DEATHLOOP é um jogo de tiro em primeira pessoa que tem um stealth um pouco parecido com Dishonored; poderes, garrafas e uma espada muito foda. Mas o jogo não incentiva, sendo muito mais divertido sair atirando em geral na maioria das situações. A IA também não é lá aquelas coisas, é bem burra, e em alguns momentos você é visto por um inimigo e a região inteira fica de alerta.

Mas isso pouco importa, o jogo tem um design genial de ciclos, em que quando você morre, começa tudo de novo, com um sistema de períodos (dia, tarde e noite) que altera todo a dinâmica de cada mapa, com um grau de dificuldade que aumenta conforme o vai ficando mais tarde, tendo certos eventos que só acontecem em um período específico e etc...
O seu objetivo como Colt é quebrar o ciclo, em que para fazer isso você tem de assassinar os 8 visionários da ilha em um único dia. Para isso, você descobre o que cada visionário faz, quando faz e o que você tem que fazer para você poder matar ele e os outros durante o dia, tudo isso enquanto Julianna, a antagonista, invade o seu jogo e tenta te matar. E essa é a parte mais legal do jogo.

Outra parte legal é a história; além de boa, a maneira que o jogo á desenvolve é majestosa, sério. Com ambos protagonista e antagonista muito carismáticos, DEATHLOOP conta uma história muito boa de um jeito muito bom onde o jogo tenta a todo momento te surpreender e fazer o contrário disso. Toda fase no início tem um diálogo entre Colt e Julianna e são nesses momentos que a história revela informações surpreendentes da lore. Além disto, conforme você descobre como concluir a missão de matar os visionários, a lore também se apresenta por meio de anotações encontradas em lugares importantes do mapa.
Não só isso, como tudo o que você descobre em um ciclo continua com você no próximo e serve para matar os alvos no próximo ciclo.

Ah, matar? Matar nesse jogo é muito divertido. Não existe uma variedade grande de inimigos, basicamente é um que atira e outro que explode, apesar disso você tem várias armas e poderes divertidíssimos á sua disposição.

Com um level design extremamente competente, DEATHLOOP entrega um excelente FPS, com personagens carismáticos e uma história pra lá de interessante.
Nota final: 9/10, Um jogo Excelente

Deathloop, somehow; is mindnumbingly complex and incredibly simple at the same time. It has this elevator pitch that's so easy to rattle off;

"You're a guy and you're stuck in a time loop and you've gotta kill 8 targets before midnight to break it! So you keep doing the loop over and over again, learning information about your targets and upgrading gear as you go so that you can do it all in one run to finish the game!"

It's exactly the kinda thing that's really easy to describe but so much more complicated to execute through game design to the point where Deathloop is somewhat bloated with tutorials, menus, keywords, mechanics and all sorts of various explanations. Deathloop's biggest flaw is how it doles out information - which is to say too much, too fast. For a game with such a complex narrative and so much focus put on picking up clues and gaining dirt on your targets, it can be incredibly taxing to retain all the information the game wants you to because every time you read a document or listen to an audiotape, you get main character Colt remarking on it out loud and a little notification in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen giving you a brief summary of what you've just learned. So sometimes you have an audio tape playing, Colt talking AND a notification popping up on-screen, that's too much information to take in at one time, Deathloop! This stuff is supposedly crucial, and I can't multitask!!

And this flaw is emblematic of Deathloop's design as a whole in my opinion. Its core concept requires so many moving parts to work as a game that there is a lot to take in, and this is to the game's benefit and detriment. On one hand as I say, it's very overbearing with how much it tells you and wants you to understand at a time and how it delivers said information. At the same time, its mechanical complexities offer all the freedom of choice in how you go about your mission that you've come to expect from an Arkane game. The level design is simply incredible in this game, I'd argue even better than the very best of Dishonored; which is high praise in my book. The verticality of the levels, all the nooks and crannies to sneak in to and out of the various strongholds, the remarkable art direction that lends such distinctive and colourful, paradisiacal 60's flair to every street you roam and every room you creep through is just INCREDIBLE. Even having played these same 4 levels in essence tons of times over I'm not tired of them, they're so dense and detailed and I'm constantly finding new things - and the minor changes they undergo during different times of the day only accentuates this.

It's such a paradoxical game at times. So sophisticated in its presentation but often clunky in its execution. For a game with such suave, Bond-esque undertones, the enemies in this game sure are fucking moronic sandbags! Running mindlessly directly into your line of fire when alerted and following you straight down hallways in which you can very easily place traps. Doesn't help that they're the only one enemy type in the entire game, meaning that even your unique "Visionary" targets who need to be killed to break the loop fight exactly the same way that any random-ass NPC does. (A couple of them have "Slabs", which are basically the game's superpowers, but they really don't end up changing much when you're dealing with them.)

This of course comes with one exception, Julianna - who can invade your mission at any point to try and hunt you down and kill you as either a player-controlled online enemy or an AI-piloted pursuer. You can turn online invasions from other players using Julianna off, but never the AI Julianna. The first few times this happens, it's novel and very cool - adding genuine tension and a fun cat-and-mouse dynamic to the levels that are otherwise generally pretty breezy. But the novelty wears out after a while in my opinion and it just becomes pretty tiresome, impeding on your progress when you just wanna get something done. It's especially annoying when you're going for targets like Frank or Aleksis who basically require stealth, so every time you're deep into the strongly stealth-incentivised sections of their missions, you're just praying Julianna doesn't randomly decide to show up and fuck the whole thing up for you and force you to reset the whole thing. Julianna showed up multiple times during my attempts to go unnoticed at Aleksis's party and my only options were to either stand and fight her there and then and blow my cover and instantly have to restart, or flee the area (again, undetected, which is pretty hard as it is) and hope she follows me and fight her elsewhere. If she doesn't, then I'm gonna be waiting for a while! Seems like a pretty big oversight in design in my opinion, and a pretty unsophisticated one at that.

Still, at its core, Deathloop is an Arkane game; with all the satisfying stealth, gunplay and multiple tailored approaches you've come to expect from that. I think despite having superior level design to Dishonored, its core gameplay falls slightly short of it because it doesn't react to the player's choices in the same way it did. The only incentive to be stealthy in Deathloop is that it's safer, but doing an entire mission and killing a Visionary without even being detected once didn't even result in a PS5 trophy for me, which was pretty disappointing. A far cry from Dishonored's "high-chaos", "low-chaos" system that saw levels physically change depending on your body count in the previous one. (I also really miss the bodies mechanic, I get why it doesn't exist in Deathloop because of the game's fiction but damn do I miss just dropping bodies off of rooftops.)

