Deathloop is about killing the people who are killing time.
But it might be Arkane’s most straightforwardly enjoyable game.
To begin with, Deathloop just feels like Dishonored with guns and gadgets pilfered from Q’s workshop.
You could play through the entire game with just these devices, mining chokepoints and creatively rearranging the defences.
Shift is Deathloop’s version of Blink, the short-ranged teleport that propelled Arkane to stardom back in 2012.
Probably Deathloop’s biggest disappointment is that all the Slabs have precedents in Dishonored.
It’s not so much an improvement on Arkane’s other sims as a change of tune.
Deathloop’s setting doesn’t reset completely between deaths.
Certain key developments persist.
I almost never found myself visiting areas simply to scrounge for guns and materials.
The mods themselves again recall Dishonored, but that doesn’t make them any less entertaining.
There are two halves to Deathloop’s story.
“Hey, it’s that one guy!”
one woman slurs a second before you land on her machete first.
The Visionaries range from elite scientists to ogreish rockstars and pampered artistes.
For all this, it’s possible to view your targets with a certain pity.
The majority are caught on the threshold of immortality.
There are scientists who will never build on their breakthroughs, and creatives who will never finish their masterworks.
I’d have liked Deathloop to take a few more cues from Hitman.
It feels like a slight missed opportunity.
“This might be Arkane’s most straightforwardly enjoyable game yet.”
And we see it in Deathloop, which takes that curious inside/outside thinking and applies it to Time itself.
