**Minor spoilers for Dishonored to follow**
Anyone who has talked to me for more than ten minutes surely knows of my love for Dishonored. So when I heard that there was an expansion coming to Dishonored 2, I was over the moon. The Expansion, dubbed Death of the Outsider will center around a powered up Billie Lurk trying to do exactly what the title would expect, kill the outsider. The trailer for Death of the Outsider shows Billie Lurk sneaking into a rundown building before taking out a few thugs. Her methods to eliminate the thugs are what really piqued my interest. For anyone not familiar with the universe of Dishonored, the Outsider is the source of all supernatural abilities in the game, meaning that should someone with those abilities target him, he could just as easily take them away. So, to counter this, it would seem that Billie has no supernatural powers but rather cybernetic enhancements that give her a new power set. In the trailer we see her use an electrified sword, a sort of stun pulse, and it’s implied that she can see through walls with her new eye. After eliminating the thugs, she opens a door to Daud, a well-known character to those familiar to the series, and this is where I’m left somewhat disappointed. Let me explain: The backbone of Dishonored’s gameplay is player choice. You choose how to complete your missions; what paths you will take; and most importantly, who lives and who dies. In the first Dishonored you had the choice to either kill or spare Daud. Should you spare him, he promises to quit his life as an assassin and move somewhere far away, never to be seen again. So, In Dishonored 2 when Billie says “No one has seen or heard from Daud for years.” It could apply to either choice, meaning your choices are validated. Now that we know Daud is alive, we are essentially being told that there was a right and wrong choice, that if you chose to kill Daud and take revenge for the empress then you were wrong. I admit there may be another, less concrete explanation. The world of Dishonored is one filled with magic and mysticism after all. Perhaps Daud was brought there by the Outsider whose reach stretches beyond the boundaries of life and death, and could thereby be alive regardless of your choice. I hope this is the case because if not and Daud is simply alive, Arkane has effectively taken the power out of the players’ hands.
