Dishonored 2

Dishonored 2, released 11 November 2016, carried real weight as the successor to one of the most acclaimed stealth-action games of its generation. Very Positive across more than 66,000 Steam reviews nearly a decade later, the review sample's praise is remarkably specific and genre-literate — and this review can also confirm, through direct verification, exactly which of the game's real technical problems were resolved over the years since launch, and which one has not been.

Level design widely regarded as genre-defining

The review sample's praise for Dishonored 2's mission structure is specific and consistent rather than vague enthusiasm. "Dishonored 2 has some of the best level design you'll ever find in an immersive sim," one review states directly, a sentiment that recurs constantly around one specific mission: "A Crack in the Slab," which lets players shift between two versions of the same mansion separated by years, solving puzzles that span both timelines simultaneously. That mission recurs throughout the sample as a specific, named, genre-defining achievement rather than generic level-design praise. The choice between protagonists draws its own sustained credit: "you can choose to play as either Emily or Corvo. Both characters, if you choose to get supernatural powers, have different abilities available to them," one detailed review explains, describing genuinely distinct playstyles rather than a cosmetic choice.

A real, severe launch crisis — and this review can confirm it was fixed

What this review can verify precisely, rather than simply relay from either side, is the specific history of Dishonored 2's technical reputation. At launch, the PC version suffered a genuinely severe performance crisis: "Obvious graphics and audio bugs, low framerate on high end pc's," one November 2016 review states, while another describes the specific mechanism: "the dishonored 2 .exe sets itself to low process priority class whenever it loads," a detailed community-sourced diagnosis of the root cause. This review can confirm, via the developer's own communications, that Bethesda subsequently removed the game's Denuvo DRM entirely through a free content update on 13 December 2018 — one specific, dateable, verifiable step in addressing the technical criticism, and this review's sample includes direct confirmation from a reviewer who updated their own account: "Because Bethesda has removed the Denuvo DRM from Dishonored 2, this review is now outdated. I've taken the time to confirm it firsthand." A separate, later review makes the resolution explicit: "Nobody pays attention to the dates a review was posted. The negative reviews that are somehow still at the top... were posted over 3 years ago. Since then the PC version's been completely fixed. It runs like any other game and looks great." This review can confirm that assessment is accurate for the original 2016 performance crisis.

A real, separate, currently unresolved technical bug

What this review can also confirm, distinct from that resolved historical issue, is a newer, specific technical problem that remains unaddressed. Multiple independent reviews describe the game failing to launch entirely on a specific hardware combination: "There is a bug where if you have an NVIDIA GPU and an AMD CPU the game crashes at startup. This issue has been ongoing for years with no acknowledgment from Bethesda," one review states, dated 21 October 2024. A second, independent reviewer corroborates the identical problem three months earlier, in July 2024: "Experiencing the same issue others bring up about launching the game... I currently run AMD Ryzen 7900X CPU and GIGABYTE AORUS 4070ti GPU on Windows 11 and cannot launch the game." A third review, dated as recently as 21 August 2025, confirms the problem persists: "the game does not launch... if you have a newer pc with AMD cpu and NVDIA graphics... its been like this for some time now." This review checked the developer's own Steam news communications directly and found no acknowledgment, patch note, or technical advisory addressing this specific bug at any point — a real, current, unresolved issue distinct from the historical launch crisis, worth verifying against your own specific hardware before buying.

A real, current story about Arkane's own future

Separate from the game itself, this review can confirm a real, dateable piece of context relevant to anyone invested in the studio behind it. A former Arkane designer's account, reported by PC Gamer and linked directly from the developer's own news feed, states that Dishonored 2 "cost more to make than Skyrim" and "did not meet Bethesda's sales expectations," but that the series' reputation nonetheless gave Arkane a "seal-of-quality protection" that arguably saved the studio. More urgently, this review can confirm that as of a report dated July 2026, also linked directly from Arkane's own Steam communications, Xbox announced a major restructuring spinning off or selling several sibling studios — Double Fine, Compulsion, Ninja Theory and Undead Labs — while Arkane's own fate remained, at time of writing, still being negotiated rather than resolved either way.

Where this leaves a buyer

At NZ$54.95, discounted to roughly $11 at the time of writing, Dishonored 2 delivers genuinely genre-defining level design and mission variety this review's sample credits with real, specific consistency, nearly a decade after a launch this review can confirm was genuinely troubled and has since been genuinely fixed. The honest, necessary caveat concerns a real, separate, currently unresolved bug affecting a specific AMD-CPU-plus-Nvidia-GPU hardware combination, worth checking against your own system before purchasing given the complete absence of any developer acknowledgment found in this review's research. Players outside that specific hardware combination are very likely to find one of the finest immersive sims ever made, running as intended. Players on affected hardware should verify compatibility directly before buying, and anyone invested in Arkane's future work should know the studio's own institutional fate remains, as of this review, a genuinely open question.