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Overview
Dishonored: Death of the Outsider is a standalone stealth-action game developed by Arkane Studios and released on September 14, 2017. Set a few months after the events of Dishonored 2, it follows Billie Lurk (also known as Megan Foster) as she reunites with legendary assassin Daud to pursue the most audacious target in the series' history: the Outsider himself, the god-like entity whose influence has shaped the Empire's darkest chapters.
The game runs on the same Void Engine powering Dishonored 2, which means Karnaca looks exactly as grimy and architecturally dense as players familiar with the series will expect. What changes is the protagonist. Billie brings a different energy to the role than either Corvo or Emily, and her supernatural abilities feel deliberately designed around a more direct, almost brutalist playstyle compared to her predecessors.
Gameplay and mechanics
Billie's core toolkit centers on three supernatural abilities that replace the rune-upgrade system from earlier entries:
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- Displace: plant a marker and teleport to it at will
- Foresight: project an astral form to scout ahead and tag enemies
- Semblance: steal a target's face to move through guarded areas undetected
These abilities don't level up with runes, which is a deliberate departure. The tradeoff is that each power feels more immediately purposeful, and the lack of an upgrade tree keeps the focus on creative application rather than stat accumulation. Contracts, optional assassination targets scattered across each mission, give completionists extra reasons to comb through every corner of a level.
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The mission design earns its reputation. A mid-game bank heist stands out as one of the more cleverly constructed levels Arkane has built across the entire series, requiring players to piece together vault access through multiple interlocking systems. It's the kind of level that rewards both patient ghost runs and chaotic high-chaos approaches equally.
World and setting
Karnaca remains one of the more convincing fictional cities in action-adventure gaming. The city carries a Mediterranean weight to it, all sun-bleached stone and class resentment, and Death of the Outsider uses that setting to push into stranger territory than the main series did. Underground fight clubs, black magic cults, and the Void itself all get screen time, and the game's shorter runtime (roughly 8 to 10 hours for a focused playthrough) means the pacing rarely drags.
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The story's willingness to recontextualize the Outsider as something other than an unknowable force gives the narrative more texture than expected. Daud's presence grounds Billie's arc in a relationship that carries history from the Dishonored 2 DLC, though the game works as a standalone entry without that background.
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What does OG+ mode add?
Original Game Plus (OG+) lets players replay the campaign with a selection of powers carried over from Dishonored 2, including Blink, Far Reach, Domino, and Bend Time. This mode exists specifically for series veterans who want to experiment with ability combinations the base game doesn't offer. It's a meaningful addition rather than a cosmetic one, since the level design holds up well enough to support multiple distinct playthroughs with different toolsets.
Content and replayability
Death of the Outsider is shorter than Dishonored 2 by design, but it's dense. The chaos system still tracks lethal versus non-lethal approaches and shapes the ending, Contracts add optional depth to each mission, and the divergent ability sets between the base game and OG+ mode give completionists two meaningfully different ways to approach the same levels. For players who want a concentrated stealth-action experience without committing to a 20-hour campaign, the runtime is a feature rather than a limitation.