Deathloop

Deathloop (stylized with quotations and in caps as "DEATHLOOP") garnered a lot of confusion on its way to release. Somehow the game's premise appeared to be hard to grasp -- at least for some vocal percentage. Every new trailer or news article about the game had more than one person asking what it actually was. The reveal of the player invasion mechanic only added to the confusion -- it was as if people had never heard of such a thing in FromSoftware's games for instance.

I wonder if the expressed bafflement affected development and encouraged Arkane Studios to make the game hold your hand so much. It could have been that from even earlier, based on internal playtest impressions, though. The game was not a mystery for me pre-release but I too was disappointed to eventually learn that there's no creativity involved in solving the loop: there's only one path, one solution for what is needed to beat the game. Prey's Mooncrash DLC had some leeway on how to execute a successful full extraction: Deathloop was kind of a regression in that regard (even if it's technically from a different Arkane studio).

My Day as a Groundhog*

*Literal translation of the 1993 film Groundhog Day's Finnish title (Päiväni murmelina)

In Deathloop you play as a man called Colt with a bad case of amnesia. All he knows at first is that there's a woman hellbent on killing him and who even seems to be successful at it -- except dying merely puts Colt onto a beach, in the morning of the same day. Soon enough you'll learn that Colt is on an island called Blackreef which is stuck in an intentionally caused time loop.

The woman, Julianna, believes Colt is trying to break the loop and is trying to stop him. Since the game doesn't go anywhere if you don't try doing just that, you might as well continue Colt's supposed efforts and (re)discover his motivations. There are others in Blackreef: few key people, the Visionaries (which include Colt and Julianna), and their fan club of sorts, the Eternalists. Only Colt and Julianna remember the previous days; about everyone else relives the same day unaware.

Deathloop's visual presentation (and maybe music too) resembles the real world's 1960s -- and it's hella stylish. From the initial glimpses of the environments I had even thought the game to be set in alternate history, maybe in Greenland or something. However, Arkane has confirmed that Deathloop is in fact set in a later era of the Dishonored universe. It's not that obvious in the game: it doesn't throw around familiar names of places nor people. The world beyond the island is a vague thing and if there was any mention of the Dishonored era, it sure escaped me. Without the official confirmation I could have easily considered the familiar looking devices and architecture to be mere asset reuse; and the "slabs" the Visionaries have and the powers they grant just Arkane keeping some kind of meta continuation going. The slabs definitely do look like something that came out of the Void, though.

Too much water, 10/10

In addition to its premise being allegedly confusing, a lot of people were perplexed at Deathloop's critical reception. Few publications, including IGN, had the gall to give the game the perfect score. More than a few people seemed to be absolutely offended by that. If anything, the perfect 10 was at least a huge improved from the baffling 4/10 IGN's reviewer gave to Prey (supposedly due to a game-breaking bug; it was later changed to a 8/10 -- which was too late to affect the game's metacritic score).

I wouldn't necessarily agree with the top scores either (nor do I score games with numbers). Deathloop is a good game: the last pre-Redfall Arkane title. But is it a top tier game? I don't know. I don't see myself replaying it like the Arkane games before it. Also, by beating Deathloop just once you already have to technically replay it many times. I believe the lowest mandatory times-looped is 7 which includes 4 from the on-rails beginning. But by seeing everything, and doing everything, and getting every achievement, you'll be running through the same locations numerous times.

Deathloop starts at its weakest; its stretched tutorial feels like it just keeps going. I suppose I partially caused that by not running directly to the quest markers. One should really do that: once you get the ability to absorb residue is when the game truly begins and exploring has more benefit since you can then infuse items to not lose them at the end of the loop. I reckon Arkane could have put the player there quicker somehow. Weirdly enough, the heavily-guided, long tutorial makes the game appear more complex than it is.

After the tutorial you have more paths to take. The game will lead you with quest markers, step by step, to breaking the loop if you want. The markers can be removed by unchecking followed leads from your mission journal. I find it easy to ignore markers on the HUD; they're practically invisible when I'm focused on something else. Thus for me it didn't really matter if I had leads followed or not.

Familiar faces, worn out places

I have mentioned before how an immersive sim needs that certain production value to be immersive. A lot of effort needs to be put into a game world to make it appear plausible, to have the required detail and interactivity. With mere 4 locations Arkane must have saved a considerable amount of development resources compared to Dishonored 2's many maps.

The loop has four time periods and during each you can visit one of the four disctricts. The total number of location-time combinations is not quite 16 (I think it was 14 or 12) because not all districts are available through the whole day. The districts have changes according to the current time of day so they're not exactly the same maps. But it is without a doubt far easier to edit an existing map than to create one from scratch. When even one playthrough makes the player run through the same areas repeatedly, there's more justification for spending development time in detailing a map.

While the districts -- Karl's Bay, Fristad Rock, The Complex, and Updaam (which sounds like a setup for a joke -- which it eventually turned out to be) -- are highly detailed, I didn't enjoy traversing them. Most routes felt bothersome for stealth even with slab powers. Unless you're going for the few achievements that require you to avoid killing and/or being seen, you might as well mow down the Eternalists you come across. They are an actual threat in numbers when loop stress level is high enough, though.

Unlike Redfall, Deathloop has actual bodies of water but Colt is allergic to them. Standing in shallow water deals damage and deep water kills Colt instantly. Why did water and swimming become such a problem element for Arkane? Was the instant death really necessary? Cold water isn't that lethal.

