What is Deathloop? It's a simple question, but one that's sure to constantly poke at the back of a player's mind as they dive into Arkane Studios and Bethesda's newest title. Is it a roguelike? A spiritual successor to Dishonored? Is it a single-player or multiplayer game? To each of these questions, Deathloop answers yes...and no. Deathloop doesn't commit to being any one type of game, and in that regard, it's breaking new ground that'll undoubtedly serve as inspiration to other future titles. That said, without a solid gameplay identity, much of the game devolves into tedious back and forth tasks highlighted by the occasional boss fight or interesting conversation.

Deathloop ultimately suffocates under its own gameplay. It tries to be too many things and, in the process, overlooks the minute-to-minute player experience. Any goodwill generated from the unique weapon selection or admittedly excellent banter between Colt and Julianna gets sapped away when players realize they have to revisit the same building for the fourth time in the last hour. It's a shame, because Deathloop has the narrative and framework to be so much more than it is.

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Deathloop's Story And Characters Steal The Show

There's a fantastic game somewhere in Deathloop, one that focuses on the bizarre story at play on the Isle of Blackreef. In the '60s, a fringe science organization called the "AEON Program" converts a defunct military base into their utopia, exploiting temporal anomalies to pursue eternal life. The Program's leaders, "Visionaries," succeed in establishing a day-long time loop that will maintain so long as one Visionary survives the day. To that end, each day begins as the "first" glorious morning to an eternity of unrestricted art and scientific experimentation. As the day goes on, the evening brings out the repercussion-free, Purge-esque animalistic nature lying dormant in Blackreef's citizens. They go from working together and casually chatting in the day to murdering each other and raving at night.

Players are introduced to their protagonist, Colt, as he wakes up on Blackreef's shores at the beginning of a new loop with no memory. It's not long before he encounters Julianna and their game of cat and mouse begins. Julianna serves as a foil to Colt, trying to stop him from ending the loop. At the same time, she takes pleasure in their interactions, egging Colt on and toying with him. She can come across as either playful or mean but she usually has some context of what the player's up to, making the short conversations feel organic. These are among the best moments in Deathloop. Departing from Colt's base of operation, the player might hear their radio hiss to life as Julianna begins to chastise them over a recent defeat or reveal a recent milestone was one already completed by Colt countless times across his infinite loops.

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Blackreef and its citizens have plenty of character too, albeit the players really need to work to get to know it. Deathloop is filled with little details about the island's history and its inhabitants, but they're often tucked away as pieces of intel. Given the nature of the game, it makes sense. Players will spend a lot of time hunting down clues and gathering information for subsequent loops, inevitably coming across most of the setting's lore throughout their investigations. It's just that, compared to the performances players get from Jason E. Kelly (Colt) and Ozioma Akagha (Julianna), a computer terminal with a chat log doesn't pack the same punch.

Break The Loop

With a narrative focused around a time loop, Arkane Studios has the perfect setting for a roguelike or an open-world FPS. The problem is that Deathloop isn't wholly either. There are bits and pieces from both genres (plus the addition of multiplayer), but none of these elements mix as well as they could. Gameplay revolves around exploring four regions of Blackreef across four different times of day, with the ultimate goal of eliminating all eight Visionaries in a single day to end the loop. Each day players can go on up to four runs, one for each different time of day. During each outing, players can take all the time they'd like to explore for intel or hunt down a target before returning back to their hideout. Players can take out Visionaries as they'd like, but they won't succeed in killing them all without taking an active role in how the day plays out.

To that end, the world has a life of its own. Some things can be altered by the player, potentially leading to a butterfly effect on distant or seemingly unrelated events. The end of each day sees everything reset; however, knowledge gained is always preserved and players can elect to spend in-game currency to keep guns or items through runs. Deathloop does have some awesome weaponry across multiple rarity tiers, so players will want to find some favorites and invest in them. This is especially so once players begin finding weapon perks, which can be as simple as a suppressor on an SMG to something as bombastic as a revolver with bullets that explode into clouds of poison. Players can also find Trinkets to augment their weapons' abilities or power.

