Best Games Like Dishonored

Developed by Arkane Studios, the Dishonored series is known for its stylish-depiction of Victorian-era London along with its versatile action-stealth gameplay.

In this list, we’ll be highlighting the best games like Dishonored to play in 2023, along with the platforms they’re available on and gameplay where possible.   

The first Dishonored was released in 2012 and followed by Dishonored 2 and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, a standalone expansion. The original game is set in the plague-stricken city of Dunwall and sees players controlling Corvo, a former bodyguard turned assassin after he’s framed for the murder of Dunwall’s Empress.

In the sequel, players could choose to reprise their role as Corvo or play as his daughter Emily. Considering the most recent entry was released in 2017, we likely won’t get a fourth game for quite some time.

Thankfully, there are plenty of other games that explore similar ideas as Dishonored on PC and current-gen consoles.

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Obsidian is no amateur when it comes to crafting immersive RPGs, evident by their latest effort, The Outer Worlds. In it, you play as The Stranger, a blank slate of a character who finds themselves tasked with determining the fate of the Halcyon Space Colony.

Instead of Corvo’s repertoire of magical powers, players are free to explore an arsenal of futuristic weapons with unique perks and elemental effects. Additionally, your character can slow down time to plan out their next move. Like Dishonored, the game gives you the option to play stealthily or go in guns blazing.

Every challenge can be approached in several ways based on your preferred playstyle, and you can even talk yourself out of a jam if your dialogue stats are high enough. Companion characters are well written and possess interesting backstories that start to unravel the longer they’re in your party.

Prey is another action-stealth title that features Arkane Studios’ distinct visual style and first-person combat. In it, you take on the role of Morgan Yu, a human aboard the Talos 1 space station, which becomes overrun by a species of hostile aliens known as the Typhon.

Your mission is to survive the ordeal by gathering the right resources and weapons to help you defeat the Typhon. Along the way, you’ll uncover secrets about the space station while taking in its unique atmosphere.

Like Dishonored, the game offers a lot in terms of player choice; you’re able to choose Morgan’s gender, select from a wide array of weapons and upgrades, and make decisions throughout the story that affect the ending.

The Metro games have only gotten better with each installment, and Metro Exodus is by far the most impressive entry to date. Aside from upgraded graphics, the game features larger sandbox environments to explore, a more focused story, and tighter gameplay.

In it, you play as everyone’s favorite Russian post-apocalyptic scavenger Artyom, as he encounters new hazards and enemies in the wasteland of the former Russian Federation. With resources extremely scarce, you’ll have to make every bullet count and search every nook and cranny to stay alive.

Similar to Dishonored, Metro Exodus gives you the freedom to use both stealth and action-based approaches, with most scenarios calling for a mix of the two. The game also places a heavy emphasis on establishing its atmosphere through the diversity and layout of its environments.

Not for the faint of heart, Resident Evil 7 is a return to the series’ horror-survival roots, with an emphasis on stealth and exploration from a first-person perspective. In it, you control Ethan Winters, a man searching for his girlfriend Mia, whose last known location was on a mysterious plantation located in Louisiana.

Ethan soon discovers the plantation is home to a family of bloodthirsty cannibals and sets out to find his girlfriend before escaping. The story expands much more beyond that, but we don’t want to run the risk of spoiling it for you.

Like Dishonored, Resident Evil 7’s bosses offer unique challenges that require different approaches. Some prioritize combat while other encounters focus on traditional stealth gameplay. Overall, the game takes a lot of risks that stray from the classic RE formula, many of which pay off in the long run.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is by far the best-looking entry in the historically-based action RPG, breathing new life into the now twelve-year-old franchise while telling an original story set in Ancient Greece. Like Dishonored, the game presents you with both male and female protagonists.

Additionally, it sets out to blur the line between realism and power fantasy even more than 2017’s Origins. This can be attributed to combat and stealth adjustments that encourage players to find their own playstyle.

While Odyssey’s sprawling open-world is a sandbox in of itself, the game manages to break things down even further, presenting you with Greek temples, caves, and grottos to explore. Despite its third-person perspective, there’s still plenty of immersion and atmosphere to soak up throughout the game’s 50-hour campaign.

