Let’s be real for a second. Finding games similar to Dishonored is a bit of a nightmare because Arkane Studios basically built a genre-defying unicorn. You know the feeling. You’re perched on a Dunwall rooftop, your hand is glowing with supernatural void energy, and you’re looking down at a guard thinking about five different ways to ruin his afternoon. Maybe you’ll stop time and walk past him. Maybe you’ll possess a rat. Or maybe you’ll just blink behind him and do the classic stab-and-grab.
It’s called the "Immersive Sim." It's a clunky name for a beautiful concept: a game that actually respects your intelligence. Most modern titles feel like they’re pulling you along on a leash, but Dishonored gives you a toolbox and says, "Good luck, don't mess up the carpet."
Honestly, after you finish the adventures of Corvo and Emily, most other games feel... thin. They feel scripted. If you try to climb a wall in a standard action game and the developers didn't explicitly put a yellow ledge there, you're stuck. In the world of the immersive sim, if you can see a balcony, you can probably reach it. That's the bar we're setting here.
The Arkane Pedigree: Staying Within the Family
If you want the closest possible experience to Dishonored, you stay with the people who made it. It sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised how many people skipped Prey (2017) because the marketing made it look like a generic sci-fi horror game.
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It isn't.
Prey is basically Dishonored in space, but with a weird, psychological twist. Instead of blinking through a plague-ridden city, you’re navigating Talos I, a space station overrun by "Typhons"—aliens that can mimic everyday objects. You see two coffee cups on a table? One of them is trying to kill you.
The level design is pure Arkane. You’ve got multiple ways into every room. You can hack the door, crawl through a vent, or—and this is the best part—use the Gloo Cannon to build your own staircase up the side of a wall. It captures that specific "Aha!" moment when you realize the game isn't cheating; it's letting you cheat the system.
Then there’s Deathloop. It’s flashier. It’s louder. It’s got a 70s grindhouse aesthetic that is a far cry from the Victorian whale-punk of Dunwall. But the DNA is identical. You have a teleport (Shift), you have a link ability (Nexus), and you have a sandbox that resets every time you die. Some Dishonored purists found it a bit too "action-heavy," but if you miss the sheer fluidity of the movement, Colt Vahn is your guy.
Why these work:
- Verticality: You spend as much time on pipes and rafters as you do on the floor.
- Systemic Interaction: Fire spreads, water conducts electricity, and guards react to the environment, not just your presence.
- Player Agency: The "Play Your Way" mantra isn't just back-of-the-box marketing; it’s the core loop.
The Stealth Purist’s Alternatives
Maybe it’s not the magic you miss. Maybe it’s the tension of being a shadow in a world that wants you dead. If that’s the case, we have to talk about Thief.
Not the 2014 reboot. Forget that one exists for a moment. I’m talking about Thief: The Dark Project and Thief II: The Metal Age. These are the literal ancestors of Dishonored. Harvey Smith and the team at Arkane were deeply influenced by the work of Looking Glass Studios.
In Thief, you are Garrett. You aren't a god-tier assassin; you’re a guy with a bow and a club who dies in two hits. You have to watch the light gem at the bottom of your screen religiously. If you're in the dark, you're invisible. If you step onto loud marble flooring, you're dead. It is much slower than Dishonored, but the atmospheric payoff is massive.
If you want something more modern, the Hitman World of Assassination trilogy is the gold standard. Agent 47 doesn't have Blink or Bend Time, but he has something just as powerful: social stealth.
In Dishonored, you hide behind crates. In Hitman, you hide in plain sight. You dress up as a waiter, a guard, or a world-famous fashion model. The "Immersive Sim" elements are all there—the way a target’s routine can be disrupted by a fire alarm or a poisoned drink feels exactly like planning a high-chaos run in Dunwall. It’s a clockwork world. You just have to find out where to stick the wrench.
RPGs That Scratch the Dishonored Itch
Sometimes the "similar" part isn't the stealth, but the world-building and the consequence-heavy storytelling. This brings us to Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and its predecessor, Human Revolution.
Adam Jensen is basically a sci-fi Corvo Attano. Instead of runes and bonecharms, you have augmentations. You can upgrade your legs to jump higher, your skin to become invisible, or your arms to punch through walls. The hub worlds—like Prague in Mankind Divided—are incredibly dense. You can break into almost every apartment, find emails that reveal corporate conspiracies, and solve missions without ever firing a bullet.
The "Ghost" playstyle is alive and well here. There’s a specific thrill in navigating a high-security complex and leaving it exactly as you found it, except for the missing top-secret data.
