Deathloop

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[Maf]

It’s like they took Dishonored and said “But what if it was just a straight up action game?”

 

It looked like it has potential because that gameplay is essentially proven. But at the end it seemed to be hinting it was multiplayer Vs or something and maybe it’s a rogue like and that was a bit off putting 

[DANGERMAN]

redoing bits, depending how they handle it (if it is right to the start of the chapter) isn't my sort of thing, but the gameplay looks great. Definitely interested

[Craymen Edge]

I like the style of visuals a lot.

For some reason I had it in my head that this was a multiplayer thing, but this looks a lot more like my cup of tea. 

[DisturbedSwan]

Deathloop Gameplay Details
 

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DEATHLOOP is a uniquely Arkane take on the first-person shooter genre, and it is being developed for a new generation of hardware. DEATHLOOP will launch on console exclusively for PlayStation 5 this holiday season and will run at 4K/60FPS at launch. DEATHLOOP will also be launching on PC at the same time. 

Leveraging the PS5’s cutting-edge graphics and technology like haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, DEATHLOOP invites you into a beautiful and immersive world – the truest signature of an Arkane game. With stunning and stylish environments, memorable combat encounters, and the freedom to tackle each mission at your own pace, this is Arkane like you’ve never seen (or felt) it before, taken to the next level thanks to the PlayStation 5.

 

Ready for the kicker? Julianna is also a playable character. While you will experience the main campaign as Colt, you also have the option to infiltrate another player’s game as Julianna and do some hunting. But keep in mind, that means someone else could be lurking in your campaign, waiting for the chance to strike. This is Arkane’s approach to an immersive multiplayer experience, where the focus is still on the main story, but there is unpredictability around every corner. “We felt this style of multiplayer, where we give people the option to play as the main antagonist, is a great way to really ramp up the level of trickery, tension, chaos and just plain unpredictability that we love in games like this,” explains Bakaba. “We feel that our game systems uniquely position us to allow for the confrontation between two players to be one not just of skill, but of wits, creativity and an open display of your personality.”

 

If this PvP element is disabled, Julianna will still appear your game from time to time, hunting you, but she will be AI-controlled. The developers at Arkane Lyon built this system with a hybrid approach in mind. “The focus is on the campaign and the story," Bakaba says. "And that campaign can be played with Julianna controlled only by the AI, or – and this is our recommendation – by a mix of A.I. and random players to experience the range of unpredictability and chaos that Julianna is capable of."

 

[DisturbedSwan]

VG247 Deathloop Interview

 

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Deathloop is a game for anyone who felt shackled by Dishonored’s finger-wagging morality system.

 

You’re crashing a party at the end of the world, stuck inside a time loop, and the only way to escape is to shoot your way out, killing eight targets before the clock strikes midnight and the loop resets. Deathloop presents a world without consequence, where even those you kill will resurrect when this violent groundhog day spins back up.

 

“You can really go crazy, go loud, go silent, explore as much as you want or be as fast as you want, but without missing out on the content,” game director Dinga Bakaba explains. “So, there is something that furthers the Dishonored paradigm to an extent, in terms of gameplay.”

   

The game takes place on Blackreef, a fictional locale inspired by the Faroe Islands and set during the swinging ‘60s – the height of retro decadence. The denizens of this place want the loop to continue. It’s a never-ending party where you can consume what you want and sleep with who you like – none of it matters because your bodies and minds won’t remember.

 

“It is supposed to be a gigantic party, if it was not for one person who is the ultimate party crasher for eternity: Colt,” Bakaba says, referencing the game’s protagonist. “It’s a strange place in the world. It’s a place that was an army base at some point, where strange experiments have happened. There is something special on this island. But the people who are now living there – the people who are of the AEON programme – have invested in the island in order to be a party that never ends. A party at the end of time, forever.”

 

As party pooper Colt, you’re the next-door neighbour who’s banging on the wall because the music is too loud. You’re a part of this shindig, even though you don’t want to be, and you’re prepared to shoot the DJ. It feels like a distillation of everything Arkane has created. Like Dishonored, the game is split into levels, and it’s in these levels where you will seek out your eight assassination targets: the Visionaries.

