During its surprise presentation at E3 2019, as a PS5 exclusive on console, Deathloop brought forward the arguments of first person shooter, open world, time loop, parkour, superpowers, versus, etc. It was perhaps too much for a single game, even for the little geniuses of the Lyon studio Arkane (the
Dishonored). After several delays, previews, videos, the ambition of the title was clear, the excitement palpable, but the same question always came up: how does it work?
Die another day
The player wakes up on the island of Blackreef in the skin of Colt, both amnesiac and trapped in a time loop. As soon as he dies or the day ends, return to the same beach and rebel for a day of action, infiltration, survival. But for what purpose? Very quickly, thanks to very convenient hallucinations and his muscular encounter with the mysterious Julianna, Colt understands that he must assassinate eight “Visionaries” in the same day to break the loop. And that Julianna is there to stop it.
Like a Hitman, it is a question of finding the best way or rather the best means, to reach its target, from the most effective to the most original. The player has an arsenal of weapons, gadgets, powers to his credit, but is dependent on his spatial and temporal environment. Because the “Visionaries” are scattered on the island and do not go out at the same times of the day. “Die and start again” therefore allows a better understanding of the habits of the island, divided into four sectors (Updaam, Karl’s Bay, Fristad’s Rock, the Complex,), depending on the day, divided into four periods (morning, noon, afternoon, evening). But this “die & retry” does not hold the “masocore” to the Dark Souls Where Returnal, already on a concept of time loop. The player never feels punished, but rather invited, challenged, to solve this puzzle of a new kind.
A perpetual movement
Colt, as Bill Murray in One endless day and even Ryan Reynolds in Free Guy, keeps his memories of the previous days, but not his equipment or powers. At least at the beginning. Because Deathloop develops tips to facilitate and renew the player’s experience, including a function rewind to avoid the game over. Finally, all open world and time loop that it is, the game turns out to be quite interventionist because very narrative.
But the watchword at Arkane seems to have been this perpetual movement, a dynamic balance, which, like its pop aesthetic of the 1960s and 1970s, makes the player never bored, always taking up new challenges. He can thus, in multiplayer mode, take control of Julianna and prevent another player, at the controls of Colt, from playing in circles.