Arkane Lyon must be sweating profusely, almost two weeks before the release of Deathloop. Often mocked by players for its abstruse concept, the studio's new FPS let itself be approached for several hours; allowing us to draw the following observation: it has nothing of the incomprehensible bag of knots for which some try to make it pass.
A generous grip, which allowed us to evacuate the too many doubts we had about the game. And if you haven't understood anything, don't worry, we've summarized everything you need to know about the game. game in this preview.
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Deathloop under the magnifying glass
Let's try to sum up the concept of Deathloop in simple terms. In this FPS mixed with immersive sim, you play as Colt: a gun carrier trapped on the island of Blackreef, which has the particularity of "rebooting" every 24 hours. A time loop that our hero will try to break, by assassinating the eight visionaries who keep this system in place. But, as we just said, the island — and everything on it — resets every day. This means that you will have to succeed in slaying your eight targets during a single day.
So how exactly is this organised? Simply via a central hub. Deathloop is not an open world game. It is broken down into “missions”, which you select from your base of operations.
Before entering the arena, you must choose your playing area (there are four) and the time of day (morning, noon, afternoon, evening) during which to explore it. We then select his equipment, his powers, and we go on the hunt. Note that time does not flow in Deathloop. Once you enter an area, you have plenty of time to explore every nook and cranny. The day won't move forward until you've returned safely to your bachelor pad.
Initially, it was impossible to imagine defeating your targets in the same day. Some only leave their homes in the evening, while others are only accessible in the morning, but in two separate places. All the complexity of the title will therefore be to create the conditions to bring together several visionaries in the same place.
How ? By collecting clues in the different areas, and by observing. Like a Hitman, you can interact with your environment to encourage, for example, a visionary to leave his mark to relax at the party organized by another. Two heads for the price of one.
Does that sound dizzying to you? Rest assured. Deathloop is a very didactic game. An extensive prologue will guide you through all of its quirks before letting go of you to experiment at your leisure in your attempts to break the loop. All the clues are automatically recorded in a notebook, and in the end we never had the impression of standing still.
Ball ballet
We see you coming. And you're not wrong: Deathloop is very similar, in its mechanics, to Dishonored. Rather surprising for two games from the (almost) same studio, isn't it?
Indeed the construction of the levels of Blackreef easily evokes the streets of Dunwall and Karnaca. Colt, very agile, can jump everywhere, rush into the slightest air duct and invite himself into seemingly inaccessible buildings through hidden windows.
So what really differentiates Arkane's new game from his previous achievements? Probably his huge guns, actually. Helped by MachineGames (the last Wolfensteins) in the realization of its gunplay, the Lyon studio takes a huge step aside from a Dishonored or, to a lesser extent, Prey.
If infiltration is always a possibility, here we take pleasure in digging through the pile with the help of our sulphur or our duo of submachine guns. The powers of Colt, which are actually stolen from the visionaries after having killed them for the first time, also bring a nice variety to the clashes.
Karnesis, for example, allows you to grab an opponent to propel him into the air. Chaos turns you into an unstoppable berserker, and Transpose makes you more mobile than ever by allowing you to teleport around. Nexus, which we recover precisely by assassinating Harriet, the target of the demo to which we had access, is undoubtedly among the most fun since it makes it possible to link the fate of several enemies together. Clearly, all enemies caught in its area of effect will die at the same time if you then manage to kill one.
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Either way, Colt has an Ace up his sleeve in the “Recover” ability. Thanks to her, he can cheat death twice before game over. If necessary, he loses all his residualum (the "currency" that saves his equipment from one loop to another), but fortunately we can recover it by returning to his corpse.
As a little nod to Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (the second game from Arkane Studio, released in 2006), Colt can also give a spartan kick to his opponents to make them fall backwards... or squarely in the empty. We never tire.
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Not to mention that, on PlayStation 5, where this grip was made, the contribution of the DualSense controller is impressive. The micro-vibrations accompany the slightest movement of our protagonist, and of course the shots of our guns. Adaptive triggers — still the next-gen's best idea — meanwhile, make you feel the stroke of your gun's. Each offering a different feeling. The controller speaker, finally, adds some sound design elements to a game that does not lack feedback when a shot is fired. Each headshot is accompanied by a characteristic little sound that makes our dopamine go up (yes, I like killing people).
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A role to play
Overall, Deathloop therefore conquered us during our session of about 5 hours. However, certain safeguards must be placed so as not to create false hopes. From what we've seen, the opponents' artificial intelligence is far from flawless. The detection cone of the "Eternalists" (the minions of the Visionaries) is of variable geometry; but it is above all their hearing that worries us.
We happened to start an explosive shootout against a dozen enemies without arousing the curiosity of a group of minions located a few meters away. We point the finger at this, but we understand Arkane's trick well: the idea is to conscribe the confrontation zones in order to let the player continue on his way more discreetly once the battle has been won. That is. But it breaks the immersion a little bit at times.
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Julianna, the main antagonist who has the ability to invade your game in order to stop you in your progress, is also not very devious from what we have seen. More resistant than the lambda pegu, it is not much more aggressive and we quickly overcome it. No doubt it will be a whole different matter in multiplayer. Indeed, remember that Julianna can be embodied either by the AI or by another player. But we haven't been able to test this feature yet. Note, since we were asked, that the game can be launched and played completely offline.
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As a good immersive sim that it is, Deathloop will therefore ask the player for help to “play the game”. The idea, to make the most of it, will therefore be to act as the protagonist would actually do. That is to say, logically avoiding running like a fool in the middle of dozens of enemies.
Either way, the game's splendid art direction is well worth taking the time to immerse yourself in Blackreef's various levels. Very inspired, Sébastien Mitton, the artistic director of Arkane Lyon, went to draw on the aesthetics of the 60s and 70s, in the movement of blaxploitation, in retrofuturism and obviously in many cult games like Half-Life 2 and Bioshock to bring Deathloop to life. So, even if the Void Engine is starting to wear out, it gives its best here.
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However, I regret an original soundtrack (by Tom Salta, behind the soundtracks of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands or Wolfenstein Youngblood) much more discreet than the trailers suggested. Of course, flights punctuate the highlights, but no theme particularly stands out from our walks in Blackreef for the moment.
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Deathloop : what we think (for now)
Arkane didn't lie to us about the merchandise. By cross-checking the various trailers of the game with our experience of a few hours controller in hand, everything is there. The loop, the concept, the gunfights, the antagonism with Julianna. "What you see is what you get", as the last losers of the Euro football say.
In the end, we only have one big question mark about the total lifespan of the title, and especially about its replayability. How malleable is the concept of Deathloop? We don't know yet. Still, the game exudes "Arkane Studios school" and will undoubtedly appeal to people who hold the Dishonored in high regard.
Also, the multiplayer part of the title has yet to be scrutinized, but Arkane has already been very clear about its intentions in this area. Deathloop is a single player game. The possibility of invading someone else's game is just a small inconsequential addition that should not be relied upon.
A few adjustments on the AI side aside, the game is already very clean and quickly gives us a glimpse of a thrilling adventure. Hoping, of course, that the repetitiveness inherent in its principle of looping does not peel too quickly the pretty varnish applied with care by Arkane.
Deathloop will be released on PC and as a console exclusive on PS5 on September 14th. Within a year, it should join the Xbox Game Pass catalog.
