Deathloop - Review

After this year's phenomenal timeloop game Returnal comes Arkane Studios and creates a completely new gaming experience that every gamer should play.

Stuck in a loop:

Your main character named Colt is found on the island of Blackreef, stuck in a loop, has lost his memory and is accompanied on his journey by the mysterious lady named Julianna. The island was bought out by a group called the AEON Program. As you slowly learn more and more about the island and the rules of the game, you try to escape the loop. It quickly turns out that you have to eliminate a group of eight visionaries. The visionaries are individuals with different powers who defend the timeloop in every way. It is up to you to collect information, plan the day and eliminate all the visionaries in one single day (one loop). 

If you die, the loop starts again and you take the experience you have gathered into the new loop. In other words - safcodes, information about characters, or more will help you in the new loop.

On your way to break the loop, you will always find new weapons, all of which behave and play differently. Before starting your loop, you can manage the devices that have been found. You can choose your equipment, outfits, grenades and skills right before the start of each loop. With a certain resource that you can find in the world or get from defeated opponents, you can always upgrade your weapons. At the beginning you will lose your weapons if you have to start a new loop. However, thanks to a mechanic integrated into the game world later on, you can also use all your weapons in the new loop.

Gameplay is king:

The longer I've been involved with the game, the more I've identified with the game world. New skills have opened up new paths and the story has always captivated me. It's just fun to teleport from house to house, hack some surveillance systems, kill enemies from a distance with a sniper and close up with a silenced pistol.

The game world is full of details. However, you have to get involved with the game and its narrative structure. Deathloop starts rather slow and overwhelms you with its game ideas. But you have to stick with it - it's worth it. Once you've got sucked into the loop, you know the level structure and the opponent placement almost by heart and it feels like a speedrun. 

Amazing characters:

The story is often told through notes on computers or voice memos. So you can find some funny and terrifying background stories about characters and the game world.

When we talk about characters, we have to talk about Julianna too. She is a complex and mysterious character who is always with you. You are always in contact via radio, teasing each other or asking questions. I don't want to reveal too much here, because the dynamic between Colt and Julianna is what makes the game so appealing. I haven't seen characters written in such a beautiful "human" way in a long time. The voice actors are also awesome. I was reminded of the game "Firewatch". Just amazing.

As mentioned, your main goal is to eliminate all the visionaries . You will learn how to do this most skillfully by traveling to the different locations at different times of the day. While preparations are still being made for some celebration at lunchtime, the celebration will take place at a different time. By just playing, you will find very clever ways to eliminate the visionaries one after the other or even together. The feel of a Hitman comes into play here.

I can give you the addvice that if you don't know what to do next, you can simply select the visionaries in the mission overview and quickly get to the next mission goal. But Deathloop unfolds its full potential when you explore every corner of Blackreef for your own.

Break the loop?:

From the main menu you can choose between two modes. With Colt you try to escape the loop and start the single player campaign. However, if you are online here, another player can invade your world at any time and try to stop you.

You can do the same with Julianna in the second game mode. Here you slip into her role and try to prevent another player from breaking out. You will level up, receive new skills and equipment.

I also really liked the multiplayer part. I always sweat a lot when I've been invaded. A big point of criticism are the long waiting times in matchmaking. It always took me several minutes to find a game that was often canceled. 

The replayability of Deathloop is enormous. I saw the first ending after 15 hours. Yes, there are also multiple endings. If you really want to experience everything in Deathloop and explore the game world peace by peace, you can easily add another 20 hours. Not to be forgotten are the multiplayer matches, which are also great fun when they work.

Presentation:

The game world and the art style took me over right from the beginning. It looks half realistic but also half like a comic. Deathloop was heavily inspired by the work of the artist Saul Bass (Vertigo / The Shining). 

Due to the advantages of the PlayStation 5, you can choose from 3 graphic modes in the options menu:

Quality Mode: Dynamic 4K, variable 60 FPS and no ray tracing. (2160p - 1800p)

Performance mode: Dynamic 4K, stable 60 FPS and no ray tracing. (2160p - 1368p)

Raytracing Mode: Dynamic 4K, 30 FPS and with Raytracing. (2160p - 1440p)

I played through the game in performance mode because I always prefer a smoother frame rate. But it's always nice to have these options on the PlayStation 5. The loading times are almost non-existent thanks to the PlayStation 5's SSD.

The DualSense Controller is also a real beast in Deathloop. Every - yes, absolutely EVERY weapon feels different here. Thanks to the haptic feedback and the adaptive triggers, you can feel the kickback, the reload animations or various inhibitions. I can't get enough of this. Again a real highlight!

Deathloop is huge win for the video game industry. If there was a loop so that I could relive the game, I would use it. 9.5/10

Code provided by PlayStation