 

“You choose which district you want to go to, and what you want to do there,” Bakaba tells me. “You can go and do some assassinations, or you can just go and explore a district where there are no targets. So, there are a number of things you can do. So, it’s a little bit like a Dishonored game, but where you would make your schedule for the day, in a way like a Persona game, where you would organise your day, and say, ‘Okay, today I want to do this, and then that, and then this.’ But the structure is closer to Dishonored, with a bit more choice and agency about how you go about things.”

 

There’s also that clock, counting down to midnight, and each objective you take on will reduce the time you have left for the remaining targets when you return to your hub. If you run the clock down before killing them all, you’re back at the start of the loop, each time with newfound knowledge for levels, NPC routines, routes, and tactics. There’s a glimmer of DNA from Prey: Mooncrash – not quite a roguelike, but designed to be mastered through repetition and experimentation.

 

“The acquisition of knowledge, and understanding what’s happening on Blackreef, and basically, as the trailer says, piecing together the puzzle, that’s the core of the game,” Bakaba says. “Understanding what is happening, who are those people, what are the rules of this world, what are the rules of the island, and then, how can I actually do this thing? Because when you say, ‘Eight targets, one day,’ that sounds easy. Actually, it’s not as easy as it looks.

 

“So, trying to unpack all those things, learning a little bit more about the targets, what they do, who they are, what makes them tick, what are their weaknesses, etc, and trying to line them up perfectly, is the core of the game. One of the ways we like to call this is the murder puzzle. It’s like an inverted Cluedo. You have to make a perfect run, and you will need lots of knowledge and understanding.”

 

Then there’s a layer of unpredictability in the form of Julianna, the game’s main antagonist, who can be controlled by another human – an element of Arkane’s unreleased hybrid multiplayer game The Crossing. Arkane wanted to find a way to make some of the targets as dangerous as the player, giving them similar tools and abilities, as well as lending them an unpredictability that makes each loop feel fresh. The most unpredictable AI in the world isn’t AI at all – it’s another human who just jumped through a window and ran around the block to shoot you in the back of the head and teabag your corpse.

 

“All the others on the island have an agenda,” Bakaba says. “You know what they do, or you soon know what they do, and then you try to manipulate that in order to line them up, in order to make the perfect loop. The golden loop, as we call it, of assassination. Yet we wanted one of them to be unpredictable. We wanted that character to be, as I said, unpredictable – sometimes loud, sometimes sneaky, crafty. And it’s also in her character. I really like her character. She’s very larger than life, very extreme in her behaviour.”

 

This choice was the defining moment of production on Deathloop – where the entire concept came together. Julianna interrupts Colt as he tries to take each target. She can either be controlled by a human or by AI, and she’s kitted out with as many crafty tools as the protagonist. You might be moving through a level stealthily, only to hear a shot ring out as the screen fades to black – a distant sniper round from an eagle-eyed player. But Arkane hopes players also lean into her character while attempting to reset Cole’s loop. You see, this is all just a game to Julianna – to her, Cole is a part of the party. She enjoys the hunt, she enjoys the fight. She doesn’t even mind losing, since there’s no consequence. Julianna just wants to be a worthy adversary, and the hope is that players embody that persona when invading the games of others, too.

 

“If you want to invade someone, you play as Julianna, and you are in someone else’s game,” Bakaba says. “Either you’re waiting for them in ambush, or you’re alerting NPCs of their presence. You’re the villain, basically. I think it’s something that we’re happy about, because, since The Crossing, several games have been playing with that idea of multiplayer integrated in the campaign. And something we really like, that’s the type of multiplayer that we find immersive, and maybe complimentary of what we do. So, that’s why we wanted to try it.”

 

One of Julianna’s powers is called Masquerade and it allows her to assume the form of anyone on the island, including Colt himself. You might be sneaking up on what you think is an NPC – a Julianna player in disguise – only for them to spin around at the last minute to catch you unaware. It reminds me of how Prey’s mimics – alien creatures that can transform into inanimate objects – create a sense of unease as you creep through Talos-1. As well as ambushes, Arkane has seen the Masquerade ability deployed to confuse – a player taking on the form of Colt – and to make it harder for the protagonist to prioritise targets when Julianna is backed up by other NPCs who are gunning for Colt.

 

Of course, Colt has his own range of powers, including a Dishonored-style teleport that allows him to reach vantage points and attack from elevated positions. But this is a more action-focused game than Dishonored, so the power wheel has been thrown out for a more direct approach. Here you load up on abilities and guns before a mission. You can see some other powers in the gameplay trailer too, where Colt throws NPCs over ledges, through windows, and into the air with a kind of telekinetic push.

 

“That’s a power we call Karnesis,” Bakaba says. “So, we wanted to take another approach, compared to something like Dishonored, where you unlock a ton of abilities, and you have all of them accessible at any time. In Deathloop, you can take a number of weapons with you, and a number of abilities, and you can select them as you unlock them. So, there is a choice to be made before each mission, in a way.”

 

Stealth still plays a part in Deathloop, but it’s not the focus. There’s no non-lethal playthrough here. Death comes quickly for you and your enemies, and stealth is just another tool to give you the upper hand at the start of an encounter. It’s about killing swiftly, stylishly, and preferably in one smooth motion.

 

“This is something we are taking from Dishonored,” Bakaba says. “Encounters are very lethal, up to the point where you start to improve your character. I like to say that you can be something like a superpowered John Wick. But being sneaky can also be enhanced by abilities. There are some abilities that are dedicated to that, to sneaking around, to making the best of stealth. So, you can play using stealth, although playing non-lethally is not something Colt is into, for a number of reasons. But the most important reason is, the only way he’s getting out of the island is by killing eight targets before the end of the day. So, because people don’t really die per se, because of the time loop, he just goes for the fastest option, which is either sneaking past them, or eliminating them through stealth, or action.”

 

Deathloop is a game for anyone who felt shackled by Dishonored’s finger-wagging morality system.

 

You’re crashing a party at the end of the world, stuck inside a time loop, and the only way to escape is to shoot your way out, killing eight targets before the clock strikes midnight and the loop resets… wait a minute…

 

Deathloop is coming exclusively to PS5 and PC and it’s up to you to break this fucking loop later this year.

 

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[DANGERMAN]

Truly Playstions Halo 

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[DisturbedSwan]

Available to pre-order on the PS App with a PS+ Discount

 

 

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[DisturbedSwan]

New Gameplay Trailer

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[DisturbedSwan]

 

 

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[DisturbedSwan]

Shame but let it cook ? 

[DisturbedSwan]

 

 

 

 

The Gamer: Deathloop Preview: If Bulletstorm And Dishonored Had A Baby With a little bit of FromSoftware for good measure.

 

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Colt Vahn is on his way to crash a party. He makes it inside, gibbing the guards on the grounds with balletic, bombastic combat skills. But once he gets in and realises it’s a masquerade ball, he figures killing everyone in attendance is probably the best way to single out his prey, a masked Visionary called Aleksis "The Wolf" Dorsey.

 

He sprints past ‘60s pop art decor and churns through armed partygoers with a never-ending hail of bullets. He slides through fireplace openings and into a Kubrick-esque corridor to continue his assault. But the resistance is too much and he drops dead, riddled with bullets. He wakes up on Blackreef’s beach at the beginning of his own personal Groundhog Day, right back at the start of the timeloop, and with a perpetual hangover once again gnawing at his skull. Don’t drink the night before getting trapped in some spacetime fuckery, kids.

 

This time, though, Colt is armed with more than just guns. He has knowledge. Before heading back to the party, he makes his way to the location of a locked safe he found the code for while infiltrating the shindig the previous night (or later the same day, technically). He cracks it open and finds a recording with intel: Aleksis will be giving a speech. It’s the perfect opportunity to identify and assassinate him without murdering everyone who happens to be wearing a wolf mask.

