Deathloop

So, I know I said I wouldn't pre-order this game but hype got the best of me and it's currently installing the disk as I type... 👀

Was delighted when it arrived early in the post this morning. The screensaver look awesome; I wish I could make it permanent. Good score music as well. I suspect I'll be playing the version the journos are playing right now (i.e. pre day 1 patch) so of course I'll be more forgiving of any technical issues.

The pre-order disc came with some cool looking Deathloop badges that you can iron on to your clothes as well. 

@EoinMcLovin I got the disc version so had to redeem the code via the PS store. Once I did, all DLC content automatically appeared in the game when I booted it up. However, you can't access Colt's outfit until after The Longest Day is finished (opening quest line). 

@Sephiroth_dude . Boss Deals on ebay.

First impressions: (no spoilers whatsoever! You're safe)

I am really looking forward to seeing player reactions to Deathloop because the conversations around this game are going to be wild! 🤣 I am willing to bet that some people (like me) will absolutely love it and totally eat up what it's serving, and - I can't believe I'm saying this - some people, even Dishonoured fans, are gonna absolutely hate it. Not "dislike" it, hate it. I’m having a blast and I can’t wait to play more later on today, but I have to caution that this is a true “gamer’s game”. As in, it’s not for casual players looking to turn their brains off after a day of work, and it’s certainly not for the impatient.

It’s very, very, very complex. In fact, the previews undersold just how complex it is. I’ve read some comments from other early players and the general consensus is “difficult but fun”. Personally, it’s too early to comment on ‘difficulty’ per se because I’m still in the "gathering clues/discovering new systems/working out where everything & everyone is" stage… after 6 hours. Now, tbf I tend to take the piss in these types of games; it's a curse of being a completionist. Even so, the game has only just stopped giving me tutorials every 2 minutes but I suspect there's still more to come! That’s not an exaggeration at all - the first few hours is tutorial after tutorial after tutorial because there’s just so much to learn that it literally needs to teach you how to play the game for that long. But trust me, it does eventually click.

In previews the journos said the complexity is in figuring out how to kill the 8 visionaries (main targets) in a single loop and that is correct. However, that’s getting waaaay ahead of ourselves because what they don't mention is that it will take you a long time before you can even get to a point where you’re planning how to kill them all at once. What I mean is, you need to kill them individually first in order to get the best abilities (and trinkets and weapons) as well as finding all the necessary clues before approaching the bigger picture, but you also need to acquire enough information just to get those clues! In other words, the puzzle obviously won’t make sense without all the pieces but acquiring all those individual pieces is a puzzle in itself. So far I haven’t even intentionally reset a loop to try something out - that’s still a long way out. I’m just trying to build my arsenal and gather as much information about my targets as possible. 

 Here’s what I’m enjoying so far:

•  Love exploring the world i.e. finding audio logs and journals, eavesdropping on conversations that give you clues about your “lead” (more on “leads” later).      
•  Love the looter shooter/RPG elements (more on that later).
• Loving the whole sixties vibe. The music is fire (the theme tune is so catchy). The fashion is fire. The general aesthetic is fire. This tonally makes it feel so different from Dishonoured.
• Love guessing the mystery behind the loop , why it’s happening and, most importantly, why Colt wants to stop it. 
• Loving the risk/reward nature when choosing my battles.
• Loving the open gunplay even more than the stealth, though you have to be smart about when to openly engage (more on that later).
•  I’m also really enjoying the banter between Julianna and Colt – although I suspect this where even those who enjoy Deathloop will be divided. (I suspect blokes will really hate Julianna lol). Their banter is what keeps the beginning section on the beach – which you will see at the beginning of every loop - fresh. I was worried they were gonna make Colt a cheesy “smooth brotha” but he’s actually more dorky and humorous than the trailers would have you believe. There's some other stuff related to Colt and Julianna that the trailers don't show so I won't spoil.

