DEATHLOOP

Review

From the studio that brought us such bangers as Dishonored and Prey, comes this brand spanking new Time-manipulative, First-Person Shooter called ‘’DEATHLOOP’’.

Set in the timeline of the late 60s, DEATHLOOP takes place in the make-belief island of Blackreef, full of artistic choices from the late 60s with a lot of styled-down tech from the future.

You play as one of two stylish assassins stuck in a time loop, going for each other’s heads and their surroundings.

Moving right past that, Deathloop is bloody brilliant for the way they mixed and matched genres; this has been done before, but DEATHLOOP did it way better.

Everything that Deathloop brings to the table has been done before in some way shape or form, the past.

But the way Deathloop integrates all of these features and gameplay choices, from the detective searching for a person of interest to planning multiple serial hit jobs in a short time frame, is just brilliant.

Plot: You awaken from a series of drunken dream sprees, where you get repeatedly killed by an unknown lady on the shores of an unknown island. Thankful that was just a dream, you are interrupted by the same lady telling you it was not just a dream!

You play as Colt Vahn, one of two Assassins stuck in an endless loop trapped in the same time frame. Receiving cryptic messages and hints from both himself and the other assassin Julianna, Colt sobers up to investigate the loop.

In order to break free from these endless killings and being killed, Colt starts his investigation by moving further into the island and trying puzzles to gather hidden messages, clues, and documents to piece together this mystery before Julianna comes back for him.

After days’ worth of investigations and snooping around, Colt gets some solid clues about how to stop the loop, by killing certain individuals in a short time frame.

Sounds easy for a man who loves blasting his barrels, but this won’t be so easy!

The island is full of masked individuals guarding every entrance, streets continuously scanned by scanners and turrets, and worst of all Julianna…

Colt has his work cut out for him, but if he wants freedom, well he's gotta earn it.

Gameplay: From the moment you wake up as Colt, it’s somewhat obvious what’s going on and what’s about to go down; the game doesn’t do much to hide the fact or create some sort of suspense before the big mission reveal.

As you start walking into the island from the shores, small humorous writings start to pop up everywhere, nodding and pointing you in the general direction or just pocking fun at your expense.

Then Julianna randomly decides pop in on the radio. Which is all fun and Gucci, until she really starts to annoy you while in the middle of some important work or decides to drop by in-person; then you’re screwed with whatever you’re working on.

As you snoop through the selected locations, sneaking by or killing whichever sorry soul is in your way, you discover puzzles, clues, papers, emails, voice tapes, and documents revealing that you will have to take out certain individuals in order to break the loop, in a short time frame.

Eight targets, called Visionaries, are located across the island. You will need to eliminate these 8 before midnight, as leaving even one alive will cause the time loop to reset and undo all of your days’ work. Further, should you die before taking out the eight targets, you will wake back up at the start of the loop... You will lose all progress, items and weapons during these loops.

But the good thing is, you retain all the knowledge and intel you have gathered. Just need to stock back up on ammo and guns.

Speaking of guns . . .

The Combat: Deathloop features a pretty fun combat system with simple, fun, and brutal ways of eliminating enemies around you. You start off with a simple Machete and a Grande?  Odd combo for a starter but I can work with that.

As the AI is pretty dumb, as long as you’re not spotted and don’t raise any alert, you can just walk up behind anyone and stab them in the back.

The problem here is mostly you can’t, due to enemy placement. Good thing you have a handy hacking tool which you can use to cause distraction or hack enemy turrets to use against them.

The game features some classy-looking weapon designs; I liked them so much that I kept ignoring the fact that I kinda don’t like the gunplay, gun sounds, and their recoils!!!

Investigation: I came into Deathloop thinking it would be one of those modern Hitman-like game concepts where 50% of your work is related to investigations and puzzle-solving and the other 50% is figuring out the correct pattern to eliminate the targets without raising the alarm. But nope…

Well, Deathloop kinda disappointed me here, you don’t really have to do much to figure out all the clues, it’s more like the game itself is walking you through its mysteries and the clues just happen to be laying conveniently in front of you.

Trust me, there is no difficulty here; the only thing the game truly challenges you with is the pattern of how you’re going to eliminate all 8 targets and Julianna. When she gets into the mix you’re in trouble, and when a decent player drops in with her, you’re day’s almost doomed.

Some heads up: As mentioned earlier, the only two challenges the game throws at you are the target patterns and Julianna, so if you’re really looking to enjoy this game, guys, just walk in blind.

Do not google this game, there are a spoilers everywhere. The only major curveball is the target emulation pattern. The puzzle-solving thing in this game is simple, but requires a lot of trial and error if you don’t google anything.

The other one is that the multiplayer portion is optional where players can prevent others from taking on the role of Julianna in their game. If you’re just trying to have a good single-player experience, this is for you.

And oh yes, one more thing . . . depending on what you do with Julianna as Colt, you will get 3 unique endings. So, choose wisely.

Review written by BiteMexD for Zeepond.com!

DEATHLOOP Steam Store Page