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.
The gaming world owes so much to David Lynch. “Twin Peaks” alone has inspired the premise and setting of so many games, from Deadly Premonition to Alan Wake, and its dreamlike tone is one that’s perfect for an interactive medium.
Silver Pines, the upcoming title from Swedish-based indie developer Wych Elm, is the latest in the lineage of Lynchian games, this time presenting survival-horror-style gameplay from a 2D perspective. While I’m not traditionally as hot on 2D games, after spending time with the demo, available now on Steam, I can’t wait to see more of this intriguing new world.
It starts out simple. After a brief, narrated dream sequence, you wake up in an empty diner in the small American town of Silver Pines. There’s a quick tutorial sequence that teaches you the game’s mechanics as you escape from the diner, followed by a phone call that sets up the premise of the game. You play Red Walker, a private investigator on the hunt for a missing musician named Eddie Velvet. It’s an elegant bit of exposition that’s delivered with a slightly dreamlike vibe, setting the tone for what’s to come.
As you begin to explore the titular town, you find it eerily abandoned, thanks to an evacuation order that’s caused the majority of the residents to take the ferry out of here. Empty streets and vacant buildings bring to mind Silent Hill, which is a great start in my book. There’s something really unique and special about small town horror like this, and Silver Pines is able to capture it immediately without feeling too much like a tribute act.
Navigating the Unique 2D World of Silver Pines
One of the things that impressed me immediately was how easy I found it to navigate the 2D space. Much like the indie classic Lone Survivor, you have a map that represents the space, and you turn down streets and hallways by pressing up or down at certain openings in the background to “turn” on the map. It seems like it should be incredibly difficult to follow directional shifts like this, but it becomes immediately intuitive, especially with the addition of diegetic signage that guides you without feeling out of place and handholdy.
I usually associate 2D games with more dynamic jumping and movement mechanics, but Silver Pines keeps things grounded, managing to find ways of creating navigation challenges without resorting to platforming tests that would feel out of place in a narrative like this. The map is particularly excellent in this game, as you can use a camera to add photos to it to help remind you what’s there. I love it when main characters mark up maps with locations of puzzles or items, and putting that power in the player’s hands was an interesting mechanical wrinkle that felt helpful and unique.
The other thing that gripped me from the start was the art style, which uses a slight cel-shading technique for the character models that makes them look hand-drawn. They really pop when compared to the backgrounds, which have a slightly different, but complementary, style to them. Wych Elm also shows off a masterful understanding of lighting, creating a shadowy look that’s never too dark to understand what’s going on.
The way the various layers of background and foreground give a parallax effect as you walk adds so much depth to every moment, making the imagery feel more dynamic. This game is treading familiar ground, with abandoned hotels and empty small town streets, but the unique look sets it apart enough to justify it among its peers.
Puzzles Balance Logic and Surrealism
Aside from just navigating the spaces, you’ll need to solve a variety of puzzles in order to progress. Many of them are just finding keys to open doors or figuring out which item is helpful in which situation, like an adventure game, but there were a few in the hour-long demo that gave me a level of satisfaction in actually figuring something out. Like the best survival horror games, the puzzles are an equal bit grounded in reality and slightly surreal, adding to the tone of the game. One of them gave me a Silent Hill vibe with its logic, asking me to win a BB gun shooting range mini game to get a pool key (which also teaches you how to use weapons).
While the game isn’t crawling with enemies, there are more threats scattered throughout the levels than I expected. Early on, you get a blade to defend yourself, which also acts as a key to cut through doorways blocked by cloth, and it’s just the right balance of effective and clumsy. There’s a surprisingly useful dodge that lets you slip past enemies. With the right timing, it’s not too difficult to survive one-on-one encounters, but it’s also not so easy that you can go on autopilot. Once multiple enemies get into the mix, it starts feeling more desperate, forcing you to make smart use of your stamina and weapon durability to survive.
A pistol gets introduced late in the demo, and that also felt surprisingly punchy, but its power was balanced smartly by limited ammo. One of my favorite gameplay elements of survival horror is ammo management, and it seems like Silver Pines is going to make that a core part of its combat experience, asking you to think carefully about which enemies are worth your precious bullets. This is further complicated by the fact that your gun can also be used to shoot padlocks to access previously locked areas, making it an even more valuable resource.
Enemy Design is the Demo’s Biggest Question Mark
Ammo and tape will be crucial to the continued use of your gun and knife, respectively, and there’s a quick little minigame for reloading and repairing that adds some tension to encounters. In addition to scavenging for resources, there was a vending machine I ran across where I could spend money to buy ammo or health kits. Be careful, though, the money is what you use to save at the payphone save points, so you don’t want to spend it all. It’s a clever variant on the classic Resident Evil-style ink ribbon system that makes your resource for saving a more abundant currency, but one that is used for more than just saving.
There were a couple of mementos that I ran across while exploring, and these can be equipped to provide specific character modifiers. I’m not entirely sold on the system yet, as there weren’t enough in the demo to really be able to craft a meaningful build, but with the surprisingly fun combat I’ve seen so far, I’m hoping that they will allow you to shape your playstyle in a way that’s tuned to how you like it. Any new wrinkles on combat are welcome, as it will need to find ways to keep fresh if it wants to stay compelling throughout.
As much as I think the combat is responsive and interesting, I think the enemies might be the weakest part of the game’s identity. This could also be a symptom of just seeing the early game, but so far, they are a bit more indistinct than I’d like, consisting mostly of shadowy people and bugs that didn’t have much going on. There was a boss fight that had a bit more of a menacing design, but I don’t know enough about the full shape of the narrative yet to see if the enemy design is in sync with the tone it’s trying to achieve. Right now, they just feel a bit generic, but I’m hoping things improve as it goes on, because they are pretty fun to fight for a survival horror game.
A Strong First Impression
Back to the opening thoughts about Lynch, the part that has me most interested in this game is the narrative. It’s simple so far, but there have been some surprisingly effective surrealist sequences that make me think this story is going to be something that will sink its hooks into me. One of the coolest moments of the demo involved turning off a light switch and being transported into an entirely different space, one dripping with dreamlike vibes. Even the choice to have the person you’re searching for be a musician adds a nice bit of texture to the narrative, putting a thematic focus on the game’s music in an important sequence involving a performance.
The cutscenes shift to a distinct painterly style, making them stand out without having to animate them, and it’s all brought to life with great voice acting. There’s even a little show you can watch in bits on TVs you pass, feeling a bit like a nod to Alan Wake II’s “Night Springs”.
I’m going to be honest, watching the initial trailer for Silver Pines had me feeling a bit sceptical. Not everyone can nail that Lynchian vibe, and when you try for that tone and miss, it can leave you with a narrative that’s either confusing or pretentious. Based on my hour with Silver Pines, I’d say they are on the right track, ready to deliver a surrealist narrative that draws from its inspirations while still carving out its own identity.
No word on the release date yet, outside of a vague 2026 timeframe, but I’ll be there day one to check it out.
Silver Pines is scheduled to release on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam.
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