The stand alone expansion is getting some changes to the familiar formula with Contracts.
Billie Lurk, the protagonist the DLC’s protagonist, is a different beast than Corvo and Emily before her. Bethesda explains in a blog post how this is impacting gameplay.
Billie, unlike her predecessors, is not born into royalty neither did she work her way up the food chain. She was born in the shadows and thus treats killing in a different manner.
Contracts are, besides the usual side missions, an activity in the game to make our play time with Dishonored’s open environment more engaging.
Contracts are a new system dreamed up by the Arkane team members in Lyon, France. We felt like mercenary Contracts were the right call for Billie as a new featurette, just like adding Favors felt right for Daud in the Knife of Dunwall and the Brigmore Witches, since Daud had years of experience running an underworld organization, and presumably a bunch of people owed him blood debts. Most of the time, Contracts can be found and undertaken in black market shops across Karnaca. They’re often stranger in nature than most Dishonored missions.”
Unlike main missions contracts are not game enders and you can simply fail them.
Dishonored: Death of the Outsider releases on September 15, 2017, on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.