Dishonored 2 publisher Bethesda Game Studios officially announces details for the game's second major update, revealing intentions to add a mission select feature.

Just a few weeks ago, the developers at Arkane Studios provided Dishonored 2 fans with the game's first significant post-launch patch in the form of a free update that not only included the chance to experience the title all over again from the very beginning with its New Game Plus mode, but also offered players the opportunity to utilize both Corvo and Emily’s powers regardless of which character is chosen for the playthrough. Now, Arkane Studios is close to putting out the title's second major update, which is set to incorporate new custom difficulty settings, as well as a mission-select option for Dishonored 2.

Bethesda announced the news in an official blog post today, revealing that Dishonored 2's second update is scheduled to become available for the PC platform through Steam in beta form on January 18. The publisher went on to confirm that once testing for the patch has been fully completed, then the final version of the update will make its way onto PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on January 23.

As far as the custom difficulty settings for Dishonored 2's second update are concerned, Bethesda explained that fans will be able to "tailor" their experiences to their liking, with the patch adding "20 different sliders" to be tweaked that can affect "everything from how quickly Sleep Darts take effect to how many active enemies are likely to attack you at once." In order to effectively explicate the feature, Bethesda gave a solid example involving stealth:

"With the Custom Difficulty settings, you can further tailor your experience. Let’s say you’re a stealth player who likes to carefully explore every option… now you can move a slider that adjusts how effective you are leaning from behind a barrier when skulking around."

Furthermore, should fans believe that Dishonored 2's current highest difficulty of "Very Hard" is not too challenging, the game's second update will bring about a fresh setting called "Iron Mode." Not only will the title become more demanding in the setting by including a permadeath feature, but also Iron Mode is going to turn off the ability to manually save or load game files.

When it comes to Dishonored 2's impending mission-select option making its way into the game with the second update, fans will finally be able to choose specific missions that they would like to replay. As it happens, all progress accrued at the start of the mission – including character, runes, money, and more – are going to be accessible and waiting for players once more when the mission is tackled again.

Taking all of this into consideration, it's good to see that Arkane Studios has been listening to Dishonored 2's fan base in regards to the features they want to have added to the game, especially after the relationship between the developer and the title's community started off on the wrong foot when the PC version suffered major issues at launch. With any luck, Arkane Studios will be able to provide even better post-launch support in the future for Dishonored 2 with Update 2 laying the groundwork.

Dishonored 2 is out now for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.