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The premise is sound, but Deathloop's execution is less than stellar. For one, nothing feels particularly groundbreaking. Sure, it functionally works; Colt can sprint, shoot, sneak, hack and use the magic-like powers of the Visionaries' Slabs, but none of it feels special. Too much of the game feels lifted right out of Prey or Dishonored 2, two great games that wouldn't be breaking any new ground in 2021. Enemies are far too forgiving, allowing players to sprint past crowds or rush a foe to perform an instant-kill stealth finisher without repercussions. There are even instances where it's possible to chain together these instant-kills in a group of Blackreef's meandering inhabitants while altogether eschewing stealth. Though automated turrets and other security equipment are meant to stop Colt from bum-rushing through defenses, his Hackamajig works through obstructions after starting a hack in line of sight, allowing players to overcome the obstacles easily.

The game advertises players can play either as Colt or Juliana, with one acting to stop the time loop and the other trying to protect it. However, Colt is the only playable option until a lengthy tutorial is completed. Tutorial might not be the right word, as it nears the length of Kingdom Hearts II's infamously long opening, but Deathloop walks players through an entire loop before totally handing over the reins. There's nothing wrong with trying to instill a game's mechanics before letting players run free, but locking a game-defining feature behind a multi-hour introduction doesn't make much sense. That said, Julianna's invasions add a much-needed sense of urgency to Deathloop.

Protect The Loop

In the opening 2-3 hours, Deathloop feels like a single-player game, not unlike Prey or Dishonored. While that's sure to get fans initially happy, the game shifts gear abruptly and never definitively decides what it wants to be. With eyes too big for its stomach, Deathloop pulls features greedily from other genres, becoming needlessly bloated. Nearly every couple of minutes, a new feature is introduced and briefly explained after starting the game; some of it, like the different grenade modes, is useful. However, it isn't crucial to force a player to read through tooltips for equipping cosmetics that they don't have. Incorporating Slab powers, randomized loot, upgradable weapons, roguelike progression and an interactable timeline, it feels like Arkane spent more time figuring out how to fit features into their game than ensuring they added something meaningful to the experience.

Perhaps Deathloop's biggest flaw is that the game often gives way to lengths of play that are just boring. Part of this is because, while Deathloop is swimming in features and cool weapons, it lacks real gameplay substance because it's walking the line between genres without committing to one or focusing on its gameplay. By the time players begin to get comfortable with the game and equip themselves with a half-decent loadout, their tasks will largely involve gathering clues, opening doors and unraveling some of Blackreef's mysteries. While this could be fun if it were the focus of a more detective-driven game, the spliced-in roguelike and multiplayer elements turn it into busywork.

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Players must return to the hideout in between runs, completely robbing any built immersion, something Prey was great at, by forcing the trudge back and forth so frequently. Main objectives might require revisiting the same location at different times or after completing specific actions. Soon, a tiresome pattern emerges. Players will ferry Colt back and forth between his hideout and some Blackreef location in what feels like a never-ending string of fetch quests. Players know they're working towards setting the events in motion needed to assassinate all targets in one day, but it feels like a slow and dull path there. There's some optional content in Blackreef's locales, but like main objectives, many are tied to specific prerequisites. In essence, players will find many more locked doors than open ones. Worse still, the "hideout" is just a screen with an onslaught of menu options and deployable locations. It's the kind of character screen you'd expect to see in a multiplayer-focused title like PUBG or Hunt: Showdown. It feels out of place, but players will be seeing it a lot.

Deathloop is not a bad game so much as it is a missed opportunity. If it had focused on exploring the philosophical and ethical themes its story hints at or just strived to be a groundbreaking roguelike, Deathloop would've struck gold. Blackreef Isle is an absolutely fascinating setting that's just as interesting as Colt and Julianna. And while the leads steals the show, the Visionaries seem like they'd be just as entertaining if given the opportunity. In another reality where Arkane leans solely on a narrative-driven, single-player experience or a full-fledged AAA roguelike, Deathloop is a can't-miss title. However, despite the game's director swearing it's not, Deathloop just feels like a very expensive roguelike with cool ideas and terrible execution. It'll do the trick for any player that absolutely needs to play a new Arkane game. For everyone else interested, best to wait for a sale.

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