Previews
[Preview] ‘Deathloop’ is Set to Deliver on its Violent, Sixties-Infused, Time-Bending Promise
Time loops and death have become increasingly popular as plot devices in media. From Happy Death Day to Russian Doll and Returnal, the act of replaying the same day over and over has a surprising amount of variety to it. Arkane (Dishonored, Prey) is the latest to take a stab at it, and judging from what I’ve seen of it in action; it’s going to be a loop I won’t want to leave.
Deathloop is what Arkane boils down to (quite unapologetically) ‘Dishonored with guns’ and that concept alone intrigues, but throw in the aforementioned time loop, a 60s aesthetic, and a cat and mouse game between rival assassins, and there’s something I’m so very eager to get my hands on this September.
The preview showed me the start of the game, setting the scene for what to follow. I won’t be going into fine detail on that here, but what I can tell you is you, as amnesiac protagonist Colt, are trapped on Blackreef island where the day repeats over and over. The only way to end it is to find a way to kill eight specific targets known as Visionaries over the course of the day. Each loop allows Colt to learn about how things operate in each of the island’s four districts and work out a strategy for achieving his murderous goal.
The bad news for Colt is that the whole island is out to kill him, and chief among his foes is a rival assassin, Juliana (who can be controlled by another player); hell-bent on stopping him from ruining the good time the residents are having. This is a party island for rich and powerful bastards, and they’ve designed the time loop to live out an endless shindig, hence their reluctance to allow Colt out of it.
In the gameplay that followed, Arkane’s Dinga Babka led us through an attempted assassination of one of the targets. Aleksis Dorsey is our man, and Colt is out to crash his opulent party. This quest is a feat that will be significantly tougher in the early hours. Colt begins as ordinary as the next hired killer, and does not know anything about the island. This is why each run means something, no matter how much or how little you do. Whether by experimentation on an established plan or discovering new opportunities through previously unheard conversations, you’re always learning something.
Over time, Colt can harness several powers, access bigger and better weaponry, and combine the two to perform a symphony of death. Deathloop has mods called trinkets that alter a weapon’s effectiveness or give Colt temporary abilities such as double jump. More permanent capabilities allow Colt to do things such as hurl enemies through the air and teleport short distances to reach higher ground or rewind time a short amount to escape death. Already it’s clear that the Dishonored approach of revisiting familiar ground with new tools will open the island up further.
Interestingly, rather than starting from the same point after every loop, Deathloop has the option to pick one of four starting locations at any given time of day, with no time limit placed on how long you spend there. Depending on the time and location, certain things will or won’t be happening on Blackreef, and this opens up fresh opportunities and tools to help Colt solve the riddle of the loop for good. In the case of Aleksis Dorsey’s party, Colt can turn up earlier in the day while things are still in the process of being prepped and other buildings are open. Colt previously finds a note about a safe hidden in a library that contains something valuable in the gameplay footage I saw. Unfortunately, at this time, it’s evening, so the library is locked up tight. So on the next loop, Colt heads into the daytime and goes to the library to unlock the safe (the contents were ‘censored,’ but Babka teased that it would be pretty valuable for the future).
This time-hopping reveals two helpful things for Colt’s assassination of Dorsey. One is where and when Dorsey will be in the open at his party (onstage, giving a speech to his guest); the other is learning that there’s a trapdoor with a meat grinder in it on stage (learned by seeing someone use it earlier in the day). Colt has to find the switch for it. The demo does indeed show Colt finding the button and turning Aleksis Dorsey into hamburger meat in an expensive suit.
This is, of course, just one solution to one target, there are still seven more to defeat, and there’s no guarantee that this method will work for your overall master plan. The promise of such flexibility is likely to be rewarded given how well Arkane has done to give players freedom in games like Dishonored, and there’s another wrinkle to it that raises the bar considerably.