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Then there’s Gloomwood. Currently in Early Access, this is basically a love letter to both Dishonored and Thief. It’s got a low-fi, retro aesthetic, but the mechanics are deep. You have a "stealth ring" that shows your visibility, and you have to manually lean around corners to peek at enemies. It’s gritty, it’s Victorian, and it’s very, very good.
The "Weird" Recommendations You Might Have Missed
Look, if you’ve played all the big names, you need to go deeper into the indie scene.
Styx: Shards of Darkness is a game where you play as a foul-mouthed goblin. It’s pure stealth. If you get caught, you usually die. But the level design is surprisingly vertical and sprawling. It lacks the polish of a triple-A title, but the dedication to the craft of sneaking is undeniable.
Then there’s Neon港 (Neon Struct). It’s a minimalist, blocky indie game that strips away everything except pure stealth. No combat. Just you, some gadgets, and a bunch of guards in a synthwave-soaked conspiracy plot. It’s short, cheap, and captures that "I shouldn't be here" feeling perfectly.
And we can't ignore Pathologic 2. Okay, hear me out. It’s not an action game. It’s a survival-horror-tragedy simulator. But the reason it’s on this list is the atmosphere. It has that same oppressive, plague-ridden, "everything is going to hell" vibe that made Dunwall so memorable. It’s a game where your choices actually matter, often in ways that make you feel like a terrible person. It’s the dark, gritty cousin of the immersive sim family.
What Most People Get Wrong About These Games
The biggest misconception is that a game has to be "first-person" to be like Dishonored.
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Take Mark of the Ninja, for example. It’s a 2D side-scroller. On paper, it shouldn't feel like Dishonored at all. But in practice? It’s the best stealth game of the last decade. It visualizes sound waves. It gives you clear feedback on whether you’re hidden or not. It rewards you for creative kills and non-lethal ghosting.
The "Dishonored feeling" isn't about the camera angle. It’s about predictable systems. You need to know that if you throw a bottle, the guard will go to that exact spot. You need to know that if you cut the power, the lights will go out. When a game follows its own rules consistently, that's when you can start being creative.
Common Misconceptions:
- Stealth must be slow: Nope. High-chaos Dishonored is fast and violent. Games like Deathloop prove you can keep the systems while ramping up the pace.
- More powers = Better game: Not necessarily. Thief has almost no "powers," yet it's more immersive than many modern RPGs because the environment is the main character.
- Graphics matter most: Gloomwood and Cruelty Squad prove that art style and mechanical depth trump polygon count every single time.
Navigating the Immersive Sim Genre in 2026
The landscape of gaming has shifted. We're seeing fewer massive budget "pure" immersive sims because they're incredibly expensive and difficult to make. Developing a level that can be played ten different ways is ten times harder than making a level that is played one way.
However, the "Immersive Sim Lite" is becoming more common. You see elements of Dishonored in games like Cyberpunk 2077 (the level design in some missions is surprisingly open) and even The Last of Us Part II (the tall grass and flanking mechanics).
If you're looking for your next fix, don't just look for "stealth games." Look for "emergent gameplay." That’s the keyword. It means the developers created a world where things can happen that they didn't explicitly program. A guard tripping over a box you moved? That’s emergent. A fire setting off an extinguisher that obscures a turret's vision? That's the Dishonored spirit.
Actionable Next Steps for the Disenchanted Assassin
If you’re staring at your Steam library wondering what to buy next, follow this hierarchy based on what you actually liked about Dishonored:
- "I loved the powers and the movement": Download Prey (2017) immediately. Do not read any spoilers. Just go. If you've already played it, give Deathloop a fair shake, even if you aren't a fan of shooters.
- "I loved the dark, Victorian atmosphere": Look into Gloomwood or the original Thief games (use the TFix mod for modern systems). If you want something weirder, try Bloodborne—it’s not stealth, but the city of Yharnam is the only place that rivals Dunwall for sheer "gothic architectural porn."
- "I loved being a ghost and never being seen": Get the Hitman World of Assassination trilogy. It is the peak of the "puzzle-box" stealth genre.
- "I want something indie and experimental": Try Shadows of Doubt. It’s a procedurally generated detective sim. It’s janky as hell, but the level of immersion—where every NPC has a job, an apartment, and a routine—is exactly what Arkane fans crave.
The "Dishonored" genre isn't dead; it just moved into different neighborhoods. You might have to look past some lower-budget graphics or learn some slightly clunkier controls, but that feeling of being a clever, invisible shadow is still out there. You just have to know where to blink.