Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, which was announced during E3 2017 and coming in September, is the story everyone who played Dishonored 2 saw coming from miles away. You did not even have to have played the two story-DLCs of the first game with assassin Daud as the main protagonist. The clues were just that obvious.

I am still excited to play it.

Why? More Dishonored. That’s why. Also, Daud. And Billie Lurke aka Megan Foster. And, let’s not forget, the Outsider. I love that character and hope we’ll learn more of the story that Dishonored 2 teased us with. I mean, he already died once. Can he be even killed? Will that be the great moral choice Daud and Billie have to decide, squabble or kill each other over? Of course it will.

As mentioned, I am excited to play that story. Even though Billie looks like a female Terminator. I changed time to restore her, damn you, Dishonored 2!

By the way, I thought Dishonored: Death of the Outsider would come out as additional content for Dishonored 2, but it is, in fact, a separate game. 

Now, though, before we look back at the times where I was really surprised to find that the original game’s story-DLC had been turned into the background story of the sequel, let’s discuss the merits of story-DLCs as such.

Story-DLCs – What’s the point?

Number One: More Game To Play In
Both story-DLCs for The Witcher III-The Wild Hunt featured massive maps with a cartload of activities. And who didn’t want to spend a little more time in that beautiful world and keep on exploring? I sure did.

Number Two: More Angles To The Story
I somehow imagine that during development a lot of really great story ideas just float around and noone quite wants to let them go. So, if they work out for the game, they are turned into story-DLCs. Some explore the fates of deserving minor characters, like Daud the Assassin in Dishonored, others push the hero’s sidekick into the limelight, although after having finished The Bright Lord I’d hardly call Celebrimbor of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor hero Talion’s sidekick. More on that later.

Number Three: Proving Ground For Improvements
Story-DLCs are great for trying out improvments to the main game and introduce new gadgets, the way the Bad Blood-DLC of WATCH_DOGS did.

First, there was the DLC
Continuity aside, there’s no reason DLCs need to tie in with the sequel’s storyline. But if they do, they better do it right. For a given amount of right, of course. Tastes and priorities differ, after all.

My first and foremost priority is character development and therefore the story. Beware spoilers for the DLCs and sequels to Deus ex:Human Revolution, Dishonored and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.

Deus Ex- Mankind Divided
I really liked Deus ex: Human Revolution‘s DLC The Missing Link, especially playing it without Augs.

For those who haven’t played it, here’s a short recap. On his way to Singapore during the main campaign there’s four days during which hero Adam Jensen goes dark. The DLC explains why. Turns out that after he snuck aboard a Belltower-ship, he was discovered and captured. But he manages to escape thanks to a Juggernaut Collective agent, just before the ship arrives at its destination, a black site called Rifleman Bank Station. This is where Belltower is conducting secret experiments and witnesses are very unwelcome. Needless to say that Adam chooses to investigate the station’s secrets nevertheless. Once his escape has been discovered, he is being hunted by the station’s commander, one Pieter Burke and, of course, manages to defeat him and his cronies and escape to continue his adventure. The Juggernaut agent then complains to Janus that they’ve let a potential asset slip away, but Janus is convinced their paths will cross again.

So I really liked the idea of Adam working with the Juggernaut Collective, which is what is happening in the sequel, Deus ex: Mankind Divided.

Was that a good idea? Well, let’s say it had potential. But, having played the sequel I wonder what kind of story we’d have had, had the studio decided to bank on the central conflict of that previous game.

Dishonored 2
I had not played The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches, the story-DLCs of the first Dishonored, before Dishonored 2 came out. Once I realised that Delilah, the new game’s main antagonist, had been actually introduced in those DLCs, I wisely did not play them until after I had finished the sequel, because I did not want to get spoiled. Which, in hindsight, was the smart thing to do.

You see, I thought the whole paint-your-perfect-world-and-make-it-come-true an awesome concept. Had I known that this idea was actually based on the The Brigmore Witches-DLC, which incidentally ends the same way Dishonored 2 does, I would have been sorely disappointed in the devs’ apparent lack of creativity. Since I had no clue who Delilah was I simply thought her badass. Lesson learned: Always play the DLCs before the sequel is out.

Nevertheless, I loved the first game’s DLCs and found Daud’s story very engaging. Which is why I played every ending of The Knife of Dunwall, which follows him and his crew in the wake of their deadly and dishonorable assault upon the empress. Of course I knew how this would end, since Corvo faces Daud in the main game and, depending on Low or High Chaos, either kills or spares him.

But the Chaos-level you end the main game on actually affects the DLC. Which means that, since I finished the first Dishonored playthrough on High Chaos, Daud got killed despite my having played him on Low Chaos in the DLC. Awesome.

I wonder if he’ll meet either Corvo or Emily in the Dishonored 2 DLC?

Middle-earth: Shadow of War
Middle-earth: Shadow of War‘s prequel, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, features two DLCs, Lord of the Hunt, which follows hero Talion (sporting a new hair-style) as he battles six Beast Masters, and The Bright Lord, the second DLC which is pretty much the prequel to the main game and focuses exclusively on Celebrimbor, the elven ghost Talion was bound to in death at the very beginning of the main game. Now, that DLC features a pretty shocking twist (at least I did not see that coming) and here’s a huge spoiler:

Before he was killed, the elven ringmaker Celebrimbor, with his family taken by the Dark Lord, fled and used the Orks and Uruk-hai of Mordor as well as the Ring to challenge Sauron with an army of his own. He almost managed to defeat his nemesis but was himself defeated in the end.

Celebrimbor then chose to let his spirit be bound to Talion’s to regain his power and return as the Bright Lord of Mordor. He’s not a victim. He’s a proud and vengeful wraith hell-bent on winning.

So, when I saw the Bright Lord return to Mordor in the trailer of Middle-earth: Shadow of War I was sooo excited! What a set-up! I mean, how is the Bright Lord going to regain the trust of the people left to Sauron’s vengeance after his own death? Well, I loved Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and I am confident the sequel will deliver. I am very much looking forward to this. “The great deceiver has returned to Mordor…” Here’s looking at you, Celebrimbor.

Also, Death of the Outsider.

Let’s see what more E 3 has got in store for us.