thloop Talking about Deathloop Talking about Dea

[karzac]

Figured I'd get the ball rollling, as this game comes out soon and I'm very excited for it. Here's a repost from the September games thread:

Deathloop, the new game from Dishonored and Prey developer Arkane, comes out September 14. I'm very excited.

It's an immersive sim with a 70s exploitations cinema style. You play as Colt, trapped on a hedonistic timeloop island. You're trying to break the loop by killing 8 high profile targets, all in a single day - something that's impossible at the outset (I think).

Judging by previews, the structure seems pretty interesting and unconventional, given the premise. It's not a single contiguous timeloop like Outer Wilds or something. Instead, there are 4 different levels, each with 4 different times of day (morning, noon, afternoon and night). Once you're in the level, there's no timer - you're free to take as long as you like. But once you leave the level, you can only move forward in time - and if you die, you're kicked back to the beginning of the day. So, you might start a run at the Docks in the Morning - go to the Factories at Noon - then Downtown in the Afternoon - and then die, and maybe start your next run Downtown in the Morning. (I don't know if those are the actual areas, I'm just making up examples).

That structure seems like a really interesting way of combining the blink-and-you'll-miss-it nature of timeloop games, with the detailed exploration of immersive sims. It also seems like it will lead to the sort of "explore every possibility" style of gameplay that you find in modern Hitman games. I imagine there will be a lot of "oh, this thing I just discovered doesn't do anything now, but if I come back here in the morning..."

Also, there's going to be Dark Souls-style invasions, where players can take control of Juliana, an antagonist who wants to stop Cole from succeeding. Seems wild, and maybe annoying, but also fun? That mode is optional though.

Anyway, it's an extremely high concept, but I have a huge amount of trust in Arkane to pull it off.

 

[Adrenaline]

I was really having trouble understanding the concept of the game, but now that I get that there's not actually a ticking clock it makes more sense. I still think I'm gonna turn off the option to have a player controlled nemesis because that doesn't sound like something I want to deal with in this kind of game. Looking forward to it.

 

[karzac]

One thing I think the Invasion thing will bring is replayability. Arkane's level- and encounter-design style really benefits from replay, but aside from curiosity, there's often not much of a reason to go back, especially because their games are long. I can imagine playing through the regular game with invasions turned off, but then turning them on to have a reason to go back and explore - or playing as Juliana to see the levels through another lens.

 

[R.R. Bigman]

Hey, another game to add to the list to get whenever I find a current gen console. Dishonored was my jam, and this seems to be the successor to that series.

 

[Mogri]

A+ thread title

 

[karzac]

A+ thread title

Thanks!

 

[Exposition Owl]

Arkane have made some of my very favorite games of the last decade. I can’t wait to see what they have up their sleeves this time around.

 

[Reinforcements]

Arkane have made some of my very favorite games of the last decade. I can’t wait to see what they have up their sleeves this time around.

Same, as far as series of the past decade I think Dishonored is my favorite after only Dark Souls.

 

[karzac]

I started playing this! Finished the prologue, which is basically your first loop-and-a-bit. It's very cool. Obviously it oozes style and has a great soundtrack. Gunplay feels pretty good. And the structure is very freeing - in Dishonored, especially with the Chaos system, you were encouraged to go full stealth or full violence - trying to go stealth and getting caught felt like you have made a mistake and were being punished, which is a problem, because stealth games are often at their most interesting when you're getting caught and then going back into stealth. Here, because the assumption is that you're going to constantly be coming back to these places, it doesn't feel like you fucked up if you don't have a "perfect run" - you'll get another chance in the next loop anyway.

Another benefit I can see in this structure is that it removes the problem that stealth games have where once you kill/knockout all the enemies, the level becomes inert. But here, every time you revisit a level, all the enemies are back, so it's contantly interesting.

I was worried I was going to find the patter between Colt and Julianna irritating, but I'm actually charmed by it. It has a very Bugs-and-Daffy feel to it, which fits the game's overall cartooniness.

 

[karzac]

Played some more and now I'm fully in love with this game. The levels are huge and change in interesting ways between time periods. The characters are really interesting and wacky and the villains are fun to hate. The gunplay feels weighty and the structure and death system lends a ton of tension to encounters that leads to fun improvisation.

I just tried playing as Julianna for the first time - died pretty quickly, but it was cool! It's a nice palatte cleanser to a session. Is anybody else playing this? I'd like to have a pool of friends to invade rather than just a bunch of randos.

 

[SabreCat]

I really want to play this, but I'm waiting on a PC upgrade. My current spec only barely meets the minimum requirements, and given what appear to be somewhat widespread complaints of bad optimization in the PC version, I suspect that'd be a trip to slideshow island! I'll get to play in maybe early November.

