Groundhog day with guns, is more fun than you might think.
Back when I saw the first trailer for this, I was really excited for it. But ya know what happened? The game came out, and I saw in the circles I most frequented — players weren’t super happy with it. Despite that, it’s gone on to become critically acclaimed and considered a total financial success, generating millions of dollars in revenue. Still, and against my better judgement, these opinions soured Deathloop’s taste in my mouth, causing me to wait a long 3 years before I felt like picking it up would be worth it. Have you ever been in a similar situation with another piece of media?
So I’d like to right the wrongs of my fellow player peers, and publish a positive review on Deathloop. Here’s the thing. I think that this is an incredible game made by a great group of humans. But I think a large part of why players don’t like it, is they don’t understand it to begin with.
So what do I think makes it a great video game? Well, primarily it’s a time loop simulation. Followed by being a mystery puzzle game. And lastly, it’s a first-person shooter with some stealth elements.
I think that Deathloop reviews poorly with players, because they put too much weight into the first person shooting. They want an evolution in the Dishonored formula that goes in a totally different direction. The shooting and the powers and the 1v1’s are great, but that’s not what I consider to be “the meat and potatoes” of Deathloop. If you go into the game, wanting that, you will be disappointed, like everyone else. So let’s put the focus back to where I think it should be.
As the name implies, Deathloop is, first and foremost, a game that is confined by the nature of the time loop. It’s composed of four periods of time, and the island you’re on has four locations you can visit during those times. If at any point you die, or reach “the end of the day”, (which is after you leave your chosen fourth location), the time loop restarts.
I’ve seen in critiques the argument that “Deathloop has only four maps (locations) with little variation”. It’s a critique that contains a partially correct statement, presented negatively. I argue that in thinking about the implications a true time loop video game the truth in the critique is actually a positive argument.
Your actions have cascading consequences on the game world. There are multiple things you can accomplish at specific times of day that direct what happens during the next segment of time. Realistically, there are not just “4 maps”, but in the very least 16 variations of major scenarios for you to play out. On top of that, there are multiple micro-forking paths of events you can choose to pursue or not, making no two days feel entirely the same.
To give some examples, one area during the afternoon has lighter enemy patrols, as compared to the morning, which has a much denser enemy population. During the night, this same area is overrun with traps you need to avoid, and a boss enemy you can fight. Some buildings have electricity earlier in the day, but are unpowered by noon. One destination gets set up for a party in the evening, and you can see how the planning for that unfolds through the day culminating in a small performance.
Pressing further to show how much I hate that “four map” critique, if there were any more maps, or even larger maps, or more times of day you could access them, could you truly appreciate the beauty that comes from the flaws AND triumphs of a well executed time loop based video game? Would your mind have room to obtain and contain all of that additional information in a reasonable amount of play time? The simplicity allows you to become a true master of the way these things are.
So for example, when I started, I gravitated towards stealth, tagging enemies, taking down bad guys silently, and moving cautiously slow to all of my objectives. The game encourages you to! But with each new loop, I gained confidence in my familiarity. I was able to find faster routes to key items or events. Getting bored with any route invited me to explore a bit further and find new paths. All the while, I was learning enemy positioning, which was training me to be a deadly, fast, and silent killing machine. As you close in on the finale, you find you don’t need to tag enemies and move slowly — you know where everybody is, and you know exactly what route you’re going to take. It plays out almost like speed running through a stealth game, if you can imagine that.
Right, and if we just take a second to think about this, it’s the perfect gameplay for a time loop style game. To become a god-like being in ANY conventionally imagined time-loop you need that repetition in order to gain mastery over it. Groundhog Day (1993) with Bill Murray is an excellent non-gun example of this. So, to drive home my point, if I had to go through even one more area, at one more time of day, or had to learn how to use a few more types of powers or weapons, I’m not sure if I’d have the mental capacity to truly feel like a master of this time loop, which would, invalidate the existence of this game entirely.
So let’s shift gears and talk about the mystery aspect. Colt, the main character, wakes up in the loop with amnesia. All he knows is that he’s on a mission to break the time loop so he can escape, and just hopes that he’ll get his memories back along the way. The questions are, how will you do this? And why did the time loop get started in the first place?
The world is brimming with things for you to compile and file away in your mind as you seek the answers to these questions. Some mysteries naturally solve themselves, some, the game guides you through, and others, you just have to play detective to crack ’em wide open.
