Deathloop, the new game from Arkane Studios is about a man stuck in a time loop where the only way out of it is to murder specific people. Maybe.
Arkane is the modern torch-bearers of immersive sims with the Dishonored series and Prey (2017). With Deathloop, the familiar mechanics of immersive sims, better known as the stealth-action genre have been tweaked, retuned and twisted into something, fresh, something new.
It’s fresh enough that it needs a lengthy tutorial to walk players through the intricacies of Deathloop, which this first impressions piece will be based off.
Have A Fulfilling Day!
Deathloop has what has to be the shortest and also longest intro sequence for an Arkane game. The game starts immediately with protagonist Colt getting stabbed to his death, only to wake up on a beach with a hangover and weird floating texts that he can read. No exposition rambling, no big cinematic sequence like a Dishonored or Prey. Immediately in control and a gun at hand not long after.
But unlike Prey, where the intro is a time loop and the game begins proper after breaking it, Deathloop is all about being stuck in the time loop. Everyone else on the island of Blackreef won’t retain any memory of living in a loop, outside for Colt and your adversary Julianna.
The game then spends a good two hours walking you through the gameplay loop, and the much-needed exposition to get you invested in the story. As a result, this tutorial/intro sequence is also pretty long. After you’ve gone through the first (and a half) loop, you will then be freed completely to approach the murder puzzle how you want.
The Prison Is Your Playground
The intro is strangely linear, but understandably so in hindsight. The first fork in the road is a false choice where you need to go an alternate path to get the code to open a door. There’s a 0451 joke that got me good.
The game slowly introduces you to the sandbox little by little, however. And will loosen up the leash a bit once you are dropped into one of the four districts. Say, once you finished a specific objective you can take your time to head back to the exit- letting you explore more of the level.
Four sandbox levels seem not much at first, looking at the map of the districts show how small it is. But that perspective will change as you uncover the many secrets Blackreef has to offer. It’s important to note that there are four different times you can enter a district, with each different time of day (morning, noon, afternoon, evening) opens and closes different parts of the district.
You’ll also be introduced to your first Visionary, one of the seven (more or less) targets you need to kill in order to break the loop. I’m glad the target was never featured prominently in any of the marketing in the lead-up to Deathloop’s release, because fighting them was a genuine surprise that made a strong impression that each of these targets will be tricky to kill.
Shoot First
Arkane’s games usually have involves the duality of stealth and up-front combat as its main mechanic, both perfectly viable playstyles but stealth seemingly has the edge. Either because of thematic reasons or players’ preferences.
In Deathloop, the balance is seemingly shifted to make the game more fun, or at least make you feel it’s more fun, to play loud and deadly. There are no non-lethal takedowns. Guns are the stars in your arsenal where you can use a large variety of them with different rarity and random perks, but not different damage numbers.
There are still supernatural abilities, called Slabs here, but there are ridiculously nerfed from their Dishonored equivalents.
And more importantly, no quicksaves. You can’t save scum on the spot, save scum is part of the story. It manifested itself as a time loop where you retain your memories but others don’t.
You can still play stealth, however. Melee takedowns are quick and silent, and returning from Prey (2017) is the portable turret that you can hack to be on your side. Why get your hands messy when Turret-kun can do the job?
Well, there’s a good reason why this time. Shooting people is fun and, unlike in Dishonored, judgemental-free.
With the bopping soundtrack ramping up in the background when you’re blowing enemies that you’ll see again tomorrow, it’s an amazing adrenaline rush to just unleash hell and then some.
You also have a kick, which should make fans of Dark Messiah Of Might And Magic happy, but there are not enough environmental hazards to make it as deadly and stupidly funny as it was there. It’s still fun to kick people off the rails or over a cliff though.
Enemy AIs are dumb in a good way where you won’t trigger the alert across all the map should you go into direct combat which gives you an opportunity to run away and hide in a bit. And go shooty-shooty bang-bang once more.
Colt can easily be overwhelmed and get hurt however, and ammo is capped at a number that you would expect to be way too little at first. But with the abundance of health and ammo pickups on each map, it’s now much more useful than ever to scrounge around every nook and cranny.
And remember, this is a time loop game, all the pickups will be where you remember it be if you visit the map at the same time of the day.
Rougelike And Souls-like Flavours
I’m also glad Deathloop isn’t fully a roguelike or rogue-lite. Colt has a Slab unique to him that gives him three lives. Die once and twice and you’ll respawn by rewinding time a bit. Die a third time and you’ll die proper and the loop resets, resetting the world state. All your gear is reset as well, but there’s a catch.
The catch is that you can gain residuum, a currency where you can then use to “infuse” gear so that it will remain in your stash across loops. Dying once or twice will drop all your residuum and you’ll need to claim it back.
And that’s not the only souls-like reference in Deathloop. You’ll get a taste of Julianna invading as well. You can choose to kill Julianna or not, but you’ll need to unlock the exit again by going to a specific signal antenna and hack it. This means a clever Julianna, played by the AI or other players, has the potential to make your good run turn bad real quick.
Somehow, Deathloop’s time loop premise gives Arkane a perfect excuse to add minor elements of a roguelike and a souls-like in an immersive sim. I don’t particularly like these two game genre’s punishing consequences for failure, but in Deathloop it is of mild taste. I can stomach this. It adds the thrill and significance of making out of the level alive, while not really making a fail too big of a setback.
Closing Thoughts
The first-and-a-half loop of Deathloop does what it needs to get you playing. Get you accommodated with the more action-focused playstyle. Making you understand how the time loop works. And have you invested in this mystery of how this one seemingly random dude fits between all of this. It successfully sets the hooks to get you going for real.
What does the murder puzzle have to offer after that? Stay tuned for our full review of Deathloop soon.
Played on PC. Review copy purchased by the reviewer