However, what I love the most is that after the initial tutorial quest (titled 'The Longest Day') is done, it no longer feels like there's a main quest with a bunch of side missions. Rather, it feels like everything you’re doing is part of one ginormous quest line that you have to occasionally isolate and prioritise in parts to learn more. Remember those ridiculous, hyperbolic rumours about RDR2 having main and side missions that are indistinguishable from one another that turned out to be bull because the main and side missions were clearly marked on the map? Well Deathloop actually lives up to those rumours. You technically don’t know what the main mission is because in order to know what the main mission is you have to formulate it yourself by acquiring enough information. You don’t even know if you have all the information! All you have are 'leads'. And ‘arsenal leads’. And ‘discoveries’. And you’ll be flicking back and forth between these tabs in the menu constantly. 'Discoveries' are what inform your 'leads' - they are what will help you accomplish your tasks efficiently and, further down the line, teach you how to take out each visionary before the day resets. In short, what you make the "main mission" is going to change with each discovery you make. 

I think those expecting this to be like Dishonoured are gonna be quite surprised to start with. It does the classic Arkane thing of pausing your game to tell you to “play your way” but you can’t play your way; it’s not possible. Yet. Emily and Corvo were badass magical ninjas from the word go. Colt is ill equipped, outnumbered and outmatched. You will eventually get to "play your way" but you have to put the work in first. You have to earn the right to play it like Dishonoured.

There isn't a difficulty option which I’m glad for because the difficulty in this is perfect. I hope Arkane don’t buckle to the inevitable complaints to add options because while the enemy A.I. is dumb as rocks ( no peripheral vision, lose you within seconds of going around corner, never venture far enough in their search etc etc) you cannot go in guns blazing. If you find yourself surrounded and spotted you don't stand a chance unless you run and hide. You lose a lot of health very quickly and the enemy accuracy is on point. Oh, and your weapons can jam mid fight in which you have to unjam them. Also, while the stealth A.I. is beyond stupid at first it’s adaptive, i.e. it’s supposed to get more aggressive with every loop so it’s highly likely you’ll have to get more creative with takedowns as you go. I can already feel that enemies are more alert and lethal than they were during the tutorial opening.

A little death here and there isn’t necessarily the end of the world though. Through the reprise “slab” you’re allowed to die twice but if you die a third time the loop resets and all non-infused gear is lost. At first I thought, "hmm, this reprise ability makes it too easy" but that was before the game gave me something to lose – more specifically, residuum to lose. Each time you die you drop all your residuum and have to go back to the place of your death to grab it (which, thankfully, will be marked on screen). Upon your third death you will lose all residuum and cannot retrieve it. Residuum is the most invaluable resource in the game because you need it to infuse. Infusing abilities, trinkets and weapons allows you to keep them forever, even beyond loops. Also, residuum doesn’t carry between loops so you won’t be able to hoard. In fact, that’s another thing I love about Deathloop: You learn not to get attached to anything you pick up. Your weapon capacity is limited so you have to make choices, might as well experiment when you can. You can even sacrifice weapons, abilities and trinkets for residuum and use it to infuse something else.

I’ve only had two loop reset deaths and both times I lost reprise lives over something silly like drowning or fall damage because I was trying to play it like a Dishonoured no magic run. (Again, this is not Dishonoured to begin with so don't try to play it that way.) However, both times that I died it took me mere minutes before I was back to where I needed to be - I knew exactly what to do, where to go and I was sharper and faster having studied the route and enemy placements. I also never ended a loop without acquiring useful information to help me next time. So I would say for those worried about the rogue-lite element you need not be.

Death isn’t the only thing that resets the loop, time does. For instance, when A.I. Julianna invaded my game I killed her and got the shift ability (Dishonoured's blink)… and then lost it immediately because it was midnight and that’s when the loop resets. To be clear, missions are not time limited. Once you’re in a district you can spend as much time as you like there but you can only visit districts up to four times a day, each corresponding with the four time periods (morning, afternoon, evening, night). It can be the same district or a different one but once you leave an area time advances to the next period and you can’t go back to an earlier time period. If you want to visit a district even later in the day you can do so by manually advancing time. If you advance to the next morning the loop resets. All discoveries and leads have a nice visual QOL feature that tells you what time period you can exploit them in so you won’t have to remember.