 

He arrives back at Updaam, one of Blackreef’s four districts, at night. Each district can be visited at four different times of day - morning, noon, afternoon, and evening - and depending on when you visit, the entire context of the location can change: NPCs will move around, you’ll find different intel, and there might even be some places that are locked off or open depending on the time - and that’s without even considering how your actions in each district can impact others. Colt makes his way through the maintenance tunnels connecting the districts together and slides under a laser grid, ready to become the ultimate party pooper.

 

Colt uses his Shift power to teleport onto a roof, zipping up like Corvo using the Blink ability in Dishonored. There are three enemies just below him and some orb-shaped street lights dangling overhead. He throws a mine onto the lights and Shifts ahead, landing on an enemy’s neck with his machete before spinning around and using telekinetic power Karnesis to pull the group of three into the air, triggering the mine.

 

He Shifts to a rooftop on the other side of the street and uses his silenced pistol to shoot a distant sniper in the head, causing red mist to eject from his skull as fireworks bang in the night sky behind his grim silhouette. From there, he picks up a bottle and throws it at the floor to distract an enemy, drops down, and kicks her over a railing. There’s a pop, pop, pop, as Colt takes out three more enemies with successive headshots before Shifting to another and plunging his machete into soft skin. He spins around from the fresh kill and pulls an enemy into the air like a clay pigeon - pop, pop - and they drop to the ground.

 

Colt continues like this, grinding through everyone using a hyper-aggressive form of stealth, until he finally makes his way back inside and gets lost among the rafters looking down at the main stage. He pulls a lever and sends Aleksis into a trap door where a meat grinder awaits, then he drops down and gets the party started, throwing people left and right with his telekinetic powers, all while dodging, sliding, and popping heads. Bodies fly through windows and over tables, glass smashes and bullets fly. It’s hypnotising.

 

With Deathloop, Arkane wants you to feel like a “superpowered John Wick”. If you’ve ever seen StealthGamerBR churn his way through a Dishonored level like a ballerina made of razor blades, this is an entire game that encourages the same kind of killer choreography seen in the YouTuber’s video montages.

 

Like in other Arkane games, you can sneak. But stealth here is used for the setup - placing mines into funnels where you will draw enemies in, scoping out an area’s hazards, or silently removing the snipers from the rooftops before you obliterate everyone on the ground. It’s a systems-driven game with an action slant. It’s Dishonored via Bulletstorm, a 2011 FPS that focused on killing with style, racking up points for performing slick combos, landing environmental kills, throwing people into the air before filling them with bullets, and, most importantly, kicking people off cliffs. While Deathloop won’t score you for killing with coolness, every system in the game screams at you to play this way. It even has Bulletstorm’s kick, which could have just as easily been inspired by Arkane’s own Dark Messiah.

 

You can kick people into your mines, into fireworks, off cliffs, into their friends, and through windows. You can Shift into someone to add more kinetic energy to your kick, sending them careening into the distance with comedic force. It looks ludicrously satisfying, and I can’t wait for someone to figure out a way to do a kick-only run - it’s bound to happen.

 

“Initially it’s kind of a shove - it stuns them and you can reload, run away, or machete them,” game director Dinga Bakaba tells me. “But of course, we were like ‘No, that’s not enough’, so we made it so if you kick a second time, they fall over. If you kick them near something dangerous, you kick them into it. The Shift power has an upgrade where you can shift into someone and send them flying. When using the Havoc power, which makes you more resilient, people tend to fly when you kick.”

 

It’s not just the kick that encourages this forward momentum, however. A large part of the Dishonored series is cleaning up your mess - you stuff bodies in bins, throw them in the water, and tuck them around corners to avoid alerting their friends. Of course, there’s no need for bins when you’re in a timeloop and everything resets. You can just leave your rubbish on the floor. When you kill people in Deathloop, bodies ragdoll on their way down, but they vanish when they hit the ground. As well as being a smart memory solution so the game doesn’t have to remember the location of all your victims - which is made even more complex by the fact another player can invade your game, meaning the game has to render the view of both players - it’s a clever way to encourage you to keep moving.

