BREAKING OUT
Almost every aspect of Deathloop, in the gradual unfurling of details since the game’s first showing at E3 2019, has come as something of a surprise. Revealed less than a fortnight on from the release of Outer Wilds and mere hours after 12 Minutes got its own E3 spotlight, Deathloop was the title that confirmed time loops as a gaming trend, and carried that trend into the triple-A space.
Then, just as we were starting to grasp the intricate workings of the loop, it was followed by a second revelation: confirmation that Colt and Julianna, the two characters shown in that very first trailer, would both be playable in head-to-head multiplayer – a first for developer Arkane Studios.
THE PEPPER GRINDER LOOKS AND SOUNDS LIKE IT SHOULD BE STRAPPED TO A SPITFIRE
Even after seeing the game up close for the first time, the full implications of both are still coming into focus. But in the moment, they’re nudged out by a fresh source of surprise. Because, as game director Dinga Bakaba steers us through one of Blackreef Island’s four regions, we’re actually a little taken aback by just how quick it all is.
Colt applies a machete to the midsection of one poor masked goon, readies a grenade for his next victim and switches to the sniper rifle at a range that makes the scope frankly unnecessary. Finally, to mop up any remaining enemies, he uses the Pepper Grinder, a rapid-fire cannon we’re told is this universe’s equivalent of an assault rifle but looks and sounds like it should be strapped to the underside of a Spitfire. It’s fast, loud and bloody.
In the Dishonored games, which occupied Arkane’s Lyon team for the eight years prior, action tends to come in carefully planned bursts. A sleep dart here, a teleport there, ducking back into the shadows before anyone’s the wiser. That’s not the rhythm of Deathloop at all. At least, not as played by Bakaba, who manages to compress an entire Dishonored level’s worth of violence into the space of a few seconds.
Game Deathloop
Developer Arkane Studios
Publisher Bethesda Softworks
Format PC, PS5
Release May 21
He’s aided by a set of powers that will be familiar to fans of the studio’s previous work but, vitally, have been recalibrated to make them easier to deploy on the go. Shift, this game’s teleport power, lets you hang in the air and release a shower of bullets before’s Domino ability reimagined as a rocket launcher, linking the fates of every person in its blast radius so they can all be felled simultaneously with a single followup headshot. Turrets can be hacked remotely, using a gadget that doesn’t even require you to be aiming directly at them. There is rarely any need to stop, or even slow down.
