Arkane Studios' sidequel DLC chapters for Dishonored had a significant challenge to overcome, since they tell the story of a character who features briefly, but crucially, within the plot of the main game. Infamous assassin Daud, also known as the Knife of Dunwall and the leader of mercenary band The Whalers, appears almost immediately in Dishonored as the murderer of the Empress Jessamine Kaldwin, then disappears until near the end of the game.

Since the outcome of Dishonored changes drastically based on the choices that the player makes (with every unnecessary death dropping another coin in the Chaos Jar), telling Daud's story isn't difficult because we already know how it ends, but rather because we don't know how it ends. With that in mind, the second half of Dishonored's DLC tale, The Brigmore Witches, should be applauded for the meaningful and profound impact that it retrospectively has on the experience of the main game, but unfortunately has to be marked down for falling at the very final hurdle.

It might equally be considered a point to The Brigmore Witches' detriment or in its favor that it uses a rather more traditional story structure than Dishonored. There is no conspiracy of untrustworthy rebels nor a parade of increasingly repulsive aristocrats and autocrats to be eliminated. Instead, there is a clearly defined antagonist - Delilah, the power-hungry leader of the eponymous Brigmore Witches - and whereas the goal in The Knife of Dunwall was to find out exactly who Delilah is, this chapter of the DLC is all about the lengths that Daud must go to in order to find and eliminate her.

Once more there are three main missions to explore. One is another revisit to a location already seen in the main game, which thankfully is relatively short and takes place at the beginning of the DLC. This time around it's Coldridge Prison, which, in the spirit of locking the stable door after Corvo Attano has already made his daring escape, has had its security stepped up a notch. This won't stop Daud for long however, as he must infiltrate the prison in order to break out and earn the favor of a potential ally.

Said ally is Lizzy Stride, the sharp-toothed and scar-faced leader of the notorious Dead Eel Gang, who is an entertaining character in the few scenes where Daud interacts with her (and especially when she interacts with the crew of her ship). The middle mission is somewhat lengthier, taking place in a new district of Dunwall called Draper's Ward, where Daud must negotiate a temporary peace between the river-dwelling Dead Eels and the fashion-conscious Hatters, and somehow avoid getting killed by either side along the way.

This mission also features a joyfully difficult moral quandary, where the player must choose between a horrible action and an inaction that is arguably even more horrible. It's quite rare to find dilemmas like this in games with a moral choice system, where there is more commonly a path that allows you to fix everything, and it really drives home the corrupted nature of Dunwall and its denizens.

There are threads of gruesome and supernatural horror running throughout The Brigmore Witches, but it's the final mission that actually manages to bring in some scares. Set in the crumbling yet picturesque Brigmore Manor, where magical plants and undead hounds have turned both the exterior and interior into a jungle, this mission drops the player in amongst foes who can teleport and summon vicious traps, which for the first time gives the impression that Daud might be a little out of his depth.

If you're in a hurry then it's likely possible to blow through The Brigmore Witches within a couple of hours, but if you're the kind of player who liked to search every nook, delve into every canny, find every lost coin behind the couch cushion and read every book that you come across within the game then your play time will likely extend to 5 or 6 hours, especially if you're going with a stealth approach. Beware that the DLC currently contains a few bugs, so it's worth saving your game frequently.

The overarching story of The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches is a little lacking (when you set out to answer the mysterious question, "Who is Delilah?" only to find that the answer is, "an evil person who wants to do evil things," it's hard not to feel a bit deflated), but for a fun and interesting journey to a fairly generic destination it's definitely worth the ride.

The ending of The Brigmore Witches is where it falls down, literally in the very last few seconds of the game, which is why you may be better off walking away before you reach that point. Presumably in order to ensure that taking the high chaos or low chaos paths actually affects the ending that you get, the decisions that Daud makes are shown to actually impact the outcome of his final meeting with Corvo.

Putting aside the continuity/free will issues, this falls in direct opposition to the message ingrained within the DLC, which the Outsider delivers explicitly in his final speech: that no matter how cruelly or kindly Daud acts, and no matter what he does, Corvo will never know what happened either way, and therefore it should not affect what Corvo decides to do with Daud. Because of this, the way in which The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches is played skews the narrative of the main game, so that Corvo might have executed a redeemed man, or spared the life of a monster. It's a genuine shame to exchange that bittersweet ending for one with some vague notion of Daud being rewarded or punished via instant karma.

However, a poor ending isn't enough by itself to undo several hours of fun and highly immersive gameplay. If the story, characters, stealth and combat of Dishonored left you hungry for more, then The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches definitely should not be missed.

Dishonored: The Brigmore Witches is available now for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.