As an immersive sim fan with a preference for the stealthy and methodical approach, Deathloop may not be my favourite title from Arkane Studios, but it’s still a good game – and possibly their most “fun” title if you’re considering the minute-to-minute gameplay. It also remains a must-play for Xbox owners, even a year from the initial launch, as it still feels unique given the current “next-gen” library is dominated by prettier versions of games built on familiar templates.
Come for the characters, not the plot
Now I enjoyed parts of Deathloop’s narrative, but I found it difficult to care for the overarching plot that sees Colt try to break a time loop that has left the inhabitants of Blackreef repeating what they think is the first day of a grand experiment. Aside from the inconsistent delivery, it doesn’t stick to the landing. There’s an abrupt ending sequence that has been expanded upon for the Xbox release (and patched into existing versions) but, ultimately, it feels underwhelming in contrast to the effort it takes to get to that point.
Instead, Deathloop is at its best when you’re skulking around, observing its quirky and dysfunctional cast interacting with one another and slowly losing their minds as immortality doesn’t work out as planned. Colt and Juliana – the only two who retain fragments of memories when the loop resets – have a fantastically antagonistic relationship and uncovering the details of their shared past and the cause of their current conflict is the real highlight.
Much like Arkane Studio’s prior games, there’s no shortage of documents, audio recordings, overheard conversations, and environmental storytelling that handle the world-building. Who are the visionaries? Who were they before coming to Blackreef? What is the state of Deathloop’s world? You can find the answer by collecting and collating hundreds of lore items. However, while I’m a fan of organic storytelling – the Dishonored games and Prey (2017) have excellent side stories you can miss completely – I found it hard to follow so many threads with the information spread over so many disparate sources.
To be fair, a good chunk of those collectable documents form an essential part of Deathloop’s gameplay loop as – despite all the flashy advertising that focused on weapon- and powers-based combat against the Visionaries and their lackeys – Deathloop is a game about investigating and planning.
“Dishonored with guns”
Focusing first on the minute-to-minute gameplay, fans of Dishonored will feel right at home – but so will any FPS fans happy with a preference for open assaults. Ideally, you’ll want to observe a scene, plan a route, thin out the stragglers with some aggressive stealth, take control of the environment by hacking cameras and turrets, and then move in to take out your targets quickly.
More so than any of their prior games, it feels like the developers want you to engage in open combat and, early on, I was worried Deathloop was to Arkane Studios what Bioshock Infinite was to Irrational Games – conceptually great but mechanically simplified to encourage traditional FPS gameplay. That’s true to a degree but if you explore, you’ll find all the alternate paths and indirect assassination methods you’d expect from the creators of Dishonored.
When it comes to general exploration and combat, Colt has an impressive toolset. There are, of course, plenty of stylish-looking firearms to equip, with various quality tiers, unique perks, and equipable trinkets to tweak their stats. Thanks to the Blackreef anomaly, you can also acquire “slabs” by killing Visionaries, which grant Colt several powers that’ll be familiar to Dishonored fans – such as “Blink” to teleport, “Karnesis” to fling enemies, and “Nexus” to link the fate of one enemy to several. Player trinkets gift him with passive abilities like double jump, damage resistance, and silenced footsteps.
As a result, even if you ignore the entire time-loop aspect, Deathloop still feels like a satisfying stealth-FPS hybrid that allows for some creative character builds. Just take note most of the Visionaries can put up a good fight and – depending on your settings – Juliana may invade your location controlled by the AI or a human player (with cross-play finally enabled in the latest patch). You go down quickly if caught off guard but always have the “reprise” ability that recalls you to a safe spot twice should you die, before a third death means resetting the loop.
Knowledge is power
Now if you’re looking to see the finale, you need to understand the structure of the time loop, gather as many clues as possible during your early outings into each of the four regions (Updaam, Karl’s Bay, Fristad Rock, and The Complex), and then plan around each time shift – Morning, Noon, Afternoon, and Evening – as you move between locations.
Your first loop or two can feel a little aimless, even if you kill off a Visionary or two and acquire some new gear. You’ll soon realise knocking off eight targets in a single day, with only your early leads to go on, is not feasible – especially when your gear keeps resetting. Thankfully, Deathloop always makes repeating the loop useful as you can absorb “residium” to “infuse” and preserve gear between loops, upgrade slab powers by killing their respective Visionary again, or find dozens of secrets dependent on being in the right place and the right time of day.
When it comes to progressing the narrative, sifting through each Visionary hideout – usually after you’ve killed them the first time – typically uncovers new leads about their daily activities, such as the chance for some explosive sabotage or maybe a meeting at some point in the day between Visionaries that allows you to kill two birds with one grenade. Thankfully, these new leads are tracked in an expanding flowchart and the menu you return to between outings will always highlight available leads in each region based on the current time of day. Seeing a lead to completion reveals the optimal time to strike.
As much as I loved the design, it’s not perfect and repeat visits can grow tedious near the endgame, and you’ll increasingly find yourself simply skipping times until you have everything you need for a final push. Another issue is the overreliance on menus, packed with immersion-breaking tutorial messages, text pop-ups, and symbols. Menu pages and quest logs quickly become sprawling walls of text. I’d have preferred a more immersive “show, don’t tell” approach, but I guess the time loop structure is simply too complex and there needs to be a digital paper trail.
It plays great on both Xbox Series consoles
What made it so much easier to enjoy the complex gameplay loop was just how well Deathloop holds up from a technical standpoint. It still looks incredible thanks to Arkane Studio’s distinctive angular designs and Art Deco style – rather than any cutting-edge visual features. The visuals are supported by excellent voice work and a dynamic soundtrack that ramps up and down with the action. A year of patches have fixed bugs, improved stability, and added a ton of accessibility options like increasing the number of “reprises” before the loop is reset, toggling one-hit-kills on enemies, and tweaking the dynamic difficulty parameters.
If you’re on the Xbox Series X, you’re getting an experience as good as the PlayStation 5 version if not smoother. Ray-traced shadows and ambient occlusion look great if you’re willing to accept a 30fps cap, but my preference was the dynamic 4k/60 “quality” mode or even the 1080/120 “performance” mode if you’ve got your console hooked up to a decent monitor. Unexpectedly, the Xbox Series S also gets an excellent version, albeit sans ray-tracing features. The dynamic 1080/60 performance mode (my preference) was rock solid, while the quality mode provides a higher resolution with a variable 60fps cap that typically stayed within the VRR range of my display (48Hz is the lower bound).
Deathloop is what you make of it
Gathering my many, many thoughts on Deathloop, it’s difficult to assign a score with any semblance of objectivity. Both your narrative and gameplay experience is going to vary wildly depending on your own playstyle, your willingness to explore thoroughly, and your ability to plan out each loop. By design, Deathloop has a repetitive structure and it ensures each loop allows you to improve your character but these can feel purposeful if you have a plan, or completely aimless if you don’t.
As an Arkane Studio’s fan with a good idea of how they design levels, I thoroughly enjoyed stealthing around, emerging to cause havoc, slipping back into the shadows, and working towards catching the Visionaries completely unaware. I also found the investigation and lead-driven structure smart and compelling – though realising I needed to reset the loop to follow up a new lead set earlier in the day got tedious towards the end.
Overall, I think it’s still a great game in an industry full of visually spectacular but mechanically underwhelming titles. The concept is smart, the cast fantastic, and the minute-to-minute gameplay fun; however, the overarching narrative and world-building – two elements I loved in their prior games – suffer as a result of the structure. If you’re also an existing fan, jump on this. If not, consider that Deathloop only rewards you as much as you put in.
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