Ideas for Dishonored 2 began while developing the downloadable content of its predecessor, which spawned the decision to create a voice for Corvo Attano after being a silent character in the first installment.

Voice actors include Rosario Dawson, Sam Rockwell, Robin Lord Taylor, Jamie Hector, Pedro Pascal, and Vincent D'Onofrio.

[2][10] Dishonored 2 introduces non-lethal combat moves to throw people off-balance or knock someone unconscious—choke-holds, blocks, pushes, kicks, crouch-slides, drops from high up, sleep darts, stun mines, and various supernatural abilities—and features the chaos system used in the first game.

The game adds an element to the system where, at the start of a mission, random non-player characters are procedurally assigned one of three states: sympathetic, guilty, and murderous.

The player is given a device that lets them glimpse three years into the past, where the mansion is still occupied and guards roam, and can shift back and forth between the two points in time.

[19][21] Emily has powers new to the series, including "Far Reach", which allows her to pull objects and enemies toward her[22] and travel without physical movement by clasping onto something to propel herself forward.

[23][24] While players begin and end the game in Dunwall, much of the story takes place in the coastal city of Karnaca, the capital of Serkonos that lies along the southern region of the Empire of the Isles, whose chief exports include silver.

At the time the game begins, two factions, the Howlers and Overseers, engage in violent conflict within the district, with the Howlers seeking to oppose the new Duke and his government following the passing of its previous Duke, leading to the Grand Serkonan Guard, Karnaca's law enforcement and military, erecting defensive barriers called Walls of Light in response to the disarray.

[28] Other characters in the game include Meagan Foster (Rosario Dawson), captain of the Dreadful Wale; Paolo (Pedro Pascal), leader of the Howler Gang; Mindy Blanchard (Betsy Moore), Paolo's second-in-command; Mortimer Ramsey (Sam Rockwell), a corrupt officer of the Dunwall City Watch; Liam Byrne (Jamie Hector), the Vice Overseer of Karnaca who opposes the Howlers; Anton Sokolov (Roger L. Jackson), Dunwall's genius inventor; the Outsider (Robin Lord Taylor), the representational figure of the Void, an alternate dimension that grants supernatural abilities; and Jessamine Kaldwin (April Stewart), Emily Kaldwin's mother, whose spirit was trapped in The Heart.

[2][29][30] Fifteen years after Corvo Attano restored Emily Kaldwin to the throne following the assassination of her mother, Dunwall has prospered under her reign.

During a ceremony in remembrance of Jessamine Kaldwin's assassination, Duke Luca Abele of Serkonos arrives with the witch Delilah Copperspoon.

[10] Sokolov directs the player to eliminate Breanna Ashworth (Melendy Britt), the curator of the Royal Conservatory and witch working for Delilah.

The player enters the Royal Conservatory and discovers that Ashworth brought Delilah back from the Void, after her defeat at the hands of Daud, the assassin who killed Emily's mother.

[31] With Delilah being too powerful to defeat conventionally, Sokolov suggests the player investigate the home of mining magnate Aramis Stilton (Richard Cansino).

With the aid of the Outsider, the player travels back in time and observes the Crown Killer, Jindosh, Ashworth, and the Duke pull Delilah from the Void.

Karnaca is either ruled by a new tyrant or collapses into anarchy and, if alive, Sokolov becomes a broken man after witnessing the perversion of his work, and is exiled to his home country.

[29] The developers had previously experimented with a voiced player character with the assassin Daud in two pieces of Dishonored's downloadable content, The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches.

[12] Mitton wanted Dishonored 2 to be a visual "journey to a new city", though keeping the same sensibility of the first game and elements like oppression, disease, magic, and decay.

[56] Arkane had anthropology and politics in mind when creating the land's history, looking upon the first settlers of the region, the influence of foreign powers taking up residence there, and the different "tides of culture" that shaped the city.

[56] Based on the Cypriot city of Larnaca (hence its name) with inspiration from other southern Europe countries like Greece, Italy and Spain, Karnaca is warmer and sunnier than Dunwall.

[45] The team tried to reflect practicalities of everyday life; for instance, a building would have to have some kind of toilet and a guard's placement should make in-world sense.

[56] Colonies in places such as Australia, India and Africa were investigated to comprehend the transition of people adapting from the cold climate of Dunwall to areas with a warmer constitution like Karnaca.

[59] The game was formally announced during Bethesda's Electronic Entertainment Expo 2015 press conference by Dishonored co-directors Raphaël Colantonio and Harvey Smith,[35] but was leaked the night before during a rehearsal.

[102][103] Chris Carter of Destructoid considered the stealth approach "glorious"; the heart item one of his favorite ways to be exposed to further content; the puzzles and traversal challenges demanding; and the task of becoming a better assassin rewarding.

The only complaints concerned shortcomings in frame rate capabilities on the Xbox One console, "stilted voice acting and script issues, despite the compelling narrative".

[87] Electronic Gaming Monthly's Nick Plessas wrote that Dishonored 2 "[recreates] many of the positive experiences from the previous instalment, but [requires] much greater effort on the part of the player this time around to achieve it".

[90] GameSpot's Scott Butterworth was satisfied with the use of weapons and observed that the sophisticated behavior patterns of the artificial intelligence (AI) rendered into "fun" experimentation, especially for stealth employment.

The lack of increasing challenges was subject to criticism, with Butterworth lamenting the "underutilized" new enemies; the plot met charges of reproval for the same reason.

[91] Lucas Sullivan of GamesRadar complimented its sense of place, supernatural abilities and execution, but disapproved of the character development and constraint of a number of mechanics that were otherwise "brilliant".

[105] Polygon's Arthur Gies noted the combat system as "improved and refined", the setting as "Dishonored 2's greatest inherited strength" and the AI units for their "excellent peripheral vision", yet regarded the inability to replay missions and the absence of a New Game Plus option as "possible deal-breakers".