Deathloop

Guess I’m getting embroiled in a loop of death this week going by those ecstatic reviews.

Arkane games have always prioritised distinctive art design over graphical horsepower, and thank god they have as far as I’m concerned. Makes for much more striking and unique looking games.

Enjoying it so far, but too early to have much more of an opinion than ‘a more action-orientated Dishonoured’.

The turrets seem delightfully overpowered? Just pop one up quietly behind a group of enemies and let the machine do the hard work for you.

Runs well on PS5 but had one nasty temporary lock up after leaving the apartment for the first time. Thought it was going to crash but it didn’t in the end. Thankfully survived the firefight it happened in the middle of!

To be honest, I've been struck by how similar to Dishonoured it is. There's a lot of the fundamental gameplay mechanics that are identical, and the basic sneaking/planning is very similar moment to moment (although that's true of many immersive sims). Even visually it's quite similar - things like the shutters used to show which doors you can't go through immediately reminded me of Dishonoured.

What's interesting is how they've changed the formula. Bodies disappearing instantly adds a major point of difference, and shows the focus on more action. The structure also suggests to me designers working out a reason to have players try different approaches to the same content. With Dishonoured many (myself included) will have played through the campaign one way and been done with it. This game's repetition pretty much demands you explore more to keep things interesting.

I am enjoying it plenty so far, now that it's settled into its groove. The tutorial is clunky as hell at times and way too long, and the menus / UI needed another few passes as they're an absolute mess at the moment (cursor navigation on console 👎🏻). It's also far more linear / hand-holdy in its objectives than I expected. Not entirely sold on whether the locations are interesting enough to keep revisiting over and over. But it certainly has plenty going for it, and it's certainly fun figuring out some of the secrets the games hold. It is very Dishonoured IMO, but it's always interesting to see a familiar style from a fresh design perspective.

Deathloop is to Dishonoured as Bloodborne is to Dark Souls - an action-focused take on a very familiar formula.

I never said it was just an action-focused Dishonoured, but I do think it feels remarkably like a faster version of that game in much of the minute to minute gameplay :) I mean, all the powers - pivotal to how we play the game - are borrowed directly from that D1+2 with a few tweaks here and there. But certainly all the structural things, the tone and lots of small details ensure this has significant points of difference to Arkane’s most famous series. It’s a mix of the new and familiar - again, similar to Bloodborne / Sekiro.

UI wise I just think a lot of info is buried under layers of menus and submenus. There’s lots of poorly explained icons scattered throughout the menus - for example, the way some objectives have an extra triangular emphasis or the separate icons for non-infused and equipped items. I’m not a UI designer so can only say it feels a bit confusing to use - albeit one Ive adjusted to as I progress. I’d certainly make navigating menus non-cursor based or at the very least have the cursor snap to different boxes as appropriate. I think there’s also some unnecessary ‘hold button for a second too long to do this prompt’ bits - not always instinctively clear you need to hold down a particular button rather than just press it. Also think the way some of the tutorial text pops up in little white text in the middle of the screen was awkward. It just feels somewhat unpolished and messy in some UI details - partially a result of lots of interlocking systems to illustrate, but I definitely don’t think it’s particularly controller friendly with its free-moving cursor (ironically, I’ve heard some PC users complain the interface seems too console focused 🤷🏻‍♂️).

The ‘detective’ angle has certainly come more to the forefront as I dig deeper, and I’m really enjoying it. I do think the game fills in a lot of the blanks for you before you even have a chance to do it yourself, and ultimately by default the game gives you lots of overt objectives about what you can do next - ‘handholdy’ in that sense. BUT there’s still plenty of satisfaction to be found in putting the many pieces in the right place, figuring out little puzzles, and digging up secrets. If it’s a little bit less satisfying than say Outer Wilds or Obra Dinn in that sense, it’s still fantastic to see bigger games embrace some of the design lessons and choices from those games.

Just to stress, it's not the menu / UI I find handholdy (although obviously it influences the UI prompts) - it's the way information and objectives are handled in gameplay. I think the game often puts 2 + 2 together for the player before they even have a chance to really have that 'aha!' moment for themselves :) A lot of the investigation work is automated, with the game always highlighting the right critical path for the player. I understand why they settled on that as a design choice, of course, just means the 'aha' moments aren't quite the thrill of an Obra Dinn revelation or similar game. Still think it's a lot of fun sneaking around and often seeing what Cole's seeing for the first time too, especially when you're a step ahead of what the game's going to add to your list of intel, leads and objectives.

And yes I still believe the menus are messy and confusing at first - I have absolutely adjusted to them, albeit simply because it's what's in front of me. I do think it's counter-intuitive to have an icon for an item that's equipped and an item that's not infused right beside each other, for example - I understand it now that I've played the game, just think it's a clunky design choice. With triangular emphasis, I mean this little icon beneath the second objective. Looks visually messy to me on top of the diamond icon:

None of these are anywhere near gamebreakers, and if it seems like I'm nitpicking it's simply to explain my issues - I've adjusted to them, and certainly don't underestimate the task the designers had in pulling everything together. But I also can't deny the first hour or two and first real dig around in the menus felt a tad unpolished and clunky to me - you're more than free to disagree. Thankfully, it's a damn good game overall and I'm thoroughly enjoying my time with it - although the cursor-based navigation is still shite ;)