Similar to previous installments, Far Cry 5 takes players on a first-person adventure in an open-world brimming with intriguing characters and opportunities to cause chaos. However, unlike its predecessors, the game sees you working with a blank slate sheriff character in favor of a named protagonist.

The story is about you bringing down a twisted cult’s four leaders, each with their own personal motives and distinct personality. The gameplay is broken down into first-person combat and exploration, with an emphasis on unscripted events discovered throughout the open-world.

 After the introduction sections, the game makes a majority of the map available to the player. This is something the Dishonored games do as well.  While there may not be any swords, daggers, or magic in Far Cry 5, there are a lot more other melee options such as shovels, bats, pipes, and brass knuckles.

The third entry in the rebooted Tomb Raider franchise sets out to depict a much dark, morally gray Lara Croft than previous installments. Developed by Eidos Montreal, the action-stealth game follows the explorer as she travels to a tropical rainforest to stop the evil organization Trinity from triggering an ancient Mayan curse.

Gone are the days of playing as an inexperienced Lara who would stand her ground when necessary, but otherwise avoid violent conflict. Instead, we get a version of Lara who’s more unhinged than ever before, exploring new hellish tactics to take down Trinity’s soldiers for good.

This includes mastering a wide array of new tools, traps, and weapons. Like Dishonored, the Tomb Raider reboots display a consistent emphasis on action-stealth gameplay. You can dive into Shadow of The Tomb Raider without having played the first two entries, but they’re worth checking out as well.

The Deus Ex games are known for masterfully blending elements found in first-person shooters, RPGs, and more traditional stealth games. Mankind Divided is the fourth game in the series and features a more contained story without sacrificing the series’ fantastic gameplay.

In it, you reprise your role as Adam Jensen, a sunglasses-wearing, tough-talking hero pulled straight out of an early 2000s game cover. Set two years after Human Revolution, the game sees Jensen working as a double agent for Juggernaut Collective, a hacker group looking to expose an evil secret organization. Reminiscent of Dishonored, the game features sandbox environments with challenges that can be tackled in many ways. Players are encouraged to try out different tactics and discover the outcome for each approach.

Aragami is an action-stealth hybrid modeled after the classic Tenchu games. In it, you play as an assassin named Aragami who’s empowered with incredible supernatural abilities that allow him to teleport between shadows, create hidden paths, and summon shadow beasts.

Like Dishonored’s protagonists, he also knows a thing or two about swords, with his blade of choice being the katana. Using Aragami’s powers consumes “Shadow Essence,” which is replenished by hiding in the dark. 

The game is broken up into thirteen chapters, and each one sees you navigating different environments with new enemy types and obstacles appearing over time. Every level can be cleared in several different ways, including full stealth or by killing every single enemy.

The second horror game appearing on this list, SOMA manages to stand out due to its unique psychological approach to scaring players. The game is developed by Frictional Games, makers of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and features a similarly terrifying story.

In it, you play as Simon Jarrett, an AI clone who finds himself in an underwater research facility under mysterious circumstances. From there, things spin off in some really fascinating directions, making for one of the best sci-fi video game stories around.

Just like Dishonored, the game is played from a first-person POV, and most challenges prioritize stealth over direct combat.  And if you like Dishonored for its story, chances are you’ll at least be intrigued by the way SOMA builds up its in-universe lore and unravels its plot.

While a Dying Light sequel is expected to release within the next year, Dishonored fans may want to prepare themselves by checking out the first game. The reason being it does a great job matching the action and pace of Arkane’s games while introducing fun free-running mechanics and satisfying close-range combat.

Developed by Techland, makers of Call of Juarez and Dead Island, the game sees you controlling a secret agent named Kyle Crane who’s been ordered to infiltrate a quarantined city in the Middle East. Zombies can be found throughout the open-world, with most dormant during the day and becoming more aggressive at night.

If you enjoy blinking in Dishonored, chances are you’ll love using Crane’s grappling hook to go from rooftop to rooftop. Additionally, Dying Light features a broader selection of melee weapons, including various knives, machetes, and even a sword modeled after Excalibur.

