Key takeaways from Deathloop reviews: “One of the smartest and most outright entertaining games of the year”
Deathloop, a new game from Arkane Studios, has finally come out. Critics praised the immersive shooter about assassins stuck in a time loop, calling it one of the best titles of 2021 and a great successor to Dishonored.
Deathloop tells the story of assassin Colt who got stuck on the island of Blackreef. To break the time loop, he needs to kill eight key targets before midnight.
What really makes the game unique is assassin Julianna, who can be controlled by another player. By taking her role, they can invade a random player’s game world to kill them and prevent them from breaking the loop.
Deathloop came out on September 14 on PC and PlayStation 5. It currently has an average score on Metacritic of 88/100.
Opinions about the game
VGC rated Deathloop five stars, calling it “one of the smartest and most outright entertaining games of the year.”
If there’s any substantial question mark over Deathloop it’s still whether it has enough variety. The Eternalists could have used a wider variety of armaments, for instance, and late challenge mostly comes from larger numbers. But there’s a lot more here than meets the eye, with plenty to discover before you can genuinely attempt to break the loop, and surprise events triggering even towards the end.
— VGC
VG247 also gave Deathloop the highest rating of 5/5, citing the bad design of readable and unreadable notes and the enemy AI quickly spotting a player from stealth as minor cons.
Taken as a single-player experience, Deathloop feels complete and incredibly well-rounded. The extra injection of optional multiplayer action is a fabulous cherry on top. Basically, Deathloop is everything I wanted it to be. It’s confident both as a successor to many of the ideas of Dishonored while also expressly its own thing, with a tone and sense of style I absolutely adore. It’s one of my favourite games of the year – and one we’ll surely be talking about for months to come.
— VG247
IGN gave Deathloop 10/10, calling it a masterpiece. The media outlet said that the game combines satisfying combat and fun investigation work, which are set in a unique time loop mechanic.
Its unique, high-concept ideas around time loops and non-linear investigation work are implemented with elegance, making its systems feel effortless to navigate, learn from, and ultimately master. A new high watermark for Arkane and developers of similar games to aspire to, Deathloop is a game like no other.
— IGN
Deathloop received 89/100 from PC Gamer, which called it a “thoughtful response to Dishonored.” According to the review, the game truly unleashes its potential when another player invades your world.
This cat-and-mouse relationship [between Julianna and Colt] is the heart of Deathloop’s story, and enhances the mystery of the loop, the island and Colt’s past. As antagonistic as their conversations are, it’s also clear Julianna enjoys their game. At one point she clarifies to Colt that she doesn’t love watching him die, she simply loves killing him. There’s a playfulness to her goading, but also an underlying frustration that makes uncovering the past that Colt can’t remember all the more intriguing.
— PC Gamer
There were, however, a few websites that gave Deathloop mixed reviews. Gamers Heroes gave it the lowest score of 6/10, calling invasions of Julianna “annoying.”
Can we just stop wasting effort and development time implementing things like this? Why on earth would I want a human player to invade my world like it’s Dark Souls? Bethesda tried doing this with Doom Eternal as well and eventually had to scrap it. Stop it. We don’t want this. If you are going to add multiplayer, then make it co-op.