 

[karzac]

I will say, I also barely meet the minimum requirements (when I go into the Visual settings, it tells me I'm over my VRAM capacity) and the game is running fine for me. There's some stuttering, but I switched to a controller and it's much less noticeable (that stuff always feels more noticeable with a mouse). I get 40-60 fps consistently which is fine for me. It runs pretty similar to how Dishonored 2 and Death of the Outsider ran on my machine, maybe slightly worse. Definitely not a slideshow.

I've got a Radeon 5500 XT GPU and a Ryzen 5600 CPU, fyi. Here's a guide for the best way to set the graphics settings too, if you do end up getting it: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/deathloop-pc-performance-best-settings

 

[Adrenaline]

I have played a few hours of this on PS5. Got past the tutorial and infused my first slab (Nexus). It's not clear yet if the lead system will take me all the way through the arc of finishing the game or not, but it seems like a good way to direct players while also letting you ignore it if you're one of those "I want to do it all myself" players.

 

[karzac]

I think the Visionary Leads will probably take you through the whole main plot.

I've infused Nexus (+1 upgrade) and Shift, plus a few weapons. Got the second Nexus and Shift from Julianna. I had actually got Shift from Charlie too, but wasn't able to infuse it that run. Charlie's level is my favourite so far though.

Have you done any invasions, Adrenaline, from either side? I've played a few as Julianna, but I suck! It's really hard!

 

[Adrenaline]

The only encounter I had with Juliana so far was at the end of the tutorial mission which I think is automatic. I don't think I'll play her much but I'm interested to see how she affects my normal dynamic of methodically sneaking through levels. I have infused three slabs and a handful of trinkets. Learning more about how I can manipulate the loop to find multiple Visionaries in the same place at the same time. Really cool game.

 

[karzac]

NoClip did a good interview with the game's Creative Director

 

[Adrenaline]

I have now killed every Visionary at least once and infused at least the base version of every slab and two of the unique weapons. Getting closer to putting together the pieces for the endgame run. The more I revisit these levels and understand how they change over the course of the day, the more this game impresses me.

 

[4-So]

I have quite a few slabs now, not from killing all the Visionaries but from killing Julianna. I think I have one more Visionary and then I'd have killed them all at least once. The contours of the game are starting to come into view and it's fairly impressive. Never seen anything like it.

 

[karzac]

Oh wow, you guys are much further along than I am! I've only killed Charlie, Harriet and Frank (plus a couple a Julianna's during invasions). I'm about to take on Igor for the first time. I've tried for Fia a couple times, but keep getting my cover blown and dying.

Are you guys playing in Online Mode? That might be making a difference. I think I got invaded four times in a row yesterday, and died every time. That was an outlier though, and I'm not complaining - it was really fun, I'm mostly just bad at the game. I really recommend keeping them on though, it adds some really fun tension to the game.

 

[Adrenaline]

My internet has been spotty so I've been playing in single player. Julianna still invades, she's just pretty manageable since she's AI.

Was having a good time tonight and then the game hard crashed near the end of half an hour in one area so I lost all the progress I had made on multiple leads there. Fuck.

 

[karzac]

Ooof that sucks.

 

[Adrenaline]

Went back and got back all the progress I lost before going to bed because I like this game a lot

 

[SabreCat]

There's some stuttering, but I switched to a controller and it's much less noticeable (that stuff always feels more noticeable with a mouse).

Not sure whether I'd prefer to use K+M or controller... hmm. I did see they pushed a hotfix patch a couple days ago in an attempt to address the stuttering!

 

[karzac]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1442276217197981698

I don't think the scripting and events are quite as dense as Hitman, but still, the combination is impressive.

 

[Adrenaline]

yeah, nobody can make a Hitman level like IO, but there's a lot of cool stuff here.

Finished the loop. Great game. Arkane remains one of my favorite devs.

 

[lincolnic]

Finally started this today, loving it so far. Got through the tutorial and got the Infusion ability, which I have a question about: when exactly am I able to infuse things? Is it between loops? Can I do it in the middle of a loop? I feel like the tutorial was not totally clear about this since you have to die before you infuse something for the first time.

 

[karzac]

You can so it anytime you have access to your inventory. So the beginning of a loop, the end of a loop and when you transition between areas.

 

[Adrenaline]

Also something that can be confusing is that infusion does not lock things in your arsenal permanently, it causes them to appear there at the start of the day. So if you infuse a gun and take it with you into the field, if you drop it for something else, when you return to the arsenal it won't be there until you restart the loop.

 

[lincolnic]

Thanks guys, both of those posts are helpful!

 

[jpfriction]

I’ve been poking my way through it too. A bit too easy to just clear a level out of eternalists once you get a couple unique weapons, in my opinion, but I’m also playing single player mode so I should just flip the switch and let invasions happen.