I mentioned that I liked the looter shooter/RPG elements. Firstly, Bethesda really wants to get Arkane into the multiplayer biz. Like, desperately so. Each time you exit a district you go into a “safehouse screen” which logs you into Bethesda’s servers and shows you a summary of weapons, trinkets and abilities you found. In the background Colt can be seen celebrating his survival (or taking the L about his failure) of the district. It’s also where you can customise your outfits (which you win by completing a successful Julianna invasion) If during your run you’ve beaten or been defeated by Julianna, you’ll see both Colt and Julianna in the background roasting each other. Think of the Call of Duty or SW: Battlefront player emotes after a match is won, for instance. I do get a kick out of the summary screen each time, especially because it’s aided by an uptempo version of the awesome score music. (Btw you can’t play as Julianna until you’ve broken the loop which means if I set invasion to ‘online’ it’s highly likely at this early stage that I will be invaded by a developer. The director has already mentioned that he’s been invading players’ games so I’m looking forward to that.)

Also, every weapon (and trinket and ability) has a common, rare, epic colour scheme version of it. The higher the grade of the weapon the more trinkets you can equip on them, and the best weapons need to be found in hidden places or looted off visionaries so far. I have to admit I really dig this looter shooter approach to the weapon system because it’s a pleasant surprise when you find a truly powerful one (which is rare). It also raises the stakes, as you need enough residuum before the loop resets (the better the item the more needed) and you need to make it back to your safe house unscathed in order to infuse the weapon.

Early game tips:

• Do not try to explore every nook and cranny to begin with, as that’s a waste of time. Prioritise your leads first and let them take you down the rabbit hole. You’re gonna see notes and clues about little things in the area which you will be tempted to seek out right away but there’s no point. You’ll end up naturally uncovering the island’s secrets anyway once you gain more abilities.
• As soon as you’re able to infuse, stock up on that residuum and do so. Gather as many abilities (and weapons and trinkets) as you can and infuse the hell out of them so you can keep them for future loops.
• Prioritise infusing abilities and trinkets over weapons. Weapons drop all over the place; your favourite ones are likely one neck snap around the corner. Plus so far it’s only the visionaries that have the best ones. I suspect that the adaptive difficulty will result in enemies carrying more powerful weapons down the line but we’ll see. You can scan enemies from a distance to find out what type of weapon they’re carrying and their playstyle.
• Even to get to the point where you can infuse a weapon you need to kill a visionary first and that visionary is not a cakewalk by any means. If you die when doing this, as I did the first time I approached her (them?), the game is going to suggest getting abilities first, specifically ‘shift’. Don't do this. It's a waste of time because you need to go through another visionary to get it and he’s not a cakewalk either.
• Julianna drops a random ability so if you’re skilled enough (and lucky enough) it could potentially save you having to find the visionary with the one you need.

Finally, it’s running incredibly well so far. I’ve only had one crash and that was very early on at a safehouse screen, but because it saves every time you exit a district) no progress was lost. There’s so much I haven’t mentioned, particularly something in the story that the plethora of trailers has not shown but I won’t spoil. Some of you are in for a real treat. 

TL;DR: If you think this post is information overload just wait until you play the game lol.

Tip: If you don't want to end a loop but feel like you're about to die you can cheese it by quitting to the main menu and it will restart you from the district. Also, if you do die on your final life don't go into the menu. Just close the app and boot into the game again and it will restart you from that district. 👀

The way Arkane has handled saving in this is really well done. I only ever crashed once in a run but because most areas now take about 2 minutes for me to clear that was nothing. Housemarque could learn a thing or two. Not allowing regular saves isn't worth it if your game is so poorly optimised that it crashes causing the player to lose hours of progress.