Dishonored: Dunwall City Trials DLC Review

Dunwall City Trials is the first slither of DLC for - the BAFTA award-winning - Dishonored. It offers two fistfulls of extra missions, filled with gameplay situations that weren’t narratively plausible during the main campaign. The standalone nature of the extra content has allowed Arkane Studios creative space to plonk the player in any situation they see fit, without being bound by the narrative restrictions.

It’s a mixed bag really, with some glimpses of brilliance, some flashes of mediocrity and a handful of average. On top of this is a price tag that’s in line with that of a block of cheese. I believe it wouldn’t do the content justice to just gloss over it in general and sweeping statements - and I wish to be informative enough to convince you of its value - so I will give you some idea of what you can expect from each bitesized, gameplay chunk.

Stealth Missions 

Mystery Foe

The first of two stealth missions, Mystery Foe, tasks you with finding the identity of, and assassinating, your target. You start in a mansion full of potential victims, and no idea who they are, or what they look like. You must use guile, Blinking between the light fixtures, and behind curtains, or occasionally possessing a rat to slip through a wall.

The point of all this skulking, is to find various clues that are dotted around, each pointing to the identity of your target: gender, colour of attire etc. The time you take, and the amount of clues you find before sinking the knife into your foe’s soft neck, both affect the score you receive at the end. If you kill the wrong target, you fail. If you are seen, and in the ensuing panic your target escapes, you also fail.

There are many sets of eyes dotted about, and the challenge will test even the sneakiest of sneakies. Once you manage a two star rating - out of a possible three - you unlock an Expert version of the mission. About half of the missions have this unlockable extra.

This ramps up the stealth difficulty, forcing you to stick to the light fittings like the meatiest moth in existence. On top of this, some of the clues are attached to the character’s belts, meaning you better have fast reflexes if you want to identify the mark.

This mission is brilliantly tense when it clicks, but falls apart when you inevitably fail and strike down the closest human, who just happens to be your target. However, when you’re using Blink to steal a clue out of a room like a gust of wind, it’s brilliant, and stealth fans - like myself, will enjoy the cheek clenching game of cat and mouse.

Burglar

Burglar asks you to channel your inner Garrett, and stalk your way into an ethereal mansion in hunt for the riches stored inside. Your main objective is to steal the six clockwork eggs dotted around the property, with two on each of the three floors. There are a good spread of options available to the player with plenty of different insertion points into the mansion, and a plethora of possibilities contained within.

Inside, the guards patrol in figures of eight, twisting and weaving between each other, with just enough of a gap for Corvo to slip between them unnoticed. “But why don’t you just get stabby, Kirk?” I hear you say. Well, you have to try and contain your homicidal tendencies just this once because you will have points deducted for your stab-happy ways.

Even unconscious guards will count against your score, so the best players will leave the mansion completely untouched, apart from the clockwork eggs and the other assorted valuables contained inside, of course.

Unlocking the Expert mode of this mission rewards you with a complete stripping of powers, regressing the gameplay to a bare-bones stealth experience - and I must say, it’s exhilarating. Looking through keyholes, instead of just activating Dark Vision, slipping under tables, instead of stopping time - it creates unbelievable tension, especially when you’re trying to reach the exit after a perfect run. This particular mission is my personal favourite in the DLC, a tidy little stealth package, with the perfect balance of tension and euphoria, it’s a must-play for any Dishonored fan.

Combat

Back Alley Brawl

Back Alley Brawl is the first combat flavoured mission, playing like a fast-paced, power juggle. You play in a closed-off arena, with airborne opportunities in the guise of protruding canopies jutting out of the buildings barring your retreat. A Whale Oil dispenser also provides explosive possibilities against the various factions that spawn in growing numbers as the waves progress.

Point scoring is based on killing quickly and stylishly, with bonus points awarded for chaining kills, not using potions, and taking no damage. A ghostly apparition appears from time to time, providing you with the chance to chop him up as he drops potions and upgrades like a meaty pinata.

Runes spawn every few rounds, and retrieving them grants you an instant upgrade, opening up more powers to use. Victory will come to those who can juggle their powers the most efficiently, with later stages throwing a relentless mixture of enemy types at the player. The combinations of enemies are like nothing you face in the main campaign, and it will test even the most sadistic of Dishonored fans.

Expert mode sees the combat difficulty ramped up a level, and grants the enemies constant awareness of the player’s location. With the main game’s stealth focus, this mode is fun for a while, giving you a chance to unleash Corvo’s true, destructive power. This mode is a ‘happy place’ for those frustrated with stealth, allowing them to vent their frustrations on the monkey-limbed AI. “Oh, saw me did you? Well you can’t see me now, can you. You don’t have a head!”

Assassin’s Run

Unlike Back Alley Brawl, this mission has its eyes firmly on the sights, or the crossbow to be precise. Again, one of the tools that, for many, went underused in the meat of the story. It’s a target practice for the assassin who prefers to distance themselves from the kill, with each corridor closed off until all foes are dispatched. There are often innocents loitering near your targets, causing the player to err on the side of caution, whilst simultaneously building up to faster runs.

The mission contains no potions, so being spotted means you better have a fast trigger finger. The aiming system - which is a product of the character wielding a knife in his right hand - can be a bit fiddly, with its semi-auto lock and fractional input required from the player. Like the others, the mission is an experiment, and it’s one of the least successful. It’s a good place to brush up on your crossbow skills, but not much else.

