Deathloop really is a hard game for me to talk about. The whole time I was playing, I constantly confused my friends and coworkers with my feelings on the game. One minute I was heaping praise and the next I’m talking about putting it down. At release, Deathloop got a bunch of perfect scores so my interest was through the roof. Unfortunately, that’s not the experience I had.
Deathloop is about a shady organization that’s found a way to continuously loop a single day so long as you’re on the island of Black Reef. Our amnesiac protagonist, Colt sets his sights on eliminating each visionary spearheading the looping project. The only issue is he only has a single day to so. In order to achieve this goal, you as Colt have to explore the four districts of Black Reef to get them all together in one loop. For the most part that’s it story wise and it’s here where my first issue with Deathloop is. I’m such a huge story guy when it comes to video games and I was so excited to see it go places. It’s just unfortunate for me that story is so set to the side the way it is.
Make no mistake, though, what storytelling is here is pretty good. Colt and central antagonist, Julianna have such a great chemistry together. Almost every time you enter a new area, they banter back and forth about either what you just did or about the loop itself. The writing is just so witty and funny. The major mystery you’ll be uncovering is figuring out the relationship between these two. They’re relationship is built up all the way to the end.
Black Reef
In terms of gameplay, Deathloop lives up to its name. You explore the four areas of Blackreef, looking for clues on how to kill each visionary. Days are broken up into 4 times of day: Morning, Early Afternoon, Afternoon, and Night. Each time you visit a district, that’s one time of day used up but there are no time limits nor does the time pass in real time. Once you’ve complete all times of day, you go right back to the beginning of that day. Deathloop doesn’t really have a traditional mission structure either. Instead, you get leads that you can follow up on as you learn more about each visionary. I like how every time you find a note or audio log, the game summarizes it for you on the screen with a single paragraph.
Arkane Studios has done a great job of allowing players the flexibility of tackling their objective any way they like. I’m a fan of going in guns a blazin’ and the game pretty much obliged. I’m sure if I wanted to take a more stealthy approach I could’ve but if I’m playing a first person shooter, then I’m more than likely going to try to take everyone out. The gunplay feels really good though I wouldn’t put it on the level of a Halo or Call of Duty. The guns all have a unique feel to them and additional upgrades can tune them you like.
Customization
Four of the visionaries carry power granting Slabs that allow them to do things like teleport or link targets together to be killed with one shot. All you have to do is kill them and you pick it up off their corpse. Each slab has four additional upgrades you upgrades you can get by killing them again. All this customization gives you a chance to take objectives the way you like. However, once I found a loadout I really liked, I kind of just stuck with that instead of experimenting.
Colt has a slab that allows him to come back to life two times. Once you’ve lost all three lives, the day restarts again. Because Colt is restarting his whole day that means anything you collect over a day’s period is lost. That is until you discover residium. By applying residium to his gear, Colt is able to keep all his gear over multiple loops as long as he has enough. You can find it on random items out in the world, by sacrificing equipment, or by killing visionaries.
Julianna
Deathloop does something cool in allowing other players invade your game as Julianna. Her mission is to find Colt and kill him to protect the loop. This is a cool thing to add to the game as it gives you another perspective to tackle the game from. I turned off this feature, however, as it stops the game from pausing. As a busy dad, I had no choice but to choose the ability to pause over facing another player as Julianna. By doing so, you are left with a cpu controlled Julianna. I found her easy enough to take down, though she did take me out a few times. It would’ve been cool to do that with another player. Killing Julianna rewards you with whatever slab and weapons she’s carrying at the time and a whole ton of residium.
My Issues
So, as much as I loved playing this game, I didn’t exactly fall in love with Deathloop. After visiting each district and facing each visionary, at a certain point it I just felt like I was done. A lot of outlets disagree but I feel like the game goes on for longer than it should. There just wasn’t enough there to keep me completely invested the whole 15 hours it takes to beat it. I found my loadout pretty early on so anything I picked up afterwards would just sit in my inventory. Also, as I stated above, I’m a story guy and the story here just didn’t live up to my expectation. When the game ends, it just sort of ends and I was left with the feeling of, “I guess.”
Conclusion
There’s a lot to love about Deathloop. Even with my issues, I still enjoyed my time with it. And to be fair, my issues are mostly nitpicks that others can and have looked pass. I fully recommend it but don’t go in thinking you’re going to get a flawless masterpiece.
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