Then however, what Deathloop has over Dishonored is significantly more enjoyable and interesting story and characters. Colt and Julianna in particular have a great dynamic (even if their "relationship" ends up pretty weird by the end of the game) and while your Visionary targets are one-note and shallow; that's the point. They're pretentious assholes who are still fleshed out beautifully by the minicom messages in which you can see them interacting with eachother. Some of my favourite moments in this game are just hearing the Visionaries complain about one another and watching them bicker, you can often get a real sense of who these people are before you even meet them through the game's various breadcrumb trails, and I think that's really impressive.

I compare Deathloop to Dishonored a lot because fundamentally they're very similar - right down to having pretty much the exact same "Blink" ability. I think Dishonored is slightly better as a game if you're looking purely at gameplay - but then Deathloop's level design still trumps it, as do its story and characters. Its art direction and world are fucking stunning, on a comparable level to Dunwall in my opinion. I think the games overall are very similar in terms of quality for different reasons. I don't think Deathloop is quite the masterpiece critics seem to think it is, I think it's a good game with some flaws, and that's where it ends for me.

Player around 6 hours and attempting a refund right now. It's almost unplayable as it constantly crashes/BSOD for me, and in the way saves makes me lose a lot of progress. each time. I tried a lot of fixes but nothing worked. The game looks good though, it's a shame.
The crashing is specially bad for this one because it completely ruins the loop concept.

People dislike emulation because it's "hard to set up" and then you have to follow different user guides to run each newly released AAA games to no avail smh.

Deathloop was enjoyable enough, but ultimately felt like a watered down Dishonored 2 with Outer-Wilds-for-babies grafted onto it. Outer Wilds is a Swiss watch puzzle box whose solving will make you feel like a genius, and will then make you shudder in acknowledgement of the several-orders-of-magnitude-greater genius required to construct such a thing. Deathloop semi-successfully recreates the joy of “discovering how it all fits together,” but ends up feeling far less rewarding because of how aggressively it guides you through the experience. Outer Wilds makes you rely on your wits to figure out where to go and what to do next. In Deathloop, you are forever presented with a series of clear cut objectives that tell you exactly where to go, exactly what to do, and exactly when to do it. They’ve removed any need for the player to perform the mental gymnastics that could have made this game more interesting

To its credit though, I love the aesthetic of Blackreef, the levels do uphold Dishonored’s legacy of lovingly crafted sandbox mazes with discoveries around every corner, and I adore Colt and Julianna as characters. It’s just the way you get from the game’s A to Z that leaves me feeling a little deflated

Deathloop is a very fun sandbox that is perfectly designed to allow you to play it however you want to. Along with a well-conceptualized time-loop mechanic, I can highly recommend this game, despite its lackluster story and character development.

Story ★★★
Deathloop follows the actions of the protagonist Colt who is stuck in a single-day loop on a remote island along with 7 other "Visionaries" and a large number of nameless residents. Colt tries to break the loop and escape the island while the main antagonist, Julianna, tries to stop him.
You explore one of 4 different areas that is different during each of the 4 times of day, morning, noon, afternoon, night.
This is a solid foundation; throughout the game, you'll uncover tidbits of info about the project's secrecy and what the island used to be host to. Unfortunately, there isn't much more to it than that. None of the secrets you find are neither terribly revealing or terribly interesting. They took the less is more approach in storytelling but I don't feel like this is a "less is more" type of story. There are just too many questions that feel unsatisfactory to leave at "no one knows oooOOOOo" (that's a spooky ooo noise). I want to know why the loop began, why the characters are here, why the Visionaries are important, and some theories about what might happen if the loop is broken, as well as some theories as to what the loop could be used for or what potentials could be realized in the future. None of these are explored more than just on the surface (at least as far as I found) and so therefore the entire story feels like it is a tiny simulacrum of what it could be.

Gameplay and design ★★★★
Following Colt, you play a game that feels very Arkane Studios. Stealth optional, platforming(ish) FPS with powers. This is not a bad thing! Essentially you have a Dishonored-Esque game but with more modern guns. I enjoyed the gameplay thoroughly. There are 6 different abilities (called Slabs) that you can choose from, though you can only equip 2 at once. It's nice to have a decent number to choose from but I found that it really only ever made sense to use two of them. The "Shift" teleport ability and the "Nexus" ability which links foes together and causes them to share damage received. The other powers include invisibility, invulnerability, telekinesis, and an offensive poison projectile attack. The problem is that Shift is indispensable to allowing you to effectively traverse the amazingly designed levels since there is a lot of verticality that you can really only access using Shift, and Nexus is just too damn good, especially is you're trying to be stealthy. Sneak up to a group of people, link them, and headshot one. You're done. It becomes even more broken with additional upgrades that cause affected enemies to spawn new links to nearby ones. I once got around 20 enemies with one headshot. How can you say no to that?
Additionally, there are only 8 weapons types to choose from, not including a few unique weapons, and I got really good versions of a couple of them fairly early-on so I didn't really want to change them.
I really wish that the game did not limit you to just 3 weapons and 2 slabs. In Dishonored you can freely choose between any of your abilities on the fly. I understand the "realism" of limiting the number of weapons that you can carry but I wish that I could have at least been able to swap out my machete for a sidearm or something like that. I barely used it and it just sat there on the loadout screen mocking me.

I absolutely love the level design. Not only do the areas look good, but they are so great to explore too. Every area is basically a big circle, with pathways through the middle that exit to multiple different areas. So once you know the areas you can quickly get from anywhere, to anywhere very quickly. It's also really interesting to learn about how the areas change during the different times of the day.

You start with no knowledge and you must find clues about how best to achieve your goal (killing all the visionaries in a single loop). I enjoyed not using the map markers to point me in the right direction and just scouring every nook and cranny of each level to find every detail I needed. I really enjoyed that I was having to manually piece together all of the clues I found and I even had started to write down my execution plan! Then as I put the final puzzle piece in place, the game ruined my self-sufficient fun and just gave me step-by-step instructions on how to finish it. That was a bit of a bummer. So my advice to a new player is: don't rely on the map markers more than you have to! It's much more interesting to learn the ins and outs of everything yourself.


Characters ★★
I found Colt and Julianna both to be fun characters, though they were both fairly shallow. You get to learn a bit about their backstory and history but you never learn about why Colt wants to break the loop and why Julianna wants to stop it. Colt has some sort of amnesia so that's forgivable but Julianna never wants to give any sort of concrete reason to stay. She just spends her time taunting Colt. This is fun, but kind of goes into what I said above about the lack of depth in the story.
The visionaries are pretty much all douchebags in their own way and the only one of them whose involvement makes any sense is the scientist, Wenji, who is studying the loop. I would have liked to see some variance in their characters, maybe give me a reason to feel bad about killing one of them, or give me a reason that it might otherwise be a bad idea. Even though they are distinct characters with different backgrounds and professions, we don't ever get to find out what their purpose is or anything deep about them.