There are two Styx games, Master of Shadows and its follow-up Shards of Darkness, released in 2014 and 2017, respectively.  Both are criminally underrated and showcase some of the best puzzle designs in a stealth game, at least by our standards. 

The games operate within the Of Orcs and Men universe and Shards of Darkness, in particular, sees the foul-mouthed goblin assassin setting off to infiltrate the city of Körangar. It’s here that he uncovers a sinister plot being carried out by the now-allied dark elves and dwarves.

Styx is imbued with magical powers that allow him to incapacitate or sneak by enemies by cloning himself, turning invisible, and crafting deadly traps on the fly. You can play both games separately, but Shards of Darkness’ story makes much more sense if you’ve played Master of Shadows.

Eidos Montreal makes an appearance for the third time on this list for their 2014 reboot of Thief. Set in a dark fantasy-inspired world dubbed ‘The City,’ the game sees you controlling Garrett, a talent thief on a quest to take the wealthy elites for all they’re worth.

Missions are designed to be approached in a variety of ways, whether action-driven or non-lethal. In addition, players have the choice to pick between several branching paths while on the way to the main objective. 

While it’s the most similar game to Dishonored on this list, Thief is not without its flaws. However, if you can look past its subpar story and technical issues, you’ll have a fun time sneaking up on guards and stealing shiny things.

The BioShock games are known for blending classic sci-fi storytelling with first-person shooting mechanics to deliver a thrilling experience from start to finish. Just like Dishonored, the series is very imaginative with fleshing out its universe, and each entry introduces new characters and events belonging to the same universe.

Instead of just choosing our favorite entry, we’re recommending you pick up the entire BioShock Collection, which includes BioShock, BioShock 2, and BioShock: Infinite. Each game has been remastered to run in 1080p and bundles in all single-player DLC.

If you enjoy the level of detail in Dishonored’s environments, you’ll have a blast exploring each game’s hand-crafted world. From the creepy submerged halls of Rapture to the giant floating blimps that surround Columbia, there’s plenty of atmosphere to take in.

Mark of the Ninja remains to be one of the greatest stealth games ever created, featuring fluid combat and traversal mechanics along with gorgeous 2D visuals. In it, you play as a ninja caught in the middle of a conflict between ancient traditions and modern technology.

Featuring hand-drawn 2D visuals, the game is a part-platformer part-action-stealth game. While both lethal/non-lethal playstyles are allowed, Mark of the Ninja gives you extra rewards for being as passive as possible.

 This includes providing plenty of hiding spots like narrow grates and ventilation shafts that can be crawled through to get the drop on enemies. While it may be different than Dishonored in many ways, both games possess the same level of rewarding and profoundly satisfying stealth gameplay.

No doubt one of this year’s most anticipated releases, Cyberpunk 2077 is an ambitious open-world action RPG from Witcher developer CD Projekt Red. In it, players will create their own character dubbed ‘V’ before venturing into Night City, a sprawling metropolis oozing with technology, crime, and neon.

The game presents a dystopian setting where the lines between human and AI have become blurred more than ever. Throughout the game, players will have the chance to develop unique skills tailored to their playstyle.

This is excellent news for Dishonored fans looking to take on Night City with a more stealth-based approach. It’s been confirmed that Cyberpunk 2077 will give you the option to place traps, shoot through walls, and even curve bullets around corners using futuristic ‘Smart Weapons.’

Last but certainly not least, Deathloop is an upcoming first-person shooter currently being developed by Arkane Lyon. In it, you play as Colt, a talented hitman who finds himself trapped in a time loop on a party island filled with rival assassins.

To break free, Colt must eliminate the eight targets responsible for his situation. However, doing so won’t be easy, as Colt has been marked enemy number one by the powers that be, prompting other players to try and collect the bounty.

It’s an exciting blend of PvE and PvP that we’re eager to see in practice. Beyond that, everything in Deathloop just screams Dishonored: the ability to play stealthy, use teleportation powers, fluid and stylish-looking combat, it’s all here.