Answers to clues may require you to loop through the game world to a specific location at a designated time, to do a particular activity or take down unique enemies. A building burns down in the afternoon. Can you prevent it from doing so by visiting earlier in the loop? Perhaps in that building you’ll stumble upon a key code here. A note there. Some internal character dialogue might trigger to keep you thinking about your quest. Maybe you’ll find a way to dispatch a boss enemy without even gunning them down, by setting up a chain reaction of events just right.
You’ll learn more and more about the world, and the set-up, all the while Colt will continue to feel the familiar threads of his lost memories. How does he fit into the big picture? Why is Juliana against Colt?
It’s these narrative threads that REALLY give you purpose through the loops, and without them, I’m sure you could imagine, this would not be a very compelling game. Those moments of gratification from completing a little mystery at the end of a narrative thread, by weaving your run through the day very precisely, is extremely satisfying. Often times while running around for these objectives, I’d find a cache of weapons and items that I could steal in future loops. If I was lucky, I’d learn an even bigger piece of the puzzle: one of the steps required to break the loop. Seeing through to the end of these mysteries is what kept me coming back for more, above any other aspect of the game. After completing every major beat, solving all the major puzzles, and seeing through their mysteries, I was very satisfied with how it all came together and eventually concluded. I think most players would be! But you certainly need the drive to do so — remember, you are navigating a time loop! Some elements along the way to the conclusion will feel familiar and that is by design!
Despite my praises, none of it would matter if Colt didn’t feel good enough to play, so it’s good that he does. The “Slab” powers are really fun to mess with. Colt is pretty zippy and tight to control. The shooting’s excellently tuned, I liked it. I think “punchy” is the best word for most weapons. Guns feel balanced and all have a sense of uniqueness and purpose. I loved the legendary variants, and the wacky perks you could find on them, or equip to them. It’s all bundled together really well, and all just works.
Now you might be wondering, hold up, if it’s a time loop, how does the game handle weapons and items? Well, as you may suspect, you can lose everything at the end of the day. Which would suck if that was the end of it, but this problem slowly resolves itself. There’s a resource you earn early on that you spend to keep your stuff between loops, and it piles up quick after each day. In this sense, Deathloop is built like a Rogue-Lite.
So those are the three biggest components that I think make up the game. But let’s talk about a possible… fourth one, that also makes it stand out a little bit more…
1v1’s against Juliana.
It’s a really cool mechanic. Another player (or tough NPC) invades your game with the intention to send you back to the beginning of the loop… unless you can kill them first. It adds a TON of tension when you’re invaded. You could be at the last location of the day, about to solve some puzzle you’ve been working on, and someone will invade… You don’t know where they are, what weapons they have equipped, or the Slab powers they’re using. The only thing you can do, is use the location to your advantage, and hope that you can outplay them. It’s a pretty fun game of cat and mouse that somehow still feels pretty balanced amidst the single player nature of the game.
And of course, you can take control of Juliana and attempt to wreck havoc on other peoples progress, though don’t expect the matchmaking to work. This game is old enough that you’re going to have to go out of your way to get your friend to pick it up so you can face them, or you’ll have to find some other community that keeps it alive. But even still, this game even just for Colt’s journey is worth it.
And just a speedround of a few special mentions of things that I appreciate immensely but won’t go into just to keep this slightly shorter: immaculate architecture, incredible 60’s-70’s vibes, fantastic voice performances across the board, a stellar soundtrack, wonderful level design, clever puzzles, great lore, good enemy design, fun gadget design, and anything that you think I’m missing.
For what it’s worth, this game ran with no issues, at 60fps on my computer which is composed of a Ryzen 7, Nvidia 3070, and 32gb of RAM
Ultimately, I enjoyed Deathloop, and was surprised by how much. It did not take long for it to be a compelling game that had me itching for more every time I put it down, so it’s a shame that I was swayed into not playing it back when it was more popular. I thought the progression into becoming a master of the time loop was incredibly fun and satisfying and is one of the main reasons I’m recommending it. I say, if you can get down with doing some detective work in a time loop with some first person shooting on the side… you need to pick it up and give it a try. To you, I definitely recommend it, and consider it a NameBrand product. To everyone else, consider playing it! Okay, Thanks and… Goodbye.