Character Design
I think that the enemies all wearing masks is just a convenient excuse to not create unique-looking NPCs. There is no lore-based reason that I know of for them all to be wearing masks, and if there is one that I missed I'd be surprised if it were sufficient to cancel out this complaint.
The only part where I found the masks to be interesting is during the party at night where everyone is wearing a wolf mask so you have to find a way to find your targets.

Music and sound ★★
Overall I thought the music was fine but not really worth discussing. However, I did really enjoy a lot of the sound effects and ques. I particularly enjoyed the microphone/speaker feedback sound that plays when you get a headshot. For some reason, it just worked for me and I got satisfaction from hearing it each time.

In Conclusion
Overall, Deathloop is a very enjoyable game that could have been even better. I'd recommend that anyone give it a try because I bet you'll have fun for a time. However, I don't expect that the repetition of the loop will be enjoyable to everyone and the various flaws, though fairly minor as far as enjoyment are concerned, are numerous enough to keep it from being truly great.

While the attempt was grandiose, the game was just ok, and in that discrepancy lies a strong sense of withdrawal.

I know, I know... When you're the studio behind the Dishonored and Prey, stakes are high and risks are often not worth taking. But Arkane had the balls to take it, and for that, they have my utter respect. The game has a very unusual and peculiar concept, with strong story-driven gameplay which plays with the concept of causality in the quasi-open world framework, making it the central driver. In combination with Tarantino-esque atom-punk aesthetics, the game is a very solid attempt to create a quite interesting framework. That being said, after being left with a post-completion aftertaste for some time, I must admit that the feeling of confusion and incompleteness is all I am left with.

I really wanted to like deathloop. Two bipoc main characters, an interesting premise revolving around time looping, and a creepy mystery to solve. However, in execution, Deathnote just falls extremely flat.
The weapons aren't fun, and neither is the combat.
The world doesn't look interesting. It's just like any other FPS made in the samey engine.
The voice acting and dialogue is atrocious.
For a game that wants you to keep playing to discover the story and all the gameplay has to offer, both are executed so poorly and are so shallow that you've seen everything it has to offer in an hour or less.
If this game had been given a bit more care and attention and had someone better behind the direction, it may actually have been one of the best releases of the year. But we don't have that game. We have this game. And it's a hard pass.

****note on my ratings:
half ⭐: hot trash garbage
⭐: below average, needs work
⭐⭐: average
⭐⭐⭐: pretty good
⭐⭐⭐⭐: excellent
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: all time favourite
half star ratings between those mean it's slightly better or worse than stated in this list.
*

A jogabilidade é altamente refinada e eu gosto bastante da forma que o subgênero roguelite é integrado à narrativa. Entretanto, sinto que o level design torna as coisas muito fáceis, tendo o jogador vários caminhos que tornam toda a coisa trivial. Não existe um verdadeiro desafio stealth, tendo em vista que a inteligência dos inimigos é nula. O mesmo vale para o combate direto.

Ainda assim, é admirável como é divertido se deslocar pelo mundo. Além disso, o sistema de pistas (e a quase não linearidade) oferece oportunidades muito divertidas.

No geral, é um jogo muito bom, mas que ainda não chega no brilhantismo de Dishonored.

Deathloop’s a solid game, though a step down from Arkane’s other titles. It plays pretty much like Dishonored (even having the same teleport skill), but conceptually it’s closer to something like Hitman. The goal being to gather knowledge about targets and learn what they do throughout the day, in order to eliminate them all in just one loop.

The art direction’s great but the level design’s a bit disappointing, not really matching the likes of Dishonored or Prey for me. The four areas to explore are small and after the first few loops there’s not much variation to them, which could feel pretty boring after a while.

Also the AI is definitely not impressive and combat is really easy, but there is a cool mechanic where you can play as Julianna and invade another player’s game to try and take them out (and vice versa), which gave the game a bit more challenge.

Fechado pela segunda vez. Ótimo jogo da Arkane com uma pegada diferente de Dishonored e Prey que são mais focados em gameplay Stealth, por isso consigo entender perfeitamente quem não curtiu...Tem que ter muita paciência pra entender como quebrar o loop. No mais, o jogo tem o DNA da Arkane, immersive sim com muita liberdade durante as missões, muitos caminhos pra seguir, muitos segredos pra descobrir nos 4 horarios diferentes, ótima variedade de Armas e Poderes, que usando juntos da pra criar um caos kkkk A trilha sonora é um ESPETACULO, captura muito bem o clima dos anos 70/80 que o jogo tenta passar, mas é algo normal da Arkane, ate o no Redfall é boa, o Colt é um puta protagonista carismático, precisamos ver mais dele, os visionários são legais tbm, principalmente o Frank. Ambientação de Blackreef nos 4 horários é simplesmente magnifica, e ver as alterações no cenário em cada parte do dia é muito foda. Espero que tenha uma sequencia ao estilo Dishonored 2 onde jogamos com o Colt e a Julianna.

i'll be frank: this game is the epitome of a nothingburger to me. there was so much potential here and it's almost entirely squandered. deathloop promises so much, both on a gameplay and narrative level, yet it fails to deliver anything even remotely up to par for an arkane game. even death of the outsider still had moments. this? this gives me nothing to contemplate or remember.

i want to start out by saying that this game isn't a bad idea in conception (for the most part, at least). you can very easily see this same concept done better by none other than arkane themselves with prey's DLC, mooncrash. while that DLC may have been criminally overlooked, i was hopeful that it would mean deathloop would expand on the already great ideas presented in that experience. instead, deathloop shrinks itself in complexity for the worse and, as a result, ends up feeling about a quarter as mechanically engaging as mooncrash. even if you ignore the mooncrash comparisons, the sense of progression in this game is just not great. residuum almost immediately stops having any sort of value, especially when the game practically throws it at you. infusing your weapons, buffs, and powers SHOULD be this feeling of "aha! i'm getting stronger and more deadly!" but the game starts out on easy mode and never escalates. if anything, it descends precipitously once you get aether, and when you get the ghost upgrade for aether, the game might as well give a big flourish and have a "THE END" screen pop up, because gameplay functionally stops having any challenge.

