Good level design ?

[Ben.E]

I've seen some reviews praising the level design in D2 and while there are some good levels like Karnaca there are also some badly thought out locations.
The Dreadful Wale for example, a large sea going vessel with a crew of .. er ... one!
And who in their right mind builds the throne room of a palace on the rooftop with only a 10 foot square elevator for access?! All those people and the robots in the opening sequence came up in that tiny elevator ... really?
The Dust District is centered around the idea of the silver mines but there aren't any ... not even a locked entrance.

[Pig Overlord]

IDk, whole game felt short. They were talking about manipulating time so much in trailer etc and you could only do it in one mission like wtf....

[Dystructia]

You can do it in one mission, but what you do overall for the main part of the mission reflects the outcome. Like what happens to two characters if your cards are played right.

[MindCrime]

Well, they had to design the levels for either low or high chaos play styles, with or without using powers, and expected people to not see everything in their first playthrough. With all the multiple routes to objectives I think they did a good job with level design.

I just left the dust district on my first low chaos Corvo play through and have 37+ hours in the game so far. I'm kind of anal about getting every damn rune and bone though. But I'm looking forward to starting over as Emily and going on the rampage...

[Plattsy]

Originally posted by BEN.E:

And who in their right mind builds the throne room of a palace on the rooftop with only a 10 foot square elevator for access?! All those people and the robots in the opening sequence came up in that tiny elevator ... really?

It is a bit weird how the robots managed to come up to the throne room (I guess they could've jumped up. Don't know if they are THAT capable though) But the people would've come in through the regular doorway that you used in the first Dishonored game (top floor on the left inside Dunwall Tower. It definately is big enough to fit them all in relatively easily). You can't see it in the sequel though cause Delilah got her coven to block it up so the elevator Or Jessamine's secret quarters is the only way up.

Also if I had all the money in the world and a huge tower. I would put all my stuff up there. Towers are cool!

[Sad Pug]

To me it's hilarious that they explain the poor performance of the game on how complex and open world the locations are, when in reality some those are much smaller than in the first game.

I mean, first game wasn't big or long in the first place, but Karnaca is actually really small level with the illusion of being big, because of all the npcs that only walk around and floors of the 2-3 buildings you can enter.
Compare it to mission 2 in the first game, where while it had intersections, it was bigger. Here it looks like it's all about the floors, which are not that important to reach your goal.

[Marjan]

Originally posted by Arn1:

To me it's hilarious that they explain the poor performance of the game on how complex and open world the locations are, when in reality some those are much smaller than in the first game.

I mean, first game wasn't big or long in the first place, but Karnaca is actually really small level with the illusion of being big, because of all the npcs that only walk around and floors of the 2-3 buildings you can enter.
Compare it to mission 2 in the first game, where while it had intersections, it was bigger. Here it looks like it's all about the floors, which are not that important to reach your goal.

right, exploration doesn't feel connected

[NRieh]

Actually, putting the monarch's quarters\ throne room on top of the tower makes perfect sense. When\if something happens, it would be possible to keep those defence positions long enough. Saferoom has water supply & food rations. If need be the royal guards\royal protector can make their stand and protect the monarch, even with rest of the palace being already taken. Limited access is easy to control, and I don't htink we've heard of aerial strike forces in Dishonored universe (not just yet). :)

The only issue I have with the Dunwall tower layout is the location of the Royal Protector's chambers. It's right in the middle of the castle and there's no shortcuts for the royal chambers and\or upper level. They can basically surround it, lock him away in his room and move on for the Empress\Emperor. As I see it, he's supposed to stand between the monarch and their possible enemy, or (at the very least) be close enough to help asap.

[VESPA5]

I think Dishonored 2 has its fair share of very interesting and well designed areas for assassination (like that clockwork house, wow, not only were you figuring out how the house levers worked, but you constantly had the person you were trying to kill/knockout egging you on making you want to find him even more). Overall, ghosting the levels are biggest challenge here (at least for me). The level of alertness is so hair trigger-like that the second you're found out, it's force pull, hack and slash time.