Julianna Blake. The rival assassin out to kill Colt, is seemingly a constant thorn in his side. There’s a comedic chatter between them over comms where they both tease, pester, and take the piss out of each other. Given Arkane’s previous games were pretty strait-laced, it’s something of a surprise to see a lighter tone in this, a game about murdering people over and over again in a variety of nasty ways. It does seem to work, though, and the banter in the gameplay footage felt natural, and actually funny. The fact that this back-and-forth could be ended at any minute by Julianna killing Colt adds a nice edge to it, but greater still is the fear that an internet friend could be in control of Julianna.
Deathloop has a multiplayer of sorts, akin to the invasion system in the Souls series where one player can invade another’s game as Julianna, with the mission of stopping the other player’s Colt. As with Colt, Julianna is upgradeable, so even this feature of the game comes with a hefty dose of unpredictability as the invader could be tooled up to the max and highly skilled, but you’ll never know until it happens. It’ll be interesting to see how seamless this function ends up being and how well Arkane can balance it.
There’s still so much to learn about Deathloop‘s Blackreef island, its secrets, its inhabitants, and most importantly, about the many ways Colt can dish out death. After seeing it in action and getting a real taste for how it works, I’m anticipating its release more than ever.
Preview based on Alpha gameplay on PS5.
Deathloop is out September 14 on PS5 and PC.
In the past 10 years since the release of DOOM (2016), we’ve seen a surprising amount of evolution on the core concept of the series. DOOM brought the series back with a clever push-forward combat system with a glory kill system that forced you to stay in the fray. DOOM Eternal added wrinkles to the combat by giving you tools that exploited specific enemy weaknesses, while also increasing the focus on precise platforming and narrative.
DOOM: The Dark Ages slowed things down a bit without decreasing the intensity, giving you a shield that added defensive verbs to your arsenal in a way that allowed you to be even more aggressive. It’s very clear throughout all these titles that id Software is very thoughtful about the ways they try to replicate the experience of original games in a modern context.
Recently, id hosted a virtual event to show off the latest iteration of the DOOM series, Revelations, an upcoming DLC for DOOM: The Dark Ages, which they promise will be a celebration of the entire series. Set after the conclusion of Dark Ages, the Doomslayer finds himself trapped in a purgatory, forcing him to rip and tear his way out of a prison of his own mind with the help of a mysterious ally. While they emphasized that this would be a narratively pivotal chapter for the story of the Doomslayer, they were keeping details under wraps, instead focusing on the level structure and combat feel of the DLC.
A More Demanding Challenge
One thing they wanted to make clear about Revelations is that they are going to be pushing the level of difficulty higher than the base game, challenging even the most seasoned series veterans. Game Director Hugo Martin wanted to emphasize that they’ve been listening to fans, so while it will be more challenging, the ramp-up of that difficulty is more gradual than in the DOOM Eternal Ancient Gods DLCs. The difficulty and accessibility sliders from the base game will all be sticking around, so you’ll be able to customize your challenge level however you want, if you find the game too punishing.
In order to prepare you to meet this challenge, they’ve introduced a new weapon, the chain spear. This can be swapped into your left hand, where you also use the shield from the base game, giving you a new suite of options for your tactical arsenal. Not only does it allow you to parry projectiles like the shield, but it also adds a grappling hook and dash to your toolkit, giving you ways to move around the battlefield quicker than before.
If you’re more comfortable with the shield, that will still be available to you, but Martin said by the end of the campaign you’ll need to be integrating the spear into your repertoire, as upgrades make it essential to your survival.
While id still wants to retain the slower, more brutal feeling of Dark Ages, they’re hoping that the spear will feel like strapping a jet engine to a monster truck, combining the best of the last two games into one violent package. It’s hard to say how this will feel without getting my hands on it, but a lot of the new skills appeared to add a dynamism to the encounters, particularly the clever-looking orbit ability that allows you to attach yourself to a monster and revolve around them, almost like an aerial version of the z-targeting lock-on from Metroid Prime.