but, if the gameplay isn't challenging, then what is it? well, it's. . . boring! i like the idea of exploring these four different areas at four different times each and learning how they change, but the game barely goes out of its way to make any of the different times distinct from each other. and the actual worldbuilding itself is a low for arkane, especially after prey's interconnected and realistic to-a-fault world design. in updaam, there's an apartment that just straight up has no way to enter it besides through a window. in karl's bay, people will just be sitting on rooftops that they have no ability to get up normally. i know it sounds like i'm harping on very minute details, but these things matter in an immersive sim, and, more importantly, these are things arkane has done consistently correctly in their previous titles. the world feels so video game-y, and while that can, at times, be interesting, there's very little to do in these areas besides kill enemies and collect residuum. i don't find blackreef to be an interesting place to explore because so much of it lacks a story; it doesn't feel lived-in.

as far as the narrative goes, i kept waiting for it to go somewhere, but the main twist of the game is something you could literally predict by looking at the cover, and the game basically has no tricks left up its sleeve after that moment. i think what's more annoying is how many vital questions are left unanswered. how did all of the visionaries meet? did they know each other previously or did they somehow meet up for this common goal? why are julianna and colt immune to the memory wiping effect of looping but literally everyone else isn't? that last one is probably the most infuriating because the game does draw attention to it, yet offers nothing to satisfy that question. i'm fine with open-ended "draw your own conclusion" type of mysteries, but this is a central one that borders on "i need this information to even care about the characters", if it isn't already at that point.

speaking of julianna, can i just say that whoever thought having invasions in a single player immersive sim should never be allowed to have any input on development of a video game ever again? the AI will just sit on rooftops and spam an infinite supply of grenades and sniper rifle ammo at you, and she adds nothing to the game but irritation. once i learned how to deal with her consistently (aether obliterates her AI and she is allergic to the shotgun), she stopped being even remotely interesting and just turned into a consistent time-wasting nuisance. i genuinely want to know: what positive value does she add to the game? if the rumors are to be believed, the invasion mechanic actively made the game worse because it meant that the systems had to be simplified to accommodate PVP balance (i.e. melee was going to be more varied and the player was going to have access to all powers at any time like in dishonored). you could argue she's providing the role of the horror game stalker, but a. this isn't a horror game, nothing in this game elicits fear b. her presence is always televised with "OH NO JULIANNA IS HERE OH SHIT SHE BLOCKED YOUR TUNNELS" that you would have to be not paying attention to be even surprised, no less scared by her and c. she doesn't actively stalk you, most of the time her AI will camp on rooftops. i don't mean to harp on this for so long, but she is objectively one of the worst parts of the game and i can only hope this was a publisher directive to push for multiplayer rather than a sincere attempt at something from arkane.

obligatory positives paragraph: i really liked that part with aleksis' party where he has a meat grinder that he sends any unfunny stand-up performers to via trap door (though the game's definition of "stand-up" comes off so bizarrely that it's like a cultural mistranslation. it's been suggested that this is less of a "stand-up routine" situation and more of a "let's brag about how evil we are" situation, but that's not conveyed at all considering you'll be traveling through the party and out of nowhere you'll hear the first person talk about "I FUCKING LOVE SMOKING YEAH!!!!".). i almost liked the idea of getting to know the visionaries and their patterns, and found myself endeared to a few of them. on the whole, though, they felt same-y and hard to distinguish. oh, so frank and fia are both hoity toity artists up their own ass? and egor and wenjie are both antisocial scientists who have failsafes in their bases if they get attacked? stop, the diversity here is overwhelming. i think the absolute best thing i can say about this game is that by and large i can tell this was a passion project for a lot of arkane. i can see the gears turning in the devs' heads and see them going "okay, so if you sabotage this thing, then this will happen, and if you fuck with this character, they'll do this". that sort of cause-effect relationship was probably really fun to map out and iron out the details to, and i wish the joy i could see from a development side had translated as well into gameplay.

2.0/5.0 might seem a bit harsh, but this game rarely elicited joy out of me. the comedy falls flat, the gameplay feels mechanically barren, progression isn't rewarding, the narrative doesn't deliver, and it just ultimately felt like a waste of time to play this game. i take away very few positive things from my time with deathloop, and a lot more negative ones. it's nice to see that so many others had managed to find some type of entertainment out of this, and i don't necessarily begrudge anyone who prefers this to any of the prior arkane games. for me though, i prefer something with more meat on its bones, and this game just made me want to turn back the clock. audience boos and throws knives at me until i am dead

Deathloop is testament to what Arkane as a studio has developed into in the past decade or so - an intelligent game maker that understands the immersive sim like no other and refines it with their own formula in the most creative ways, borrowing multiple game ideas that have been successful in recent years and streamline it into a triple a quality experience, that makes you think one thing on so many occasions: it just works so well.
I have played and rated all but one Arkane Game with at least 4 stars, multiple times with 4,5 stars. You could say I’m a fan of their work, and so it was mind-boggling to me how bad their marketing for this game was, because up until I read the reviews I had no interest at all in this game. They did such a good job of underselling this, it’s borderline criminal. I did not expect Deathloop to be my favorite loop-centric game this year, but 12 minutes was an utter disappointment so I’ll take what I can get.
Deathloop has got to have one of the best first few hours in a game, it’s a well made tutorial for a multitude of complex systems interwoven into the very core of the narrative, it makes a lot of sense and doesn’t feel like something you want to skip - the pacing is just one of those things: it works so well. They are able to set up a great mystery, which will keep you engaged with every single tidbit of information you find. Audio logs and text chats convey the general mood as well as the cutscenes and conversations the main characters have: It has a jazzy spy thriller atmosphere and the game doesn’t take itself too seriously.
One of the big strengths of Arkane‘s formula has always been how smooth the actual gameplay feels. Using your powers and traversing the map is another one of these things: it just works so well. But what makes this so much better (for me personally) as in their previous games, is the fact that you don’t just replay levels for the heck of indulging in the mechanics, but that it’s necessary to progress with the story. Which is fine, because every area has different things going on depending on which time you arrive there. The rougelike repetition gives you the chance to try out different possibilities and perfect your playstyle. It is however far too easy, because as soon as you‘ve found your groove with shift and some of the weapons and especially hacking the turrets, you basically become a god and there is no real danger there any more. Sometimes I just ran and jumped through an entire level not even caring for the enemies, because they are just not fast enough. This definitely takes away the necessity of experimenting with the different play styles, but also makes it a lot more accessible for people who want to enjoy the story.
Another thing, that kind of looses its magic along the hours you play the game, is the unraveling of the mystery. I don’t know if it’s just me, but by the end I did not really care that much anymore and the ending kind of confirmed this hunch, it fell flat for me. It’s a bummer, because the setup was so good, but it’s also fine, because the gameplay itself is more than enough to make this game worth your while.
Immersive sims are predestined for trophy hunters like me, because some of the most fun I had while playing Deathloop, was trying to get some of the more difficult trophies like killing all visionaries without being seen in the entire loop, or not killing a single eternalist, using specific weapons or traps to kill someone and many more things that forces you to experience every single thing this game has to offer. You find secrets, Easter eggs, use guns that don’t fit you regular playstyle etc. So close to when I got the platinum I was breezing through the game like it was a playground specifically designed to be taken apart like that. It was a perfect trophy hunt.
I wouldn’t say Deathloop is the best Arkane Game to date, I preferred the atmosphere of Prey and the cinematically scripted missions of Dishonored 2. But Deathloop is definitely the most meticulously crafted one, especially considering to have a multitude of different ideas merged to one great product. It shows just how good they are as developers and I’m sure the next game will continue to prove this.

I just finished this game so it's not really a review and moreso just my thoughts coming off of it. This is probably gonna read pretty disjointed as my thoughts are just bouncing around.

Beat it in about 13 hours although I did start to rush a bit for the last few hours. I wouldn't say it's worth the 60 bucks but if you can get it on discount for sub-$40 later down the line(which you definitely can cause Arkane games always go on sale) then give it a go. Also Arkane game so expect some of that eurojank.

Generally alright:
Gunplay was serviceable but not really anything great, at least they made the pump shotty and what was essentially an elephant gun satisfying to use.
I enjoyed seeing that the trinkets actually ended up being pretty straightforward with most of them actually being useful upgrades, there were maybe only 6-7 trinkets(counting both player and weapon trinkets) that I had never considered using. The weapon modifiers were also good too, I actually ended up almost never using the special guns cause I found guns with modifiers that were actually useful(suppressed smg, pump shotty shoots twice before needing a pump)
I didnt actually utilize half the abilities given and just teleported around but it was nice to see that you could freely use those abilities without worry of having to play more conservatively for the sake of maintaining power considering the energy for them regenerates without need of consumables.
This is one of those games that gives you a real nice sense of growing power that isn't an rpg.

Things Im iffy on:
The fact that this is an immersive sim works well with the timeloop stuff but its pretty obvious that the game ends up really only giving you one true solution by the end of game. It keeps it cohesive but ultimately repetitive and I can't see this game having much replayability besides playing the ending quest again to see the other endings.
The visionaries also end up being just a bit more than the average grunt with how it might take an extra point blank shotgun blast to off them and sometimes they have a special ability.
The dialogue can come off as pretty reddit depending on who you're talking to but I didn't really mind it and just chalked it up to the largely facetious tone the game has.

I wouldn't say I'm disappointed with this game like I've been with some other game releases I've played the past few years but I do wish there was just a bit more. I was loving it, until I got to the ending. It felt a little rushed and while I enjoyed the cheeky tone the ending I got had, I just feel that my time with the game was a tad too short. I beat the game practically the same day I got it, I can really only say that for resident evil games and those are actually meant to be replayed. Also if I didn't have work today I would've beat it on the 14th, I was really only like 20 minutes off from being able to say I beat it the exact same day.

I will say that the game's length helps with the rather repetitive nature of the game as it doesn't really feel like you're wasting too much time considering the game is less than 20 hours long.

Anyway, flawed but definitely enjoyable

Didn't really get the performance issues that other people got although I didnt touch raytracing cause fuck that dumb meme. Only real performance thing I have to note is that the game occasionally has that Far Cry 5 effect where you'll have 70-90 fps but it still kinda feels like 60ish. If you played FC5 on pc with decent enough specs you might know what Im talking about.

Afterword: If you actually are reading this at the time of writing I just realized I forgot to talk about the mp but Imma go out for a cig before I start writing that.

Anyway, the invasion shit was just ok. Seemed like an afterthought/last-minute gimmick they added so they could give the game a bit more of an identity as its own thing but I ended up playing single-player/friends only so I dont have to deal with that bullshit. The invasion thing just boils down to who can magdump or juke each other out better and by juke I mean be a Goddamned nuisance to the other player by blinking, strafe dodging, or double jumping all other the place. P2P connection so have fun rubberbanding cause you connected to some sorry bastard who probably took more than 7-8 hours installing a 30 gig game cause they live in Columbia, Missouri or anywhere else where you can't actually get good wifi.

The invasion mechanic is honestly more fun functioning as some ghetto ass coop where you connect to your buddy for a single segment of their loop and help them take out a target or potentially 2/3 and then let them kill you so they can get the extra 10k residuum and whatever gun/slab you were using.

Let’s just get this out in the open – if you know me, you probably know that Arkane Studios is my favorite game studio in the world. Their previous titles since joining Bethesda (Dishonored, Dishonored 2, Death of the Outsider and Prey) are all 10/10s to me. So yes, you could say that I was excited about Deathloop. So, how is this first person shooter immersive sim?

Deathloop is an interesting game because it is truly innovative, but it doesn’t really present anything that Arkane Studios hasn’t done before. The stealth and magic from dishonored, the weaponry from Prey, the roguelite time loop mechanic from Mooncrash, and even the invasion mechanic from Arkane’s canceled game, The Crossing. But all packaged together it genuinely offers something no other studio could have pulled off.

While there are obvious inspirations from The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, it’s not a good descriptor of what the game is about. Our protagonist, Colt, wakes up on the beach of a hedonistic island paradise called Black Reef. With no memories and no weapons, his only information comes from over the radio with a woman named Julianna, with whom Colt shares a mysterious past. You learn that there are 8 visionaries on the island, including Juliana herself, which are basically assassination targets.

However, they all have schedules and are never really in the same place at once. Your job is get them all together so you can kill all 8 of them in one run before the clock strikes midnight. It really does take some time to understand exactly what’s happening, but once you hit the loop that grants you infusions, it all comes together.

You start on the loadout screen, where you can view your clues, documents, weapons, upgrades, spells and objective webs. I really love how the game presents the leads you’ve got – you can choose to follow any of them by clicking on them and tracking the waypoints and info. If you want to play this a little more hands off like a real detective, there’s a screen that simply shows a list of facts that you’ve learned about each of the four districts at each of the four times of day .

Once you know where you’re going to start, you select which of the four zones you’ll be visiting in the morning. Once in that zone, you have an infinite amount of time to explore, gather clues, assassinate any visionaries, and track down arsenal upgrades. You can use residuum, a resource you collect by killing visionaries, to “infuse” weapons and spells so you can gradually build your arsenal. And then it’s off to kill some idiots - That is, if Julianna doesn’t show up.

Probably the most ingenious part of Deathloop, the glue that holds it together, is the invasion mechanic. At any time while you are playing the campaign as Colt, you can be invaded by another human player who is controlling Julianna. She invades your game, equipped with a much better arsenal of spells and guns than you (at least at the start), and if she’s able to kill you three times your run ends and must restart the next day. However, if you’re able to kill her, you can pick up whatever spells and weapons she drops and get extra lives for the duration of that zone.

When she invades your game, the doors to escape the zone lock and must be unlocked by hacking a satellite across the map. You can also use the so called hackamajig to hack turrets to aid you and spotlights to ignore you, as well as machines to cause distractions and doors to open. All these factors usually force a confrontation between Colt and Julianna, and one of them won’t walk out of that zone alive.

The invasion stuff mostly works the way that Arkane intended – as colt, I had three or four firefights where I was on a perfect run for my objective and Julianna threw a wrench into my plans. I was hunched over, sweat pooling on my brow, and a few of those times my run ended there when she stabbed me in the back or shot me through the skull. As Julianna, however, I never had much luck. I was not very good at invading and only tried it a half dozen times. But when Julianna invaded my game, I felt that same sensation of being backed into a corner and having to use every last tool at my finger tips that I missed from Prey. Which brings me to my first problem with Deathloop.

Outside of the few times Julianna had me cornered, I did not feel the need to be resourceful. The main thing I love about the Dishonored games, and the reason I’ve played the series for over 300 hours collectively, is that there are a hundred ways to approach each situation and each are equally viable. In Deathloop, while you have some room to experiment, you largely don’t feel a push to. The game doesn’t reward continuous experimentation; rather, it rewards finding your playstyle and mastering it and using it for the rest of the game. Which makes it no different than any other action game on the market.

Dishonored and Prey are built around that core tenet of immersive sims, giving your options upon options, so many that you may feel it impossible to choose what to try. Deathloop restricts you to only having two spells and three weapons equipped at a time, and it’s very much built for that. Colt is already a god – the purposefully terrible AI is literally just cannon fodder as you blast your way to the visionaries and sneak around new locations to gather clues about the island and its inhabitants. The kind of trick shots you see people pulling off in Dishonored after 3 dozen tries, you will execute every 5 minutes just by playing Deathloop. In that way, it is absolutely the most accessible of Arkane’s games. I am not surprised it is the most popular of them. Players master the mechanics after two hours and start pulling off crazy impressive tricks, and it’s only when Julianna interrupts that there’s a challenge anymore. Without her, I think this game would have actually fallen quite flat.

The spells in the game are called slabs. I tried all of them out at least once, but found Shift, which is just Blink from Dishonored, and Nexus, which is Domino from Dishonored, to be the only viable pair. And those two powers alone worked to get me through every single situation I came upon over my 18 hour playtime. The game never pushed me to innovate or challenged me to try anything new. Early on I established my arsenal of a shotgun, a nail gun, and a sniper rifle and never once needed a different gun than those 3. The nail gun is silent, so it was used for stealthing sections. Combat was easy to take care of with the shot gun. The sniper rifle was mostly there as a backup if Julianna showed her sneering face.

Each of the visionaries has a pretty distinct personality, and each is equipped with a different power – invisibility, blink, supercharging, etc. Killing that visionary will net you a ton of residuum and a new power or upgrade for an existing one. I really enjoyed interacting with the visionaries and learning more about them and their relationships with one another through voice recordings, notes, emails and calls. It’s all pretty crazy how it comes together so well, and I do remember the eureka moment of inspiration where I pulled out a notepad and scribbled down my idea for how to kill all of them in one run. It was the feeling I’d been searching for through out the game and had been continually denied – the kind of thing I feel every time I overcome a section of a map in Dishonored.

I don’t want to knock this game, because it has so many good qualities I haven’t even covered. The music is phenomenal. The sound mixing is great. The two lead voice actors, Jason E Kelley as Colt and Ozioma Akagha as Julianna, turn in what are easily two of the best performances of the year. They’re constantly doing this unhinged flirting over the radio while also trying to kill each other, and it makes the whole concept feel so much more stimulating. Speaking to Julianna about how she dreams every night of ripping your face off and wearing it as a hat, and then seeing her appear, controlled by a real person, to do it – that’s awesome.

I also have to shout out the art design on Deathloop. The style is quite similar to the art-deco from Prey mixed with the steampunk from Dishonored, all run through this swingin’ 60s filter and topped with a dose of Andy Warhol. It’s perfect. The vibes are exactly what they are intended to be.

Another issue I’ve heard echoed by my friends is that the ending is dissatisfying. The real issue is that there is not an ending. And it’s intentional, it’s by design, but I think it totally falls flat. It left kind of a bad taste in my mouth, but I don’t want it to totally tarnish what I thought were a great 18 hours before that.

Although Deathloop didn’t give me quite what I wanted from an Arkane Studios game, it’s still pretty fantastic. It has some of the best feeling gun play since Destiny 2, it’s exhilarating action, thorough and rewarding detective work, and an excellent intro to the world of immersive sims. But it didn’t evoke the same need in me to be resourceful, the same need to try every single iteration of combining powers and gadgets over and over until something worked the way I wanted. I didn’t get the satisfaction of carefully planning a heist and seeing things go exactly the way I wanted, because they always went the way I wanted no matter what I did. Deathloop is a great game, but it does not hold a candle to the masterpieces that are the Dishonored series and Prey before it. All that being said, I think it’s one of the most enjoyable and accessible games that can give you something totally different from the AAA fodder you’re used to.

I recommend Deathloop for all players. I do really think it’d be hard to not find something you love about this title. And hey , if this is the game that gets more people to play Dishonored, so be it. I’m looking forward now even more to how Arkane innovates on their past work in Redfall next year.

I have zero patience for stealth tactics in supposedly freeform action games, so I decided to take Deathloop at its word that "a variety of gameplay styles are viable"--INCLUDING gunning everyone down in a berzerker rage and running around hacking people up with my machete. And you know what? It's not viable.

It's not that you can't succeed doing it, because... I guess maybe you could? It'd be a pain, but maybe you could. It's not viable because it's not fun. The gunplay in this game feels so leaden it's almost comical, and the AI just simply doesn't seem built to do anything other than run at you, creating endless situations where you're just crouched down picking off idiots who wander around a corner one by one.

Now, you might say that it's MY fault that I'm playing like that, but that's what I despise about this particular type of AAA game. If I'm not having fun it's my fault. These kinds of games want to have their cake and eat it too--to be highly scripted story experiences but also provide "open-ended gameplay" so they won't be accused of, dreadedly, being too linear. Oh, go loud or go quiet, go this way or go that way, use this gun or that knife, just don't blame us if it sucks! (Hilariously, every level in Deathloop begins with two branching paths leading to doors that open out to what is essentially the same part of the same environment -- a perfect metaphor for the "choice" these games are actually giving the player.)

