Time after time, in the hope of an irreversible change in the functioning of the time loop. If you like Arcane Studios projects, then you simply must try to break the “death loop”.
Plot and main characters
The plot of Deathloop begins quite abruptly – right at the moment of the death of the main character of the game, but after a moment the game will explain to us that it is absolutely not worth worrying about this.
The fact is that Colt Van (that’s the name of the protagonist of the game) is stuck in an endless time loop and death in it is a common thing that only leads to restarting the cycle and resetting all the memories of its participants. Fortunately, Colt remembers everything that happened in each such cycle, and he also absorbs any new information like a sponge.
Very soon, our main character realizes that he is on Black Reef Island and the only way to leave it is to break the time loop. This is not so easy to do – first you need to collect all the necessary information, sort it out by the defenders of the loop, and only then break the mechanism of the temporary anomaly. And all this must be done within the framework of one cycle, which is equal to one day.
The game world and its content
As you may have noticed, Deathloop takes place on Black Reef Island, there is no open “Ubisoft-like” world with many activities in the toy. The Black Reef is divided into four regions, which in turn can have four different states – it depends on the time of day. For example, in the morning the sun may shine in a certain location, and in the afternoon the same location may change beyond recognition – it may snow, rain or start a fire.
The nature of the terrain varies from location to location. There are no large open spaces in Deathloop, there are no exclusively closed corridor locations either, but combinations of various paved areas, lanes, clearings, buildings and underground complexes are found at every turn. The level design is conceived in such a way as to give the player as much variation as possible in the passage and exploration of the world around.
All these diverse (and at the same time identical) areas of the island will be filled with tons of dummy opponents, vigilant security cameras, portable turrets, as well as first-aid kits or mines scattered everywhere. With sufficient frequency, the player will come across a variety of secrets and plot clues.
Gameplay
In terms of gameplay, Deathloop is similar to the previous works of the Arcane studio, common features are immediately guessed in the first hours of the game. Deathloop belongs to the games of the immersive sim subgenre, which implies a wide variability in the passage of a particular situation.
In a simplified version of the presentation, Deathloop has only two styles of combat: either furious action or stealth. Of course, the player can combine these styles in any ratio, no one forbids effectively “rushing into the party” and mow down discouraged opponents by all available means – this in no way affects the development of in-game events or the ending.
The main idea of the game is to collect plot clues, correctly build a chain of events and finish off the main heroes of the occasion. Exactly one game day is allotted for everything about everything. After the death of the ideologues (that’s what our main goals are called), the loop will break and Colt will be able to free himself from the burdens of an endlessly repeating day.
You can explore the levels in any order, however, each transition between locations will be accompanied by a change in the time of day, which inexorably move only forward – the player will inevitably reach the night, followed by a new cycle. All important information previously obtained by the player is stored in Colt’s notebook.
And in this menu, the main and secondary goals will always be indicated, so it will not be easy to get lost in the flow of incomprehensible information. To make the gameplay more difficult, hardcore gamers can turn off the target indicators in the HUD, but all hints are on by default.
By the way, about tips – Deathloop simply abounds with them, and at every opportunity, the toy, with the help of pop-up inscriptions, signals Colt about certain events. For example, the inscription “Hey man, there are enemies around the corner, be careful!
” can easily appear before the player’s eyes. In addition to such inscriptions, there are many audiovisual clues scattered around the island that directly tell the player what to do in order to achieve one or another result. Roughly speaking, game developers lead the gamer by the hand.
But do not assume that exploring the locations of the Black Reef is a cakewalk for the player. Colt has a mysterious metal ingot in his stash that allows him to use an ability called Reprise. This contraption allows the Colt to resurrect after being killed, but only twice.
If the player dies a third time, he will wake up in a new round of the loop, losing all his equipment. In order to somehow save it, the player will have to collect “Residuum” – a sort of shimmering clumps of matter with which to saturate weapons. Infused weapons remain forever in the Colt’s arsenal and are not reset even when he dies. Weapons can be modified using a variety of trinkets, which also require Residuum.
