Dishonored 2 Shims

What?

For some reason the Steam version of Dishonored 2 includes some extra executables on Windows: https://steamdb.info/depot/531615/

The one named Dishonored2_x64.exe is over 30MB bigger compared to the exe Steam usually runs, Dishonored2.exe. This implies some extra functionality for developers/QA.

The problem

Dishonored2_x64.exe links to some DLLs that are not easily to come by legally (e.g. some libraries from the PS4 SDK). However, the number of functions the game imports from those libraries is rather small, so I was wondering if we could make a shim for those so the non-retail exe actually runs.

Turns out we can!

Getting to run

tl;dr:

• Build the Visual Studio solution (tested with VS 2022)
• Copy the built DLLs into the game directory (steamapps/common/Dishonored 2)
• Create a file called steam_appid.txt in the game directory, write the number 403640 inside
  • This is needed, because otherwise the game calls SteamAPI_RestartAppIfNecessary during startup, which will end up launching the regular Dishonored2.exe (not what we want)
• Change the date on your computer to 12.09.2016. If you don't do this, a Havok license check will crash the game on load :S
• Start the game process via PowerShell: .\Dishonored2_x64.exe +com_showLoadingScreen 0 +com_allowConsole
  • com_showLoadingScreen will disable the intro movies for faster loading times
  • com_allowConsole allows you to press the ´ (forward tick) key to enable the debug HUD, then ^ (circumflex accent) key to show the console (assuming a German QWERTZ layout)

What doesn't work

There's no UI, you just get dropped into the menu map but nothing else shows up. Maybe the game doesn't like my fake values from the iggyperfmon shim and then kills the UI, but I haven't really looked into that yet.

The console works though :)

Screenshots

Render stats:

Debug HUD:

Console: