The newest game from Arkane Lyon, the developers behind the Dishonored series, has looked promising from the start but a lot of over-marketing definitely created some cause for concern. By the time its release came, it felt like the game had been shown a hundred times and caused rightful concern that its biggest surprises and strongest parts had already been unveiled. However, Deathloop lives up to the hype and Arkane Lyon has created a game unlike anything seen before.
In Deathloop, players assume the role of Colt (voiced by Jason E. Kelly), a renowned assassin that wakes up on the beaches of a secluded island called Blackreef every morning because he’s stuck in a time loop. Every time he dies, he wakes up again on the beach and with everyone on the island targeting him, dying is like this inescapable hell. Now, Colt is on a mission to break the deathloop and must figure out how to kill eight main visionaries, including rival assassin Julianna Blake (voiced by Ozioma Akagha), on the island in one quick run. With tons of information to uncover about the visionaries as well as his own past on the island and Julianna constantly trying to kill him, Colt’s got a lot of work to do if he wants to escape Blackreef for good.
As Cole awakes on Blackreef for the first time, his memory is spotty. He isn’t sure exactly what’s happening and doesn’t remember his past well. All he really knows is that a woman named Lila (voiced by Brytni Sarpy) holds a special place in his heart and that he has a nasty feud with Julianna. As Colt hunts down each visionary and uncovers more secrets about the island, his past slowly starts to come out and reveals his former role on Blackreef as well as the “betrayal” that’s now made him wanted dead by everyone on the island. It’s a great way to make exploration rewarding as players can pick up little nods to Colt’s former life while also unveiling some of the history behind the island and its visionaries. Players who don’t explore every inch of Blackreef won’t be left in the dark though as there’s still a linear aspect to Colt’s story that unfolds with big reveals.
Even without knowing much about Colt at the start, it’s easy to instantly love him for the clear badassery he displays throughout. His profanity-ridden rants are hilarious and it’s easy to relate to him because he’s sort of learning as you are. Kelly’s performance is excellent in evoking badass blaxploitation heroes like Shaft and Black Dynamite, which matches perfectly to the game’s jazzy score, while also leaning into a more nuanced hero that has a fast trigger finger. Whether he’s talking to Julianna or past versions of himself he meets along the way, Colt will make you laugh and legitimately care about his story.
Speaking of Julianna, Akagha’s performance is equally strong, possibly even better, as she makes Julianna the perfect antithesis to Colt. Where Colt is a gravelly voiced experienced assassin, Julianna taunts Colt throughout with a young, cocky mentality as she kills him in order to protect the loop for mysterious reasons. Like Colt though, she’s a very talented assassin that makes you legitimately tense up when the prompt for her hunting you down suddenly appears. There’s a little more to her that players and Colt find out along the way that connects her to Colt in a very believable way and adds another layer to her taunts. Deathloop features the kind of storytelling breadcrumbs that really make big character discoveries satisfying and that’s especially true when it comes to figuring out how to achieve the perfect run.
Throughout Deathloop’s marketing, the phrase “Knowledge is Power ” was heavily emphasized and it’s great that that comes through so strongly in the way players will have to go about breaking the loop. Information is actually a player’s greatest resource in Deathloop as they’ll have to put on their detective hats to understand the personalities and daily happenings of each visionary. As they traverse each area of Blackreef, players will pick up some tips and tricks about the visionaries that they can formulate a plan to take them all out in one run. Some of these tips might include ways to kill people without even having to see them or luring multiple targets to one place to kill one, two, three, maybe even four at once.
Perhaps while going through a bright morning in Karl’s Bay to interrupt Harriet’s (voiced by Marcella Lentz-Pope) wild cultist sermon, you’ll notice some fireworks that Ramblin’ Frank (voiced by Andrew Lewis Caldwell) loves to talk about and shoot off at night that could be perfect to tamper with. Or, perhaps while hanging around Charlie’s (voiced by Khoi Dao) sci-fi themed LARP adventure “Containment Detachment”, you’ll find out that him and struggling artist Fia (voiced by Cherami Leigh) might have a rendezvous for a secret romance. You might even find that there are ways to get multiple people to party animal Aleksis’ (voiced by Michael Croner) giant mansion party to turn it into a bloodbath. There’s so much information to gather that comes together to not only flesh out who these visionaries are, but also create this slowly developing path to victory that’s incredibly satisfying.
With each new piece of information or discovery, you feel this urge to pull out a white board and red string to plan out your big run and it’s great that Arkane Lyon has leaned into this with how they structure the game. Players can follow “leads” that are essentially missions that have players go to different areas to follow the trails of each visionary in order to uncover pivotal information that helps you create a plan. It’s a nice, simple way to give players a great place to start and have some linear elements in order to create a more coherent plan. There are also these awesomely animated segments that come when you complete a thread that are not only visually pleasing, but also recap what you’ve learned in a way that makes it easier to see where this piece of information fits into the game’s big puzzle. Also, players can follow other leads that’ll lead them to better weapons and upgrades that’ll make them an unstoppable killing machine.
Honestly, playing as Colt makes you feel like an unstoppable assassin as the fast-paced gameplay and arsenal of weapons at your disposal opens up tons of options for players to utilize. The run and gun gameplay in Deathloop is endless fun and the upgrades players can pick up along the way for their guns and Colt’s physical abilities add deeper, more rewarding parts to the gunplay. It’s also enhanced through the Dualsense’s capabilities as the haptic feedback in the triggers and the enhanced vibration make each gun have their own distinct feel, which truly feels like a real next-gen experience. Also, the gun-jamming mechanic, where your gun can randomly jam up in the middle of combat, seemed a little dumb at first, but it’s kind of interesting as the guns are a little rusty because of how many loops they’ve been through. It adds a little unpredictability and forces players to adapt on the fly. However, spraying and praying won’t get you far on Blackreef.
These eight visionaries are no joke as they act as difficult mini bosses that know how to use the environment and their unique powers, known as slabs, to swing the odds in their favors. Players can’t just bust into areas as security cameras, de
adly turrets, and just a crazy amount of enemies make loud entrances come at a grave cost. There was actually a moment where I was trying to crash Aleksis’ party and after nailing a headshot with one of the guards, I found myself in the firefight of my life as everyone at the party completely turned on me. Deathloop’s got some Dishonored DNA in it with the ways that stealth and exploration can give you the upper hand.
The hackimajig allows players to hack nearby devices and turrets to have more control over the environment. Exploration is also key to getting the jump on the visionaries as learning about new paths and different observation angles open up new opportunities. It’s even better how these elements blend and players can set up kill rooms to trap enemies by knowing the layouts and bringing some hacked turrets along for some swift backup. More often than not, it’s great to also find some health stations to have a safe place to recharge during a tough fight. There’s just so much depth to Deathloop’s level design that makes every second exploring it come with new insights and maybe even some new powers.
If players can kill one of the visionaries, they will be able to get their slab and use it for themselves in battle. While slabs like Shift, which is very similar to the teleporting Blink power from Dishonored, and Aether, which turns players invisible, help with traversal, other slabs like Nexus, which allows players to link enemies together for a chance at a double kill, and Havoc, which increases your damage and defense for a short time, have a greater effect on combat. Players can also find upgrades for slabs by re-killing certain visionaries so there’s actually some big rewards in simply hunting down specific visionaries just to gain some upgrades for your favorite slabs. However, as said before, no visionary is really a lay-up and death comes at a pretty stiff price.
Instead of just throwing players onto Blackreef in the morning and forcing them to grind their way to night just to learn some new info, Blackreef is split into four different sections that can be explored at four different times of day (Morning, Noon, Afternoon, and Evening). With no time limit in each time of day or area, players can freely explore each area to learn the patterns of different visionaries and new information on their own time. It’s a unique game structure that really works in creating a more intricate experience and developing a real gameplan. Wherever and whenever a player dies though, they’re sent back to the beginning of the cycle and although players can get multiple chances in one run, survival can be challenging, and death means you lose everything
Upon dying and resetting the loop, players lose all their guns, slabs, and upgrades and will basically be forced to start from scratch. Although this sounds like a total nightmare, there’s one resource that helps alleviate some of the pain and suffering of losing everything – Residuum. Residuum is a resource that can be found on random items littered throughout each map and by killing visionaries, which gives you a big chunk of the stuff, that allows players to infuse items so that they don’t become lost between runs. The infuse system is a great way to add a sense of balance to some of Deathloop’s roguelike mechanics that often frustrate people and legitimately makes you take note of what’s in your inventory because you have that need to prioritize things to keep.
The only real major flaw in Deathloop comes from Julianna’s spawning. Invasion modes are always awesome and Deathloop’s is pretty top tier as players can invade other player’s games such as Julianna to take out Colt. There are strong customizability options players have as Julianna and there are also rewards players can earn from successfully killing Colt. The concept behind Julianna is great, but the execution for her sudden appearances can be very cheap. More often than not, Julianna spawns out of nowhere and at times ends up being right next to you all of a sudden giving you no chance to prepare or remotely defend yourself. There were even times where I’d be following a lead that required me to be silent and then I would suddenly fail the mission because Julianna suddenly spawned right next to me and forced me to fight her, completely blowing my cover. It’s nice that there’s an option for players to choose between Julianna being player-controlled or A.I. controlled to lessen the difficulty a bit, but there needs to be some updates to her spawns because they can be downright unfair.
Even if some of their ambition with Deathloop don’t come out as planned, Arkane Lyon has created a unique experience that’s not only full of fast-paced gunplay, but also contains some intricate storytelling and ambitious game structure that make it endlessly fun to explore. It’s a game that changes your approach and perspective on games and if that solidifies Deathloop as a must-play next-gen experience, I don’t know what will.
