One of the most highly anticipated titles of the year, “Dishonored 2”, is finally here. And now that gamers have had a chance to play around with it for a while, responses are actually surprisingly mixed. It looks like the game succeeded in living up to the expectations of fans, and even surpassed them in many regards.
On the other hand, it also suffered from certain issues that have painted it in a very negative light in the news recently. It’s actually surprising to see critics being so positive towards the title, judging by how much controversy it’s managed to generate due to its performance issues.
But at the same time, critics are also judging it on every possible aspect and not just how well it runs, and in terms of gameplay, it actually seems to be quite the solid title as a whole.
What issues does the game have specifically? PC players have reported very poor performance across the board, and it doesn’t seem related to the specific hardware configuration being used to play the title.
The problem seems most prominent when playing in a large open area, according to reports, although it seems to be mostly unpredictable. Players have made various attempts to resolve the situation, but even playing at the lowest possible settings seems to do no good for most gamers.
At the same time, there was a huge day-one patch which seemed to improve things for some, but at the same time drove some criticism towards the game due to the size of the update. This seems to be becoming a common trend in the industry unfortunately, as developers prefer to rush a game out the door and worry about adding some last-minute features later.
Gameplay-wise, the game seems like a fantastic experience by most accounts. The gameplay has been expanded significantly, and many of the common criticisms from the first game have been addressed. At the same time, some were a bit skeptical of how the game handled some aspects of its gameplay, particularly the clash between stealth and action that it presented at times.
This is nothing new under the sun either, as it was the main point of criticism for the original “Dishonored” too. However, it’s a little less excusable now, as the developers should have learned their lesson from the first game.
Other elements of the title are apparently more or less flawless though – from the art style to the atmosphere, “Dishonored 2” manages to deliver even more than fans were expecting. Those who’ve been itching for a stealthy action should definitely give it a try, and we expect that the game will stay in the headlines for quite a long time.
The way the issues on the PC are being handled has definitely been causing a problem for Bethesda though, and it looks like this issue alone could spell disaster for the game’s potential as a whole. It would certainly be a shame to see “Dishonored 2” being received poorly overall due to those problems, but it will also teach the studio an important lesson to finally start paying attention to their performance more actively.
We expect a patch that will address the performance to be out soon enough, although in these cases it can usually take a while before everyone is actually happy with how the game runs on their system. There is also the fact that the placebo effect will be in action for many players right now, and this could cause further problems for the developers.