A Review of ‘Deathloop’
Ambition meets reality for a flawed experiment
This is an old review I put out on my Patreon around the time of Deathloop’s release.
When the nearly three hour tutorial of Deathloop wrapped up, a sprawling combination of genres and fascinating systems laid out before me. Though I was left a little tired from the abundant walls of text, I was excited to jump into another Arkane immersive-sim. Fifteen hours later and I’m…conflicted. Deathloop is not as complex as it leads on. Nor does the time loop conceit introduce compelling narrative complications. In many ways, this is the game I thought it would be coming off the likes of the Dishonored franchise. However, in a number of key aspects, it is without friction.
While the many trailers over its pre-release cycle did little to elucidate what the loop of Deathloop actually is, it’s fairly simple. A run-based immersive-sim feasting from the buffet of many of the best attributes from the last decade of games. The roguelite portions have you interacting with two loops. First, there is the singular calendar day that keeps repeating. That day is divided into four sections. Those being morning, noon, afternoon, and night. During which you can choose to spend time in one of the four districts that evolve over the course of the day. From a snow storm rolling in, a concert being set-up, buildings emptying out, and of course the eight visionaries shifting around the districts. During all of this, the protagonist Colt tracks down leads on powerful weapons and the where and when he can kill high profile targets in order to break the time loop. You’ll be required to go to a district at the right time of day and follow the marker to a glowing object. Often, they’re documents to be read, diary tapes to listen to, or people to kill. If this is sounds overly guided for an immersive-sim, it is.
Running down leads doesn’t leave me feeling like a time traveling detective. It’s like following a grocery list. Item by item. Aisle by aisle. When I think of time loops that have the player sleuthing about, Majora’s Mask and Outer Wilds are iconic. Figuring out all the steps across the three day cycle in order to get the Keaton Mask or maximizing every minute of a solar cycle in order to suss out the mystery behind a tornado ridden planet is far more satisfying. In Deathloop, it is entirely possible to pay zero attention to any document, lead, or dialogue and you will arrive at the solution all the same. Frustratingly, the instances where the player is left to piece clues together are quite good. One such occasion that stood out is a sort of Breath of the Wild like location hunt via the limited information of a single photograph.
Get WordsMaybe’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
The other key part of all of this is the run-based nature. By default, Colt carries little through each loop, whether he lives or dies. This means weapons, perks, and powers do not transfer over. That is unless you infuse them with the currency, residuum. You receive such by killing the main targets known as visionaries, scrapping unneeded gear, and harvesting objects affected by the looping. This, like many of the game’s ideas, is terrific in concept. Pretty quickly though you rack up residuum and plenty of strong goodies to infuse. By the end of my first full run, about five hours in, I had almost everything from my final loadout. Only occasionally swapping out the blue version of a weapon perk or character perk for a purple. Yes, this too has the tiered Diablo / Destiny loot ranking. Perks, called trinkets here, are neat but like many of the tools at Colt’s disposal, the flashier stuff tends to be the least pragmatic. Further exacerbating this issue are the easy gunfights. The chaff AI enemies are there to create a power fantasy and they are certainly effective at doing so. I wish that they would push back a little harder every now and again though. There are a couple areas with higher populations of enemies indoors that can prove slightly more troublesome, but Colt’s escape options are plentiful.
Where the challenge lies is online. Invasions, like the corpse runs to retrieve residuum, is another From Software-ish inspiration. Though also pulling from the cancelled Arkane title, The Crossing. From the main menu you can select “Break the Loop” which is the base single player experience as Colt. You can also choose “Defend the Loop” where you are dropped into a random player’s game as Julianna with the job of disrupting Colt’s actions. Another interesting concept, and while the execution is stronger here, it still has its problems. Firstly there are the technical issues. I was invaded maybe 12 to 15 times and I was the invader about half a dozen. Roughly a third of those encounters were plagued with rubber-banding and other such connection hiccups. Additionally, audio effects drop out at times. The worst I encountered was never receiving the announcement I had been invaded by Julianna. I only discovered I had been as I turned around and several shotgun blasts decimated me.
When it works, it can be rather tense. Not wanting Julianna to play the spoiler to your plans forces you to rethink your strategy on the fly. Being a chaotic pain in the butt as Julianna, has its own fun too. Again though, there are caveats. I generally found it easy to survive as Colt. The reason for this being his power that you keep through every run provides him with three lives. On the first two deaths you zip back to a safe location, and only upon the third do you get booted back to the morning, losing any gear you’ve not infused. Meanwhile Julianna has one life. So outside of a couple very skilled Julianna's, I had a strategy that worked almost every time. I get the sense that she is meant to chip you down and not be a brick wall. Meaning playing as Julianna sometimes feels ineffectual, even if you manage to steal a life or two from Colt.
The final big point of contention is the writing. The banter between Colt and Julianna is obnoxious more often than not. That said, it’s not all negatives. Colt bumbling to competency is pretty darn humorous. Given how awful his targets are, it sure is satisfying to kill these people in increasingly creative ways over and over. Even the ones that are more sad sack in nature. The history of Black Reef island and its Lost like nature does make diving the depths to find the non-essential bits of world-building worthwhile. It is unfortunately the best material. The big reveals and themes ring hollow by the end, which is such an anti-climactic finish no matter which last second choice you make.
Much of this review I have spent being rather critical. This is because Deathloop is the sort of game where the aspects that work are familiar. Teleporting around an intricately designed world glazed in the aesthetics of the 60’s and 70’s as I plot my murderous mayhem; such is Arkane’s wheelhouse. The execution here may not be equal to their best work, but it is still damn good.
By late in the game, I was in that “perfect run” mode from Edge of Tomorrow. Just zipping around the map to my objective, stealthily leaving a trail of viscera in my wake. Such is Deathloop and so it is difficult to call it a bad game. The trouble is all the attempts to emulate other successful formulas, both similar and not to what Arkane has achieved over its 22 year history. There are better rougelites. There are better time loops. There are stronger webs of interlocking systems. Despite just praising the world design, at no point is there anything on the level of the Clockwork Mansion or the masquerade at the Boyle residence. Whether it be the studio in France or Texas, Arkane takes swings few others do and I deeply admire them for it. Deathloop however, falls so short of what I know they’re capable of.
