Deathloop is the upcoming time loop assassination shooter coming from Arkane, the studio behind Dishonored. It's already clear that there will be many mechanical similarities with Dishonored, and the player character will have access to some abilities similar to Corvo and Emily's. What promises to make the new title different, however, is the fact that every time the player dies or runs out of time, they're flung backwards through time to the start of the loop, with only the knowledge gained from the past attempt to help them in their fight for freedom.
While Deathloop's time loop mechanic distinguishes it from Dishonored, it doesn't necessarily make its stand out among this years' other game released. Deathloop will have some tough competition when it hits the shelves later this year, and there are some reasons the competition may have an edge if Arkane doesn't deliver some of its best work to date.
Deathloop
Maybe it's the pandemic keeping game developers at home every day and locked in to the same repetitive routine, but there's been a notable uptick in games featuring time loops this year. Deathloop promises a fast-paced, brightly colored '60s-style shooter, but it's far from alone in offering a game with a story and central mechanic based around a time loop, or the player using their knowledge of past loops to make their way further and further towards their goal.
In Deathloop's case, players will be put into the role of either Colt or Jules Blake. Colt is the main player character, stuck in the same day on the island of Blackreef. Colt believes that by assassinating all eight of the Visionaries operating the time loop, he can break free. Jules is one of those visionaries, tasked with hunting Colt down and protecting the loop. With Jules on his tail Colt has to figure out how to manipulate events on Blackreef to get multiple targets in the same places, or risk running out of time.
Deathloop's time loop promises to remove the annoying Chaos system from Dishonored, which rewarded non-lethal stealth playthroughs in the story far more than it rewarded the game's fun and fast-paced first-person combat. Colt's mission is all about expediency, and anyone who's killed on a failed attempt to break free from the loop is brought back to life anyway. The game is promising, but the competition is looking tough.
Returnal
Returnal released in April, under a month before Deathloop's release was scheduled before a delay saw it pushed back to September. Returnal follows Selene Vassos, who has crash-landed on an alien planet caught in a time loop. While Deathloop's cartoonish pop art aesthetic is unique, Returnal takes full advantage of the PS5's particle physics and lighting capabilities to deliver a dark and dreamlike setting that would make H.R. Giger shudder.
The roguelike integrates its storytelling seamlessly, with Selene finding messages from past versions of herself as she uncovers the planet's mysteries. Already well-received, Returnal sets a high standard that could be tough to live up to. Fans of fast-paced shooters and roguelike mechanics are likely to have high expectations, though Deathloop's far brighter, lighter tone and multiplayer aspect could help the game stand out. When it comes to telling its time loop story, however, Returnal isn't Deathloop's only competition.
The Forgotten City
Also currently set for release before Deathloop is The Forgotten City, a standalone game based on the Skyrim mod that won creator Nick Pearce an Australian Writer's Guild Award. In The Forgotten City players will find themselves trapped in a lost city from Ancient Rome that's governed by a curse known as The Golden Rule — if anyone in the city sins, they all die. When that happens, the city's ruler uses the last of their power to send the player back in time.
Like Deathloop, The Forgotten City is a first-person game. Unlike Deathloop, however, players won't just have weapons at hand to manipulate the events of the world. The Forgotten City promises an extremely well-woven time loop story that's backed up by the original mod's impressive credentials. In a recent interview with The Best War Games, Nick Pearce described some of the differences fans can expect between his game and games like Returnal and Deathloop.
"The Forgotten City is in a whole different category. It’s for people like me who are bored with action-focused shooter mechanics. It rewards exploring a historically authentic ancient Roman city, questioning an intertwined community of colorful characters, solving puzzles with lateral thinking, and cleverly exploiting the time loop – Groundhog Day-style. Our time loop mechanic is a bit different from other games in that it allows you to retain objects taken from previous time loops, which opens up a range of fun puzzles. For example, you can steal life-saving medicine from one timeline, and if you manage to escape the apocalyptic chaos that follows, you can start a new time loop and deliver that medicine to a dying woman just in time to save her life, which opens up new story threads."
Deathloop doesn't just need combat mechanics and visuals to live up to Returnal's, even if the games have very different styles. Players looking for an intricately woven time loop story that lets them manipulate events using the knowledge they build up over the game may find The Forgotten City more attractive than Arkane's offering. So far, Deathloop's "Two Birds One Stone" trailer has shown how Colt can manipulate events. In the video, he tricks a target scientist into going to another target's party by destroying his research, preventing a breakthrough that would have caused him to blow off the invitation.
Compared to the "80,000+" word dialogue system set to be revealed in The Forgotten City, the player's ability to manipulate events in Deathloop could feel underwhelming. According to Pearce, he even "set out to design conversational confrontations which feel like boss fights, where you need to choose your words carefully, knowing that the wrong response could end in an apocalyptic event which kills everyone in the city."
Deathloop will need to deliver both combat and a time loop story which, if not surpassing the competition, stands out with its own unique style and ambition. Whether or not Deathloop will realize its potential or will end up feeling like a new version of Dishonored with a time loop twist remains to be seen.
Deathloop launches September 14 for PC and PlayStation 5.