Deathloop

Deathloop has the player in the role of Colt, an assassin that is stuck in a time loop, waking up on a beach at the island of Blackreef. The other residents of Blackreef, a former army base where strange experiments had once been held, have invested in the island and have gathered for this night to hold a party that seemingly lasts forever, as at the end of each night, the island resets to the start of the party in that time loop. Because of this reset, the partygoers pay no heed to their actions or deeds since they wake up at the start of the loop with no memories or effects of the previous loop.[1] While Colt is part of this loop, he retains memories from each loop, learning the behaviors and patterns of the partygoers with each loop.[1]

Colt has been tasked to take out eight targets across the island before midnight, as leaving even one alive will cause the time loop to reset and undo his work. Further, should Colt die before taking out the eight targets, he will wake back up at the start of the loop.[1] The player uses a combination of stealth, parkour, and attack skills as in Arkane's previous Dishonored and Prey games to move about the game world, avoid or take out guards, and learn the patterns of Colt's targets to figure out the right order to eliminate these using guns, melee attacks, or other environmental means.[2]

The game features a multiplayer aspect in which the player can alternatively take the role of Julianna, an agent tasked to protect the time loop and take out Colt. When the player takes this role, they will enter a random player's game and may interfere with their play. The multiplayer portion is optional and players can prevent others from taking on the role of Julianna in their game, instead leaving this to a computer-controlled opponent to try to stop Colt.[3]

Deathloop is being developed primarily by Arkane Studios at their Lyon, France locations. Game director Dinga Bakaba described the game as an "inverted Cluedo", a murder puzzle that the player needs to figure out how to solve in one perfect run after failing through many previous runs.[1] The game is designed around aiding the player in learning the necessary pieces to this puzzle with each run, but they needed an element of unpredictability to make it a challenge. While current artificial intelligence (AI) in video games can lead to believable behavior, AI tends to lack surprising actions. This led to bringing in second online player to control Julianne as to randomly affect the player's game, itself something Arkane had explored in their unreleased title The Crossing.[1]

Deathloop combines elements of both the Dishonored series as well as Prey. They wanted to be able to give the player a wide range of abilities that they could select to try to complete the "perfect loop", many which mirror powers from both Dishonored and Prey. While the game does allow the player to use stealth and related abilities as in Dishonored to move quietly, Deathloop does not allow for non-lethal takedowns of non-player characters, as Arkane recognized the choice of killing or subduing enemies had weighed down players in Dishonored. These stealth abilities can still be chained together with other abilities to make Colt fight like John Wick, according to Bakaba.[1] The Julianne character has a similar range of abilities, many of these closer to the Prey abilities such as being able to mimic any character in the game, including Colt, and thus interfere through activities such as drawing the player away from the real target with her mimicry or by posing as a duplicate Colt in front of one of the targets to cause confusion that way.[1]

The game's setting of Blackreef is based on the Faroe Islands, and inspired by the styles of the Swinging Sixties.[1]

Deathloop was revealed at E3 2019.[4] It was further showcased during Sony's PlayStation 5 event in June 2020, confirming that the game will see release as a timed console exclusive on the PlayStation 5 in late 2020 alongside a Windows release.[5] In August 2020, it was announced the game was delayed until Q2 2021 as development was impacted by the governmental response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.[6] The company later announced it planned to release Deathloop on May 21, 2021.[7]

On September 21, 2020, Bethesda Softworks' parent company, ZeniMax Media and Microsoft announced Microsoft's intent to buy ZeniMax and its studios, including Arkane, for a US$7.5 billion , incorporating the studios as part of Xbox Game Studios, with the sale to be finalized in the 2021 fiscal year.[8] Xbox Game Studios head Phil Spencer said that this deal will not affect Deathloop's current planned platform-exclusive released on the PlayStation 5, and will remain exclusive there for a year before arriving on other consoles.[9]

• Official website