Puzzle

Oil Drop

This one is pretty straightforward. It’s a chance to hone your pistol skills in a clay pigeon shoot of an explosive nature. The player starts on an isolated platform, with a train line hanging in the air in front. A train pulls up and flings clay pigeons for you to shoot.

The pigeons are tanks of Whale Oil, which are colour coded, with some benefitting the player - hello, Bend Time - and some hindering them - hello, vision obscuring cloud of black smoke.

Instead of a timer, if you keep missing your shots the exploding tanks will eventually kill you, causing you to fail... because you’re dead. Tactics aren’t really involved, just a steady arm, impeccable timing and a keen eye. This is one of the weakest of the set, providing just a throwaway distraction at best.

Bend Time Massacre

As the title of this mission helpfully suggests, this one is all about killing people who are stood still, in limited time. You trigger events by breaking a window, and time slows as you cut your way through the enemies. As the amount of people you must kill increases, so does the amount of ways in which you can kill them. Your allies are the grenade, panicked stabs and lunges.

In between rounds you get a chance at earning some extra points, with your participation in a bonus round. These each have a name, with the name corresponding to the task the game wishes you to complete - some are obvious but most are needlessly vague.

The first of these rounds presents you with a brick and the words “Blunt Force Trauma” flash up on your screen, and you know what you must do, you must introduce the brick to some faces. The second of these grants you with possession and displays the title “Propaganda Bonus” - I still don’t know what the game wanted me to do.

Personally, I’m not a fan of this particular mission, mainly because I don’t find helpless, stationary enemies very challenging. If you need to figure out how to kill lots of people really fast though, this is the mission for you.

Kill Chain

Channeling the exact same gameplay from the Bend Time Massacre, Kill Chain asks you to kill lots of people really fast. Instead of breaking glass signalling the start of the round, Kill Chain starts with a punctured throat. As soon as your first enemy is down, a three second timer starts to tick down, resetting with each successive kill.

The one main difference from this and Bend Time Massacre, is the fact that you walk among your victims before the action starts, thus allowing you to place Whale Oil tanks in strategic locations. As with BTM, this mode comes complete with vaguely titled bonus rounds, which by now you know I’m not a fan of.

So another stationary stabfest, with added urgency, Kill Chain offers nothing revolutionary.

Agility

Bonfires

Bonfires throws you into a floating, parkour playground and tasks you with sprinting, leaping and Blinking between three randomly placed checkpoints. It starts with you running aimlessly, desperately trying to spot one of the beams of light puncturing the skyline, and eventually evolves as you familiarise yourself with your surroundings - becoming your playground.

Expert mode adds obstacles in the shape of assassins who will annoy you by pulling you towards them with sorcery... and then killing you, which will also set you back a bit. Another challenge that you face on the higher difficulty, is limited mana, which you can replenish from the potions that are now helpfully dotted around the map.

Bonfires is at times exhilarating, and often frustrating, but again provides a good couple of hours of content, and all the while you’re perfecting how gracefully you can manipulate Corvo, paving the way for some slick moves in the main campaign.

Train Runner

Train Runner has the feel of a set-piece that never made it into the game. A sprint race, with routes snaking through the environment like muscle fiber, twisting and turning vertically as they overlap one another. These muscles and tendons twist around a bone - a bone in the guise of a train track. The track has a single train run its course, right to the race exit. You can intercept the train, and it’s surely the quickest and most efficient way through the race - as the crow flies.

What this leads to is a frantic sprint to intercept the vehicle, Blink-assassinating enemies as you go, but trying your best to avoid direct confrontation. Once I had mastered getting onto the train, I decided that Expert mode was in order, and I was in for a nasty surprise. Firstly, you only have enough mana to perform two teleportations before you must wait for it to recharge, so your timing must be impeccable. This makes catching the train much harder, and even after I finally did, Arkane decided to kick me in the face with different dangers lurking where none were before and I loved them for it. I am a masochist.

This mission has a sense of action and urgency, and I could easily imagine something similar making its way into the inevitable sequel, as the brilliant free running mechanics were hardly touched upon in the main campaign. It feels great to just be able to throw yourself around the map, and at times it feels like a more emergent Mirror’s Edge, which is the biggest compliment I could muster.

Kill Cascade

Like many of the missions, this final slice of the DLC pie, feels like a training ground for one of the skills you may have used sparingly in the main story. Kill Cascade asks you to fall to the checkpoint, down from various distances, breaking your fall by landing on a guard, with your dagger. Bales of hay are for wimps.

Each enemy is colour coded, with each colour representing a different tactic: sprint and fall, double-jump and fall, or double-jump, Blink and fall. Your points are calculated from successful kills, the distance you fall before each kill and the time it takes for you to reach the bottom. Expert mode adds obstacles, and you will also take falling damage when you miss - which happened to me a lot.

The mission - as I mentioned previously - acts as a training ground for a useful skill in the campaign, and it isn’t much more than that.

Summary

Ten slices of gaming, some brilliant, some average. Each mission costing roughly the same as two pints of milk. I honestly could not recommend this enough. Even if you play each mission for an hour, that’s ten hours of extra Dishonored for the price of a taxi into town.

If you’re a fan of Dishonored, or even wanted to be, but were put off by any of its systems, there will surely be something in here for you. The missions that stood out for me, might be the ones that sink to the back for you, or you could even love every single one of them.

If you no longer have the game, this isn’t worth picking it back up for, but if you want to sharpen your blade, ready for the Knife of Dunwall, now is the time.