There seemed to be little reason to spend time in the game's more interesting areas, the Dorsey Manor and Ramblin' Rock Club. The latter you don't need to visit even once to break the loop. So much detail there yet little reason to ever visit; even Frank's signature gun didn't seem viable enough to bother farming for a good affix.

Deathloop's gameplay is good but it's not much of an evolution from Dishonored: you just have few guns on top of the same old powers: Shift is Blink, Karnesis is Windblast/Pull, Havoc is Adrenaline etc. I suppose Aether's invisibility wasn't in the Dishonored games before; maybe it's there to make up for the lack of Time Stop, which was probably left out due to the multiplayer component.

Gunplay is serviceable; it's not particularly great but at least enemies die quickly to headshots. Having to scrounge health restoration items after each gunfight started to become a chore and I started favoring melee instead. With the Bloodthirsty trinket equipped, I could just run from enemy to enemy to stab them with Colt's machete to leech life. Melee combat's level of complexity was for some reason downgraded from Dishonored 2. Dedicated kick action finally returned to an Arkane title (which is cool) but there's no parrying nor slow motion. I reckon because of the multiplayer again.

Who ordered an invasion?

On paper, the player-versus-player feature is interesting. Julianna occasionally invades the loop to stop Colt and if you have online PvP enabled (which it is by default), she can be a human player. When Julianna appears, a device is placed on a set spot of the current map where it locks Colt's tunnel entrances, preventing him from fleeing until the device has been disabled.

In practice, the balance of the encounters can be wildly off. I don't know if the game's matchmaking takes any skill/time played statistic into consideration or is it simply on first come, first serve basis. But for instance, if you have an experienced human Julianna invade your game at the first possible opportunity on your first playthrough, you'll be terribly outmatched and sent quickly back to the beginning of the loop.

Julianna does kind of need all the help she can get, though. Colt's slab gives him two extra lives, meaning Julianna needs to (usually) kill him thrice. The Eternalists are on Julianna's side but unless there's half a dozen of them present, they don't count for much. When both players are equally matched in gear and skill, the advantage is clearly Colt's. Julianna's gear and ability progress is based on a scoring system: on how well the match went for you. She also gets cosmetics (for Colt as well) but in a first person game that is never a very good incentive.

The PvP is player-hosted (by Colt's player) so the quality of connection can be of varying quality. I did experience some rubberbanding but mostly the matches were playable. Any lag is noticeable when the gameplay is so fast: Colt and Julianna zipping around the map. A single drop assassination from a double jump can take you out just like that. (The animation for that jankily skips the middle part when performed against a player -- I guess some sort of synchronization issue.)

I didn't engage in PvP until I had beaten the game, mostly to get the two PvP achievements Deathloop has: one requires using Julianna's Masquerade power to take Colt's appearance and the other just to beat Colt once (thrice). I met quite a variety of skill in the matches I played. I managed to kill the third Colt I played against. The first match was a mess on my part but in the second I already managed to take two of Colt's lives until he got me on his third.

Computer Julianna is not as aggressive and twitchy as a human player in combat, which makes her considerably easier to defeat. However, she does beeline to your location if you've been spotted, which is almost intimidating due to the speed she appears. For a couple of achievements I turned Julianna invasions to friends-only so that there would be no additional complications.

I think the mode is in fact best for messing around with friends. Otherwise it's such an odd conflict: one player trying to beat a single player game while the other is there to make it harder. A victorious Colt does get slab upgrades and gear from a killed Julianna but that is also true for a computer Julianna. I wonder if it was from Julianna or what, but I finished the tutorial with the unique Strelak Verso, a gun that transforms between dual pistols and a submachine gun. It had the headshot explosions affix, which is a pretty big power boost to start the proper game with. I wonder if it's intended to finish the tutorial with one of the unique guns or if that was just happenstance.

A lot to do for completionists

Deathloop has a lot of achievements that require you to do very specific things. Arkane's immersive sim design failed me on the achievement Judgement Day which requires you to kill Harriet, one of the Visionaries, with poisonous gas. Harriet's place has an environmental gas hazard and I thought using Steel Lungs trinket and Shift with its Swapper upgrade would unlock the achievement easily. Instead she just dropped dead after I switched positions with her and no achievement was unlocked. Then I tried to kick her into the gas but the result was the same. I tried that multiple times until frustrated looked up what was wrong. Someone mentioned having unlocked Judgement Day by just blasting Harriet with the gun she drops (its bullets leave a small gas cloud behind) and that worked for me too. Either the achievement's description is not specific enough or it's just buggy.

The game has quite a few secrets that have no achievements tied to them but do require a considerable amount of effort to figure out. It's a bit disappointing that the obscurest ones have lackluster rewards.

It speaks for the nicheness of the immersive sim genre that only 8.8% of Deathloop players on Steam have the Old Habits Die Hard achievement that is unlocked by trying the 0451 code on any keypad. The text YOU KNOW THE CODE is floating everywhere when approaching the first keypad of the game to prompt all the super fans of the genre on a metacontextual level to try the code (which doesn't actually work this time). Those players are a clear minority.

As I mentioned already in my yearly recap post in December, Arkane Lyon's next game will be Marvel's Blade. That should be a departure from immersive sims. Stealth, melee, and even shooting fall under Arkane's usual stuff but third person and a licensed comic book hero do not. Hopefully it will go better than Redfall did for Arkane Austin, whom got shut down a month ago just as I feared would happen. They didn't even manage to get out the characters for the hero pass. It would be cool if at least some of the developers could join Raphaël Colantonio's WolfEye Studios to get the gang back together. WolfEye is apparently working on a first person game now.

Edited 2024-06-15: Improved some language.