Life is full of choices, but virtually all of the decisions we make every day are depressingly inconsequential. Shall I have tea or coffee with breakfast? Shall I wear grey or black socks today? Games, however, rarely include much choice, and when they do it tends to be big, important-sounding decisions. Good or evil? Execute or subdue? Save or harvest? Dishonored steers clear from such ham-fisted, black and white decisions and instead takes a more subtle approach to decision making. How the game ends is dependent, not on a handful of discrete decisions, but on the amount of chaos you have created throughout the entire game.

Dishonored plays as a first-person action adventure game, where you undertake missions in large sandbox environments with multiple ways of meeting your objective. At its extremes you can choose to play with either straight stealth or with bombastic action. You could spend every mission sneaking around through the shadows, reaching your target without anyone even noticing your presence or, on the other hand, you could use your special powers and weaponry to destroy anyone who gets in your way, bringing a whirlwind of chaos and death to the industrial city of Dunwall.

During the game you play as Corvo Attano who has the job of bodyguard to the ruling Empress and her young daughter Emily. Shortly after your return to Dunwall from a foreign mission the Empress is cruelly assassinated, Emily is kidnapped and the blame is put squarely and unjustly on your shoulders. The only way to clear your name, and return Emily to her rightful place on the throne, is by escaping from captivity and eliminating each of the conspirators involved in the usurpation one by one. How they each meet their demise is entirely up to you.

The first target on your list is the High Overseer of an oppressive religious authority who (it is said) keeps a little black book with him that contains information on the whereabouts of the kidnapped child. You can opt to eliminate him by sneaking into his office through the window and taking him out in cold blood, or by switching the drinks prepared in his office so that he drinks from the cup of the general he intended to poison, or by knocking him unconscious and carrying him to the interrogation chamber, where he can be branded as a heretic and shunned for the rest of his life.

Each of your targets can be neutralised in some way rather than executed, if you can find a way, or persuade somebody to help you by doing them a favour. This gives you the option of keeping your hands clean and not killing a single person for the duration of the game, your targets for assassination included. The morality of these choices is extremely grey, however. It might seem kinder to leave somebody alive, but if you are sending them to a fate worse than death then you may not feel like the better person for doing so. Every character in the game has their own secret ambitions and desires, and no one is simply black or white. The nastiest of people might give you aid, if it is to their advantage, and those who seem to have your interests at heart may have another agenda once all is said and done.

Dishonored offers the player choice, not only in terms of whether to dirty your hands with the blood of your targets or not, but also by the way you reach your target in the first place. Each area is intricately designed to provide a huge variety of options. If you're in a building, you can probably get on the roof and maybe work your way over to the building next door and down into the attic. Or you could find a way into the sewer and come up through the basement. Or simply possess a guard and walk through the front door. The level design is exemplary and never feels forced like it can in so many other games. Buildings, vents and sewers feel as if they are there because that is how the city is built, rather than because the developers had to provide a certain number of options.

The city of Dunwall itself is really the star of the game and rather overshadows your own silent protagonist. The old whaling port is suffering from a terrible plague and the population is under strict control by the authoritarian government to slow its inevitable spread. It is the intricate detail put into the city that really tells its story of loss and decay; the pneumatic blockades that trap plague sufferers in their own homes; the automated announcements that ring out across the city spewing propaganda and detailing regulations; and the groups of rats that gather in basements and sewers where they devour corpses in a noisy tumult, spitting blood and splintering bone. There are no cut scenes to pointedly explain the story to you, instead it is there to be witnessed, absorbed and slowly understood. The main plot, in fact, is rather rudimentary and predictable, but the real story is in all the little things that each form a small piece of the bigger picture.

The citizens of Dunwall also tell its history, sometimes long after they themselves have been lost to the plague. Careful exploration of the disintegrating streets can reveal abandoned houses containing a trove of treasures and secrets, written in books or painted on the walls by people left to rot in the dark corners of the world. This sense of history is compounded by Dishonored's distinctive painterly art style, which makes you feel as if you've walked through an oil painting and into the very history it represents. The story takes place in an alternative past inspired by 1800s London, where the oil extracted from the carcasses of whales has become the power source of choice. It provides energy for all the contraptions that the new regent has built to control his unruly population: the impenetrable walls of light, the deadly arc pylons and the towering tall boys who roam the streets on mechanical legs and rain down terror on anyone who dares to break the imposed curfew.

Survivors can be found cowering in the rooms they have blockaded themselves inside and some choose to defy the Overseer and worship, instead, the man known only as The Outsider who gives them hope for a better future and an end to the plague. Shortly after your escape from prison, Corvo is visited by The Outsider himself and given special powers to help him on his mission. These powers allow Corvo to become a superhuman assassin and different powers will benefit different people according to their preferred play style. If you take a stealthy approach then the abilities to teleport, see through walls or possess humans or animals might be more useful to you. Teleporting (or Blinking as it is known here) opens up the roof tops of the city for exploration, whereas possession allows you to explore the rivers or drainpipes as a fish or rat. If you are more prone to get into a fight, then options include powers to summon a swarm of rats, throw people back with a blast of wind or vaporise enemies in a cloud of ash to save you tidying up any corpses left in your wake.

These powers do not come without a price, however. The currency for their purchase is runes which can be found scattered throughout the city, in particular at the shrines to the Outsider built by survivors. On your first meeting the Outsider gifts you with a clockwork heart of mysterious origin and this helps you to find not only these runes, but also bone charms that each offer small additional bonuses. Careful exploration of the buildings surrounding your route to the target can, therefore, be highly rewarding. Not only runes, but safes stuffed with treasure and people with valuable information are all there waiting to be found.

It is only with multiple play throughs and an enormous input of time that all of the secrets of Dunwall could possibly be revealed to the player. The vast number of possible routes and ways to eliminate your targets is staggering. Choosing to let someone live may open up new possibilities later on that you would never expect and buying different powers can reveal new routes that were not open to you the first time around. Whether you choose to stick to the shadows and keep your hands clean of blood, or whether you use your powers to destroy anyone who stands in your way, Dishonored is constantly engaging. This is a deeply intricate world, full of mysteries, possibilities and choices that will change the fate of a kingdom forever.

Accessibility Issues

1. Visibility

Dunwall is normally presented with a decent amount of contrast. The indoor environments, in particular, tend to be brighter, but there are still some dark places to travel through and a few missions take place at night. There is an option to alter the brightness which helps with this.

The most useful feature to improve visibility, however, is the Dark Vision ability. This lets you see through walls and picks out enemies and useful items. During use the background turns brown while enemies are shown in yellow, items in green and machinery in blue. This only becomes available on purchase of the ability, but helps enormously to be able to see where things are.

There is very little red in the game so I do not think the colour blind will have any trouble with it.

The on screen information is all very clear to understand. Your health and mana bars are presented in blue and red, and any waypoint markers you have switched on are shown in white.

The menus are written in white on black and are easy to read and use.

2. Hearing

A healthy amount of information is given visually by the game. There is a visual indicator of how alerted a guard is, which turns red once they begin to attack, and another indicator shows you from which direction you are taking damage. There is also a visual indicator to show when a grenade has been thrown and where it is. Another aid, which will be extremely useful for the deaf, is that the player can be alerted to the proximity of certain useful items and the imposing Tallboy enemies through rumble in the controller.

The main thing that will help the deaf, however, is the Dark Vision ability and I would advise them to purchase it as early as possible. This shows you what guards and animals are in the area by picking them out in bright yellow. The ability is particularly useful for checking whether there is an enemy in the next room before entering. It also gives you a visual representation of how much noise you make and, therefore, helps you to minimise it if you choose a stealthy approach.

There are a few bits of information which are only given with audio cues, but not many. Whistling and muttering let you know that a guard is in the area and these sounds are not subtitled. There is also no visual indication to let you know that an alarm has been activated and reinforcements are on the way.

Despite the slightly reduced amount of information given by the game, I believe the deaf would be able to reach the end with very little disadvantage when playing.

3. Subtitles

Subtitles are available, but are written in white in a sans serif font with no box. They are on the small side and often difficult to read. There is never any indication of who is speaking and there are no closed captions. There is an option to switch on subtitles for incidental speech as well as the main dialogue.

It's a shame that the subtitles are so poorly presented as dialogue forms a very important part of the experience and helps to flesh out the world and its characters. The player is also occasionally presented with options to choose from that are written in similar text, meaning that this is a problem for everybody and not just the deaf.

4. Precision

The degree of precision necessary will depend on how much fighting you choose to get involved in. The game can be completed without killing anyone and enemies can all be taken out by creeping up behind them and subduing them. This simply involves getting in a position behind them and holding down R2 for a period of time when prompted to do so.

If you choose to use crossbows and guns then careful manipulation of the left analogue stick will be necessary, but there are both auto aim and aim assist options to help. The sensitivity of both of these can be adjusted to suit and the camera sensitivity can also be adjusted if you wish.

There are no QTEs or button mashing. Buttons must sometimes be held down to turn valves and suchlike, but this is the only requirement.

Timing is rarely an issue but can be important during exploration. It is possible to travel further if you Blink when at the very peak of a jump, for example. Grabbing chains also involves pressing square after jumping to it, but I found that Blinking into a chain gets around that problem as you automatically grab it. Using Blink as much as possible also means that you can avoid problematic first-person platforming as you have a visual indication of exactly where you are going to end up.

5. Controls

Controlling Corvo involves both analogue sticks for moving around and using the camera. Combat involves the shoulder buttons: R1 and R2 are for attacking and blocking with your sword while L1 uses whatever weapon or ability you have selected.

Holding down L2 brings up a quick-select wheel to select between crossbow darts, a pistol or any of your special abilities. The directional keys can be used to quick-select your favourite items or abilities.

The face keys are used for jumping, crouching and using items.

There are a few different layouts to choose from, but they do not help much. Three of them switch around what each of the shoulder buttons do and the last option maps sprint to L1 instead of L3 and holding down triangle brings up the quick-access wheel.

The keys are not customisable and the game would be impossible to play one handed with a standard controller.

6. Difficulty

There are four difficulty levels on starting the game: Easy, Normal, Hard and Very Hard. The level can be changed at any time during play, but the degree of difficulty will also depend on how you choose to play the game. Completing the game without killing anyone will require more effort and multiple restarts. On the other hand, spending time searching for runes and bone charms will make life easier as they increase your abilities.

Game play is not especially difficult overall. The multiple routes mean that it is difficult to get stuck as there is always something else to try out if one route fails. Health packs are plentiful and it is always an option to fight your way out of a difficult situation or simply run away.

Summary

For a game of its type, Dishonored is surprisingly accessible. The options menu, in particular, is impressive and offers a huge number of options to tailor the game to suit your play style. Apart from the poorly presented subtitles, the visual information is good and the colour blind should have no problems. The controls use much of the controller, but they are relatively simple and do not require the use of multiple buttons at once. The large range of difficulty levels also allow more people to explore this exciting world with easier combat if they so wish.