Well, fuuuuck all that. I WANT linearity in my AAA games! I want scripted spectacle! I want level design so tight that going through the exact motions the developer expects me to feels organic, like I made the choice to do it when really they did. There are certain blockbuster games that achieve this, and it can be magical -- and it's almost always when they don't overextend themselves and just pick a few fun mechanics and stick with them through varying environments and with increasing levels of difficulty. You know, how video games used to be?

Deathloop embraces the opposite of this in every regard. It is so overeager to explain all of its little complications to you in tutorial form that it both bores and intimidates you. It presents these little open world-levels that should feel like playgrounds, claims you can do anything, and then lets you do essentially nothing cool in them beyond a) sneak around and kill guys, or b) shoot guys -- and in each case the presence of the other option dulls the enjoyment of the former.

Granted, I did not get very far into the game (3 hours or so) but what was supposed to be the big hook -- the reveal of Deathloop's grand conceit, that you would be playing the same day over and over, with different times revealing different objectives or different enemies in certain places -- did nothing but assure me that I was better off just cutting my losses and calling this one quits. It has all the style in the world, but it lacks so thoroughly in substance that the prospect of doing these same areas over and over with little changes here and there just seemed laughable.

Let's talk briefly about that style, though. I was intrigued by the story in this game, it does look good, and I liked Colt as a character. I think AAA games in general could take themselves less seriously, and need more original worlds exactly like the one on offer here (even if it does dip, at times, into slightly shallow Bioshock-worship territory). Its story and characters are things that Deathloop was, and should have been, genuinely commended for, and I would hope that its seeming failure to sell well doesn't discourage this developer, or others, from pursuing similarly interesting anti-conventions down the road.

The last thing I'll say is, it's possible that my deep foray into arcade games and 90's console games these past couple of years has just straight-up ruined me for something like Deathloop. I have re-learned something I knew so purely in my youth: that I like to simply turn on a game and start playing it and have fun. Everything that the industry, during the past two decades of increasingly competitive commercialization, has draped over that simple core -- complex stories and open world elements and rpg elements and rogulike elements and adaptive ai and endless lore bits you have to read and hand-holdy tutorials and the like -- is all just kinda, bullshit. How am I supposed to care about anything else -- any of all of the nonsense the game throws at you in the first three hours, and it is a lot -- when the core game, the shooting and stabbing of the guys, is not fun?

Comprei quando saiu, não consegui jogar porque era extremamente mal otimizado e meu PC da época não aguentava. Recentemente tive a oportunidade de comprar um PC melhor e esse foi o primeiro grande jogo que decidi jogar. Continua tão mal otimizado quanto na época, infelizmente, mas pelo menos meu setup agora dá conta.

Deathloop é um dos jogos mais difíceis de começar a jogar que eu já vi na vida, e esse é o maior motivo pelo qual não considero ele perfeito. São tantos sistemas, tantos tutoriais, deve ser umas 4 horas de handholding porque eles com certeza estavam morrendo de medo do jogador não entender ou só cansar e largar. É realmente difícil entender. E eu acho bizarro que depois de "entrar" no jogo, ele na real é bem direto ao ponto. Só... muitas camadas de interferência e eu acho que eles falharam pesado em comunicar claramente qualé a do jogo.

Mas tirando essa barreira, o jogo é excelente. É definitivamente um jogo da Arkane. Muito do que me agrada em Dishonored é a gama de possibilidades e jeitos que você tem que fazer coisas super complicadas e únicas, Deathloop é basicamente isso a todo momento. Tudo é uma pista pra outra coisa, tudo é um segredo, tudo te leva a momentos únicos e interessantes. O jogo é super divertido e te incentiva a experimentar muitos jeitos de jogar. A maneira como o loop funciona não te impõe a pressão que jogos do estilo costumam ter, já que não existe um relógio tocando na sua cabeça. O dia consiste de 4 períodos, quando você inicia um deles você pode fazer o que quiser que o tempo só vai passar quando você decidir ir embora dali.

Comentando rapidamente sobre a grande feature do jogo que são as invasões: joguei offline, por ter visto muitos relatos de hackers jogando no PC. O sistema de invasão, pelo menos offline, é bem meh. Muitas vezes a IA fica se escondendo pra sempre (imitando o pior tipo de jogador de Souls que existe, aquele filho da puta que tá disposto a perder 3 horas fazendo nada só pra te impedir de jogar), o que é bem chato, mas no geral é ok, funciona. Criou vários momentos de tensão onde eu me encontrava sanduichado entre ela e inimigos que já estava enfrentando.

No geral, gostei muito do jogo. Tem uns problemas (principalmente de performance), pro final ele parece meio rushado, mas é um jogo MUITO legal.

On one hand, I have never played a game like Deathloop, a title that asks you to, in one span of a day (divided into 4 sections), eliminate 8 targets that all have their own schedule and motives. On the other hand I've played every "Deathloop", I've played Hitman and Dishonored (arguably the two biggest inspiration for this title) as well as games like Metroid, The Outer Wilds, and Dark Souls, all of which has heavy roots in this game. Deathloop some how masterly combines these 5 games and then some to make a game that truly feels unique despite the influence. Developer Arkane Lyon has truly showed that creativity is left in the games industry and shows they know how to evolve. Taking the Dishonored formula they improve the combat in simple ways, such as adding a dedicated kick button which can save you from having one bullet screw up your entire plan of attack for a mission. It simultaneously is their only title that feels truly balanced for both stealth as well as a "guns blazing" approach, paired with Arkane's excellent level and world design and you have one of the most fun, immersive games ever created. On top of that is some of the most brilliant art direction I have seen in a game, where these messages appear to you and even you as Colt, the main character, questions why you can see them but as you progress you realize that you left those messages for yourself, to help guide you and keep you on the straight and narrow. The voice actors for Colt and Julianna (who are arguably the two protagonists) also show great chemistry and every time they have a dialogue together its always a treat.

Some gripes I do have with this game is the lack of trust the developers seemed to have with the players. Once you solve each "quest" for the visionaries (the 8 targets Colt must kill to break the time loop he's stuck in) the game straight up tells you the correct order of execution for the targets, this was a major slap in the face. This game is best expierenced with quest markers turned off and that last "quest" truly proves why. I also had to manually close the game 3 times (on PlayStation 5) due to bugs that prevented me from closing the game. This is an issue because there's is no saving in levels as to prevent any kind of "save scumming", which led me to have to restart that portion of the day.

Overall, I wouldn't say its a game for everyone. There is a lot of repeating the same tasks and visiting the same areas to learn more about the world as well as the eight visionaries. However, Arkane Lyon has something special on their hands that everyone should try, even if that does mean waiting for an eventual sale.