The modern DOOM series has always been about finding just the right balance of giving you enough tools to make combat both tactical and reflex-based without making too much complexity as to overwhelm you. It looks to me like the chain spear will be a solid addition that adds exciting ways to close the distance or get around an arena, rather than forcing you to remember the utility of each weapon like DOOM Eternal did.
Six Levels and an Endgame Built for Experts
Revelations will feature six levels, including the hub, and will provide about 10 to 12 hours of content, roughly the same size as the two-part Ancient Gods DLC from Eternal. As Martin explained it, this will be divided between the main campaign and the endgame content, with the main campaign taking up about 60% of the overall runtime. After completing the main campaign missions, you’ll be given access to a wide variety of challenges that will continue to increase in difficulty until you unlock what Martin called the Uberboss. I’m curious to see how substantial this endgame content feels, as it sounds like it will take you on new paths through the previous levels rather than providing completely new content, but id seems confident that the challenge and spectacle of these encounters are going to be worth it.
The team said that exploration is going to be one of the highlights of the DLC, which is a fun prospect for me. The best DOOM levels are the ones that are littered with satisfying secrets, and they’ve promised Revelations will be full of them, including hidden recreations of classic levels. After hearing fan feedback for DOOM: The Dark Ages, they decided not to mark these secrets on the map, allowing you the satisfaction of finding them yourself. Every level is designed to be fairly maze-like, requiring you to retrace your steps as the campaign goes on.
There’s even the promise of Metroidvania-like exploration in the hub level, opening up more and more of the space as you gain abilities. The dragon and the mech will not be showing up in the DLC, but leaving them behind feels like a good decision to me, as they exhausted those gimmicks in the base game.
Smarter Enemies, Tougher Fights
Over the course of the presentation, they showed off a few more enemy options that are being added into the mix. In addition to an all-new Wizard enemy type, there are variants of enemies seen in the base game featuring new behaviors that change up the encounters in meaningful ways. Importantly, they said that there would be a focus on giving more enemies evasive AI, pulling you around the arena space to keep you from hunkering down in one place. DOOM has always been a fast-paced game of tactical chess, requiring you to scan the battlefield and prioritize the various targets, so hopefully adding more enemy behaviors to the mix will make for a fun way to add challenge to their already challenging combat.
In addition to the difficult endgame, id is releasing a 3.0 version of the Ripatorium, the customizable endless mode that was seen in the Dark Ages. This will add new maps, new levels, and deeper customization to the fan-favorite mode, allowing you to run through some particularly diabolical encounters. While I personally would prefer more focus on the main campaign of the game, it seems they are trying to cater to people who want more ways to push the challenge of the series as far as they can, and Ripatorium 3.0 looks like the culmination of that effort.
Final Verdict
The DOOM series is so much about how it feels in the hands, and while I didn’t get to experience that, they closed the presentation with a combat sizzle reel that looked like an exciting evolution of Dark Ages, a game that I thought felt great to play. The new grapple function of the spear allowed the arenas to have a bit more verticality than those found in the base game, and the visual design of the enemies remained consistently readable, allowing you to understand the encounter at a glance. The orbit ability in particular looked fun as hell, allowing you to dynamically move around the environment while still staying focused on offense. It’s looking extremely promising, but it’s impossible to judge until I get to play it myself.
After experimenting with the formula for over the last decade, id is hoping that Revelations is the culmination of the series from both a mechanical and narrative standpoint. They closed by saying that Revelations is to The Dark Ages what DOOM Eternal was to DOOM (2016), which is both exciting and worrying for me. In my mind, there’s a dial they’ve been tuning over the course of this reboot series. The dial felt perfect in DOOM, then turned too far up for me with Eternal, before reaching a great point with The Dark Ages, though not quite as perfect as where it started.
Time will tell where it lands on this spectrum, but the new chain spear seems like it’s going to be just as welcome an addition as the shield was in The Dark Ages. Fortunately, we don’t have to wait too long to find out.
DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations will be available for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and the PC via Steam on July 7.
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