Arkane Studios is back with a new production. Their Deathloop takes full advantage of the Dishonored series, but also introduces a breath of fresh air.
Deathloop is a production that is difficult to classify unequivocally. Theoretically, we are dealing with a classic first-person shooter, but we can also find here, among others, stealth or features of logical games, or even roguelike - though only to a certain extent, because we will not experience randomly generated stages and starting from scratch here. At the same time, this production clearly breaks the shackles of the classic structure - both narrative and gameplay - offering something fresh and unique. There is neither full freedom nor linearity here, but something in between: a set of challenges that we can approach in any order.
I would prefer, however, to start from the beginning. We are thrown here in the shoes of a certain Colt. A man wakes up on the beach with complete amnesia. He does not know who he is, where he is and what he is there for, but he quickly spots strange, airborne inscriptions that seem to guide him and offer some hints. Soon afterwards, he encounters a significant problem - he is stuck not only on the island, but also in a time loop, and the end of each day or death starts the whole loop anew, i.e. from waking up in the sand. There is another complication: they all want to kill him, led by the mysterious assassin, Julianna Blake.
The treatment with memory loss, although very clichéd and exploited in pop culture to the limit, works first-class here. We feel confused like Colt himself and together with him we put together another puzzle from this story puzzle. We learn the truth about the protagonist, Blackreef Island and the way to break out of the loop. The latter - which is not a spoiler, as it was communicated throughout the marketing campaign - is killing eight people called the Visionaries. They are people with unique abilities that we will be able to take over and use later in the game.
Deathloop is a game that completely omitted the previous generation of consoles, and the creators boasted in the trailers using the potential of PlayStation 5. And you can really feel it. Although it is definitely not the most beautiful production available on Sony equipment, as a whole it looks and works very well and smoothly. It is also a very stylish and aesthetically coherent work: everything fits together perfectly - from music, through animated cutscenes, and ending with interface elements.
The story presented in the game is quite complicated and you can feel a bit confused at first. It is worth searching the virtual world for voice recordings and notes from which we learn more about the island and the Visionaries. It also has a second, more practical application, because in this way we are able to discover some secrets or make our life much easier in subsequent approaches.
It is undoubtedly one of the best games of the year and I have a feeling that I will come back to it more than once in the future to discover more Blackreef secrets.
Pros:
- lots of freedom;
- satisfying gameplay;
- brilliant level design;
- great setting.
Minuses:
- artificial intelligence is disappointing in places.