Beaten: Sep 18 2021
Time: 11 Hours
Platform: PS5

Well, I finally played a game made by Arkane Studios, the modern masters of the immersive sim. And as far as I can tell, this is their Bioshock. The game that takes the immersive sim formula, streamlines it, quickens it, and applies it to a wholly original setting and massively stylish setting. Luckily, Deathloop is good enough to carry the weight of that comparison.

The most unique thing about Deathloop is it's structure. There's four levels, each with four different configurations based on the time of day. You live the same day over and over again, basically planning the perfect heist. You'll explore each of these areas somewhere like 10-15 times on your way to figuring out your perfect route, learning the ins and outs and all the perfect routes for each time of day. It's easily the most fun I've had in a "heist" game (note: I haven't played Dishonored or Thief), and I think part of that is owed to how there's not much penalty for screwing up.

Broadly speaking, enemies are in small groups and there's lots of hiding places, so getting away if you're spotted isn't too hard. Even if you do die, you get 2 more chances before it boots you back out. And even if you lose both those chances, all you really lose is some guns? Maybe? It's low stakes for death, so you can be as sloppy as you want or as neat as you want at any given time, until the final day.

Once you've got your plan, you go through and execute it. As a gameplay climax it's great, you can make good on all these plans and routes you've been making in your head and it all goes smoothly. The last day is just like all the others. If something goes wrong, you just try again, but there's no special twists to get in your way. The final showdown afterwards isn't bad, but as a whole the narrative side of the game feels a little light. The last day is exciting because of the plan, not what it means to you.

That's probbably my only real issue with the game, it sets up a lot of lore, asks a lot of questions, but doesn't fill in as much as I'd like. You finish the perfect day, you do the ending, you get a quick cutscene, and that's it. Hop back in if you want, play as the invader if you want, it's over but it's not really done. Not in the way a linear game is.

I hope this becomes Arkane's Bioshock. I hope it gets them to be as well known as they deserve, and I hope more AAA games follow in this game's footsteps of being actually charismatic instead of just, like, quippy. I'm glad it was the first new game from this year that I beat.
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When I first heard about Deathloop, I was quickly hooked because it seemed like such a unique concept, which is why I hate to say this is probably the most disappointing game I've played in a good while.

My main issue with this game is that it didn't commit to its concept and use the unique mechanics timeloop games come with, leaving it with every negative that comes with timeloops with none of the benefits. I generally understand why they ended up doing it this way, especially because most people tend to not finish AAA games if they get even slightly confused once, but as a whole it makes me wonder why they even made a timeloop game in the first place.

The main goal of the game is to kill all visionary targets in a single loop, which presents the chance to really allow for creativity. I was really looking forward to going through the island, learning about the world and the visionaries, and how to get them in different places in time and kill them using different approaches, but this is not how it went.

There is a single linear assassination method for every single target that are presented as quests packed with markers and fetch quests that you're forced follow one-to-one. They even give animations detailing every step you have to take for each target. It's straight up impossible to finish the game without following and completing all of these methods, the final quest to kill all the targets in one loop doesn't even get unlocked if you don't. To make a comparison, this ends up making the game feel like modern hitman games if every target had a single mandatory story mission and using any other assassination method locked you out of progressing.

The use of the time loop is also kinda lame at best and just terrible at worst. Each loop is split into 4 parts of the day, morning, noon, afternoon, and evening. Outside of a few specific questlines and visionary kills, these times are completely isolated and don't interact at all. Nothing you do in updaam in the morning will carry over to updaam in the afternoon. I get why they did it this way since it would be hell to actually make all that stuff carry over and it's not really my biggest issue at all, but it really makes me wonder why they made a timeloop game.
Unlike the previous problem which was just mildly annoying, the infusion system is actually awful. While you normally lose your gear at the end of a loop, you can infuse them with a currency called residuum you can gather, which makes them permanently stay in your arsenal. This defeats the entire point of the timeloop in the first place. Once you infuse a decent weapon and two powers, you're set and you never have to look for gear or improvise.

As if that wasn't enough, the game makes it extremely easy to optimize the fun out of it by giving you access to silenced pistols super early depending on how lucky you get. I found one after the third time I killed a visionary and had no reason to use anything else for the rest of the game. This also applies to powers. Sure, the game has a bunch of powers, but once you find the one that you like the most, there's never any reason to use anything else. You can only bring two powers to missions, meaning it almost feels like the game asks you to find two things you like and use nothing else.

With all of these choices, the game just ends up being a repetitive grind where you start a loop, equip the same broken weapon and powers, and do tedious quests until the game is satisfied and lets you do the final loop. This repetitiveness is not helped by the fact that each loop is the exact same. This wouldn't be a problem on its own, hell, it probably would have been a strength if there was anything to learn and master, but with everything else involved it makes the game feel even more boring. Loop stress is technically a mechanic apparently, but I didn't notice a single effect of it my entire playthrough.

I would be lying if I said the game had no positives though. The writing is pretty shaky at the beginning because the dialogue wasn't great, but it does get better. I started enjoying Juliana and Colt's banter later into the game, but it took a while to hook me. Some of the visionaries are actually pretty interesting. The quality of their writing varies a lot, but it can be neat now and again. The gunplay was also decently fun as well, though I really wish I had any reason to use guns other than the same 3 ones.

The game does have a single really cool mechanic though, in the form of Juliana. Other players being able to invade your world as her and the fact that they can hunt you in so many unique ways from setting traps to just rushing in and beating you to death is great. I am still conflicted by the fact that the only good mechanic of the game requires online, though. Juliana's AI is terrible so it feels like a ticking time bomb waiting to go off and be a mechanic you never really see once people move on from the game.

Overall, I wasn't hating the game my entire time through it, with some good narrative moments and the occasional fun gunplay, but almost the entire game was boring samey questing with all of the repetitiveness of a timeloop and none of the creativity they allow in playstyles and experimentation. To make another comparison, it almost made me feel like I was playing a roguelike with no random generation or build variety with a full linear questline.

Deathloop is a game that’s constantly undermining itself. It has a stealth mechanic, but it’s first person and there’s no tools for situational awareness so you’re constantly getting spotted by someone off camera. It has a million guns, but they’re all basically the same and there’s never enough ammo. It seems to try to encourage experimentation, but the penalty for failure is gratuitously harsh. This is only exacerbated by the PvP invasion system. The 90s style health pickup system is a horrible mismatch with the rest of the gameplay. The constant Julianna chatter is like nails on a chalkboard.

There's a lot to like here in the world design and who knows maybe even the lore, but I felt like I was being drawn and quartered by the gameplay mechanics.