Reach, Shadow Walk, Mesmerize – these powers that nobody has heard of.”
Far Reach is Emily’s stand-in for Corvo’s Blink ability. When Far Reach is used a “magic tendril” will shoot out from Emily’s arm and pull Emily towards her target. This is quite different from the instantaneous Blink ability, but Far Reach Promises to be useful in other ways.
“You can stick to walls, you can yank somebody toward you and assassinate them in mid-air, so you have these synced assassinations in mid-air,” Smith said. “It begins to feel different, and it adds momentum. You can run and jump and it has rope physics to it.”
Both Corvo and Emily will be fully voice-acted, so players will get differing opinions on events happening in the story as they play, depending on which character they chose.
“Corvo’s an older guy, he’s coming home for the first time to Serkonos. Emily is like an empress outlaw on the run, and she’s young, she’s 25,” Smith said. “There’s a different theme in the narrative sense, in the literary sense.”
Dishonored 2 was announced at E3 2015 and will be available for PC, PS4, and Xbox One in 2016.