 

“We considered various solutions, because we had a first implementation with the bodies, and as much as it is definitely part of the game loop of something like Dishonored and we have a lot of fun with it, in Deathloop it did slow the momentum a little bit,” Bakaba explains. “And in the end, someone came and they started to make a weird theory about why if you die, the timeloop would actually reject your body and you will kind of crumble and leave some kind of atomic shadow on the ground. People would be able to see them for a little bit, but then they fade away, and people will not be able to know if it's a recent kill or not.

 

“I think we were quite happy with this decision. Because yes, it does enable this forward momentum. So we keep the ragdoll for when you throw someone around, or when there is an explosion, or when you kick someone. But the physics engine doesn't have to worry too much about the ragdolling bodies in two different places of the map, because there is also Julianna.”

 

Julianna is ever-present in Deathloop and her relationship with our amnesiac hero, Colt, is one of the core mysteries of the game. Sometimes she seems to want to help Colt, and sometimes she wants to kill him. Her objective isn’t clear, but it’s something you’ll find out as you slowly peel back the layers of Blackreef. She seemingly wants Colt to break the loop, which he has to do by studying the island and figuring out how to kill eight targets in a single day before the loop resets, but she also keeps murdering him, which is a little counterproductive. Or does she simply want to make him better? The ambiguity of the narrative is backed up by the game’s mechanics.

At any point during your campaign, Julianna can invade your game. When she does, an angelic choir calls out to warn you. Julianna can be controlled by AI or another player, and you can tweak this in the options if you find the threat of another player ruining your day too daunting. But Arkane doesn’t want Julianna players to kill you outright - the developer wants them to toy with you and for players to build up their own rules and etiquette within the systems, establishing a community similar to those found in FromSoftware games.

 

“I actually have a nice Bloodborne story about someone who just crushed me twice and then invaded me a third time, in the same area,” Bakaba tells me. “And they pitied me. They just stayed outside of my reach. And each time they pulled me towards this bell ringer NPC - you cannot be invaded anymore [if you kill them]. So she slowly brought me towards the bell ringer and then she disappeared. That was so cool. And each time I would go in the wrong direction, she would shoot me, which was hilarious, like, 'Hey, stay on track'. I had no idea what she was doing until I got to the [NPC] and then they disappeared.”

 

These kinds of interactions are encouraged through a scoring system that’s in place for Julianna players. Points unlock new weapons and abilities for Julianna, and collecting these invasion points is also the only way to unlock cosmetics for both Julianna and Colt. Things like staying alive for ten minutes or doing damage to Colt are rewarded points, while killing Colt outright is not. Arkane hopes that these cues lead to Julianna players that harass Colt and become a proper nemesis, rather than an annoyance that simply snipes you from across the map. There’s also nothing stopping Julianna players from teaming up with Colt to create an uneasy alliance. With players able to invade strangers and friends, there’s even the possibility of approaching it like a co-op mode if you want.

 

Arkane’s games have always been about freedom of expression, and it looks like the addition of another player won’t change anything about that. You can namecheck other games like Bulletstorm and Bloodborne, but Deathloop is something entirely new, and it’s easily the most exciting, brave big game coming out in 2021. Deathloop releases on September 14 for PS5 and PC.

 

 

Other written Previews:

 

Pocket Lint: Will time be on your side?

 

Game Informer: Assassinations with style

 

GameSpot: Deathloop is building on Dishonored's ideas, but is an exciting evolution

[DANGERMAN]

I've probably watched 3 Easy Allies videos in my life, the guy with the beard has been on all of them, and I don't like him at all

 

as for the game, I think I can just about deal with the rogue-like stuff, but the thought of losing my progress because I got sniped out of nowhere from a player (or powered up AI) is really putting me off