(Apologies for the one week delay. I was away from home (overseas in fact), and wasn’t able to get an article out. I meant to mention something about it during that April Fools article, but forgot.)
This is going to be the first in a new article type that focuses on some of the best and most memorable levels in all of gaming. The idea behind this type of article was born from me realizing that an endless number of short Top 10s would not be enough to gush about great level design in gaming as much as I would’ve wanted to! So, I’ve decided to take things slow and work through some of my favorite levels in gaming one at a time, in this format.
(Also, as a side note, these articles will be shortened to “ugl” as the tag, if you ever want to search for them specifically in the future.)
First up to be evaluated is the peak of stealth action gameplay, Dishonored!
Dishonored is a series so bursting with unbelievably incredible and intricate level design that there genuinely may be more than one article in this new format covering missions from the series. Regardless, for the moment, I’d like to highlight what might be the most well-known mission from across the trilogy: “Lady Boyle’s Last Party”.
“Lady Boyle’s Last Party” is the fifth mission of the game, and it tasks you with successfully infiltrating the prestigious Boyle Mansion and taking down Miss Boyle herself in the midst of her grand annual gala. The issue complicating matters? There are three Miss Boyles, this is a masquerade party, and neither of the three sisters will openly admit their identity without their accuser providing proof, the whole affair becoming a sort of guessing game amongst the party attendees. So, not only do you not know which of the sisters is which at the party (Waverly, Esma, and Lydia), but you don’t even know which one you need to eliminate at the start of the mission!
From the word “go”, Dishonored is a series that prides itself on giving player’s a thousand and one options for how to deal with each and every single scenario one might encounter. You can go through each game in their entirety without ever being spotted by a living soul, and without taking a life. You can go on a maniacal rampage, slaughtering every single person in sight. There are three times as many tools and advantages at your disposal than you’d ever need in a single playthrough, highly encouraging giving these games more than one go-through. “Lady Boyle’s Last Party” just happens to be the most exciting and memorable of these missions, at least within the first Dishonored.
At the mission’s start, you have several options for how to even get to the mansion. You can sneak through the city streets and teleport across the rooftops, disable a security wall and enter from the side of the complex, briefly bend time to run past the guards and slip in undetected, or even possess a guard and just act like you belong. But, of course, why do any of that? If you explored in the previous mission and stole another man’s party invitation, you can just walk right in the front gate and be greeted with open arms!
Once entering the party, you don’t have to act stealthy at all. After all, this is a masquerade party, so a man dressed in all black with an identity-concealing mask is right at home! You can even sign the guest book with your own name, and if you do, it is referenced later in the game by some horrified aristocrats wondering how the empire’s most dangerous assassin slipped into a fancy party right under everyone’s noses!
So, you need to find out who your target is on a literal level (which of the sisters is funding the corrupt government), and then decipher which of the three masked Boyle women is that specific target. There are, as expected, many ways to go about this.
You can slip right into party mode and start gossiping with the guests, and even the Boyle sisters themselves. The more drinks you give them, the more info these partiers will start to give away, which can narrow down your list of possible suspects. Of course, this being Dishonored, you can also just murder everyone at the party and win by process of elimination, but subtlety is so much more fun, isn’t it? You even get bonus awards for completing this mission without ruining the party atmosphere by letting anyone catch on to what you’re doing.
So what other options do we have? Well, the Boyle sisters each keep a diary in their private chambers, and the target’s diary will be the incriminating evidence needed to both figure out the target and which outfit she’s wearing. The trouble is that these private chambers are on the second floor of the mansion, which is off limits to partygoers and considered hostile territory if you are spotted by the roaming guards therein. A degree of stealthy expertise is needed to make it to that second floor and back.
It’s a good thing that stealth options are plentiful in Dishonored. Just like making your way into the mansion in the first place, you can put many of the tools from your kit into play. You can stop time and quickly sneak past guards and servants in the small window you have. You can teleport to an outside balcony and slide through an open window. You can shimmy through the attic (discovering a secret chest along the way), and then drop down to the private chambers from the ceiling.
Or you can use my favorite method, which is to possess a rat from the kitchen, scurry through the piping of the mansion, and pop out in the upstairs bathroom. Just, you know, don’t get killed by the roaming servants who won’t hesitate to stomp at the sight of an errant rat!
Now that you know your target, it’s time to take them down. Again, Dishonored doesn’t shy away from letting you go nuts with the violence and destructive chaos. If you find out your target is Waverly and she’s in the red dress, then yeah you could totally just lob a grenade at her and book it for the back door of the mansion to make your escape. But, again in typical Dishonored fashion, the more subdued methods (both lethal and nonlethal) are usually so much more involved and exciting in the long-term.
The Boyle sisters could not be more different from each other, and depending on which one is your target (which, I should clarify, is completely randomized each time you play the game), the options you have for eliminating them change. Each sister presents her own unique opportunities for you to explore.
Waverly Boyle, the eldest of the sisters, is frequently paranoid about her safety. You can convince her that her life is in danger, lead her to a secluded part of the mansion, and then eliminate her there. Lydia Boyle is enamored with music, and by convincing her you are a talented musician, she will follow you to the distant music room, wherein you can shoo the other guests away and take Lydia out in private. Esma Boyle is, perhaps, the funniest, as her…shall we say, passionate disposition…means you can seduce her right upstairs into her bedroom. She’ll even believe you’re preparing for some sort of exciting roleplay if you draw your weapons in her sight.
The singular constant throughout the inherent randomization of this mission is Lord Brisby, who offers the token non-lethal option. Almost every single elimination target in the Dishonored series can be taken down with either lethal measures or a specific non-lethal option. For example, you can brand a corrupt official a heretic with a soldering iron, getting him exiled into the wastelands outside the empire. You can get the tyrannical High Overseer arrested for treason by broadcasting his highly incriminating personal notes across the nation.
Non-lethal does not mean that these methods are any more or less cruel or humane than the lethal ones, and nowhere is that more exemplified than with Lord Brisby. Regardless of whichever Boyle sister is your target, Brisby will be obsessively in love with her. Having discovered your plot to assassinate her, Brisby instead proposes you drug and sneak the Boyle sister down to the basement, where he will abscond with her to “live and love forever with me”. It’s extremely uncomfortable, and Brisby doesn’t hide his creepy attitude about the whole thing, and it really raises the question of how far you’re willing to go just to avoid killing someone. Maybe death is a mercy in some aspects.
Still, it’s an option. One of (as I’m sure I’ve made clear by now) hundreds of options available to you in “Lady Boyle’s Last Party”. Regardless of what path you choose, the Boyle sister in question is removed from the equation, and you make a clean getaway from the estate back to your home base, ready for the next mission.
Technically, I’ve barely even scratched the surface on all of the tiny ways in which you can influence the events of this mission, all the various ways in which your tools interact with the environment, and the numerous little secrets to discover inside and outside of the Boyle mansion walls. Dishonored is one incredible franchise, and I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it must’ve been to craft each and every mission. As someone who has fiddled with game design as a hobby, I couldn’t dream of making something this intricate.
And that’s why “Lady Boyle’s Last Party” is one of gaming’s most unforgettable levels.
The Contrarian Corner 