Review: Deathloop by Arkane Lyon, published by Bethesda for PC & PS5

Deathloop is one of the latest entries in the time loop genre and manages to be an excellent and innovative game in the process.

Deathloop, developed by Arkane Lyon and published by Bethesda for PC and PlayStation 5.

Time loops are an interesting narrative device that are a well-established part of popular culture nowadays – not only in the form of the classic 1993 film Groundhog Day and the Netflix series Russian Doll, but also from video games as well.

Deathloop, developed by Arkane Lyon and published by Bethesda for PC and PlayStation 5, is one of the latest entries in the time loop genre and manages to be an excellent and innovative game in the process.

The premise hooks you in immediately: Your character wakes up on a subarctic island beach one morning with no memory of who they are or how they got there, and soon discovers floating text trying to jog their memory – followed shortly by a run-in with a woman named Juliana who is determined to kill you.

It turns out the island, named Blackreef, is caught in a deliberately created time loop as part of something called the Aeon Program, and Colt is determined to break the loop and escape – which can only be accomplished by assassinating eight characters known as The Visionaries in a single day. If he fails, or gets killed in the process, the day resets and the time loop begins again.

The mystery is exacerbated by mysterious glowing floating text Colt finds around the island, offering clues, general musings or danger alerts – adding to the realisation he’s been stuck on Blackreef a long time.

Deathloop for PC and PlayStation 5

Aesthetically, the game draws from retro 1960/1970s dystopian sci-fi sources such as We Happy Few and Logan’s Run, while incorporating game elements from Arkane’s previous games Prey and Dishonoured.

Unlike Dishonoured, however, the player is actively encouraged to kill the game’s enemies, known as Eternalists – after all, they’ll come back to life none the wiser when the time loop resets, or so the theory goes. This is accomplished via a number of weapons including handguns, shotguns, machine-pistols or even a machete.

The plot is still pretty thin and the Visionaries themselves are mostly egotistical maniacs rather than actual threats, so I didn’t think the game did a great job of explaining why they needed to be killed other than to break the loop.

The island is divided into four regions and there are four times of day to explore them; different Visionaries and opportunities will only be available at certain times and in certain places so working out who will be where, and how to get them somewhere else at a different time, is part of the main story.

Once you’ve got the Visionaries where you need them, there’s a range of ways to eliminate them, ranging from “accidents” to simply shooting them a SMG at close range, depending how creative you want to get.

 

Colt’s quest is aided by a range of special abilities he can equip, including short-range teleportation and invisibility, allowing players some different options for approaching their goals.

While the game world resets each “day”, you can soon find a way to bring gear over from one loop to the next, which makes things even more interesting as you develop your ideal loadout.

Juliana will appear in some levels and lock the exits down, forcing Colt to eliminate her to continue – and if he fails and she kills him first, the loop resets and he’s back at the start of the day again.

One of the highlights of the game is a banter between Colt and Juliana – it’s well done, snappy, and humorous but it did frustrate me how many questions about the game’s central mystery it left unanswered because the two of them were more interested in swearing at each other or engaging in banter than giving a straightforward answer to things.

Deathloop, developed by Arkane Lyon and published by Bethesda for PC and PlayStation 5

As much as I enjoyed the game, I still had a lot of unanswered questions by the time the credits rolled, including a number the game itself explicitly raised but didn’t seem to address, so that aspect of things left me unsatisfied.

As well as the single-player campaign as Colt attempting to break the loop, there’s also a special mode where you can play as Juliana and invade other player’s games to protect the loop by eliminating Colt; on PlayStation 5 this requires a PlayStation Plus subscription.

It’s a good idea in theory but I didn’t find it particularly engaging – I had lag issues in some games and since Colt has three lives and Juliana has one, it generally resulted in me spending ages hunting around the level to find Colt, getting killed by the other player, and that being the end of the invasion. Even if I managed to kill Colt once or even twice, the player would usually get me before I could kill them a third time, and that was the end of that.

Setting aside the “Play as Juliana” mode, Deathloop is a polished, well-made and enjoyable action-shooter with some innovative new ideas, a great aesthetic and an intriguing setting.

Even with its unanswered plot questions it’s definitely worth experiencing – just make sure you avoid internet spoilers before you load it up.