Deathloop

2024-12-20
Listen y'all it ain't Prey, it ain't Dishonored, Dark Messiah or Arx Fatalis. And if you stow that Arkane-branded baggage and go in expecting a fairly linear shooter with some immersive sim elements, a pretty basic time-loop element, all bottled up in Arkane's fantastic world building and design chops then by golly you got a banger.

For me I hopped off the shuttle from Talos I very much expecting a successor to Prey. My first reaction was elation that the gunplay actually felt pretty damn good. Which was quickly followed by dismay when I realized the heavily advertised time-loop was basically hands-off as the game chose to hold my hand the entire time. Not only that but even once things opened up a bit it was pretty clear the best way to play was totally offensive because the stealth systems and immersive sim elements felt barely fleshed out. Bummer.

But as I played and played and replayed and replayed levels, and started to build up an arsenal of weapons and abilities I carried over from loop to loop, I stopped thinking of it as an Arkane game and more of just a zhuzhed up shooter. I basically turned it into a game of picking apart these immersive-sim-lite levels and trying to kill every living person in them as quickly as possible with Colt. And weirdly I started to really enjoy myself.

I said let's forget it's an Arkane game but that's mostly just mechanically. Stylistically it's impossible not to appreciate their masterful handiwork on display. I mean god the environments, the art, the 60's space age, retro-futurism of it all is sublime. You could make a coffee table book of just the environments in this game. I'd pay for that shit in a heartbeat.

I could ramble on about how Colt is one of the few actually funny protagonists, the absurdly good voice acting, the antagonistic relationship between Juliana and him and how you can get invaded a la Demon's Souls is incredibly cool, or the whatever plot but I'd say just check it out. Even if you won't remember after the time loop ends.
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A weirdly fantastic game. First of all I was kind of blown away by how fun the shooting in the game is. Since stealth is such a minor part of this game in comparison to other Arkane games shooting a LOT of people dead is most of the game. And they actually kind of knocked it out of the park.

After that I'd probably call out the style of the whole thing. The world is gorgeous. The 60s vibes are so vibrant and on point. Then you have the main characters. While they're a bit 1 dimensional they're still entertaining. Especially Colt who is hilarious.

On the story side of things it's pretty mediocre. I was hoping there'd be more lore exposition at some point but basically there's some people who start a government project, discover some weird "Anomaly", harvest it to make an infinite loop, annnnd that's it. The ending was pretty lackluster. You kill the loop and then it kind of ends.

Yet, I'm still giving it a quite high rating. And that's because it's another beautiful Arkane immersive sim. There are tight systems. There are large levels with lots of nooks and crannies. And the way you repeat them over and over to master them is actually fabulous. Also the persistence mechanics built in were great. I was pissed when my first loop ended and I had to reset getting guns because I had gotten some really good ones in my first loop. Then they tell you about infusing weapons so you can keep them in loops and then I was hooked. Oh shit now I can just grind levels to get a sick loadout THEN play through the story? Hell yeah.

Yeah, it's such a novel structure for a game along with all these other bits that I loved it. Is it better than Prey? No. Dishonored? Sometimes yes sometimes no. I love how open ended it is like Prey but it's still not as cohesive as a set of levels at Prey. So yeah it's great.