Ever wondered what it would feel like to remain in a loop for a long time? Wake up every morning to find yourself reliving the previous day. That’s the feeling when you play Deathloop. The great thing about playing Deathloop is that your character wouldn’t even know that he is in a loop. This first-person shooter game was developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks.   It was released in September 2021 for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 5.

An Outstanding 2021 Game

After playing Dishonored and Prey and loving both games, I was happy and curious when I first heard about the planned release of Deathloop by the same publishers and developers. I just had to play the game, and I wasn’t disappointed. It didn’t come as a surprise when the game won two awards at The Game Awards 2021. I loved everything from the art design to the gameplay and plot.  The objectives of each mission were straightforward, which gave me the time I need to concentrate on the gameplay. 

The game was set sometime in the 1960s on an island in Blackreef. The town was originally a military base and a fishing settlement. The military base wasn’t normal, as they were known to create sensitive experiments. An overambitious rich man – Egor Sterling – bought the military base and turned it into a private research facility (called the AEON program). He plans to create a time loop where he hopes to become immortal. He recruited eight visionaries to his course, with countless followers called externalists. They could do anything they like without any consequence since the same day starts over the next morning. 

Weird but Remarkable Storyline

Apart from the game being published by my favorite publishers, what attracted me to the game was its unique storyline. We follow the story of a young man called Colt Vahn who unknowingly got stuck in a time loop. Colt is originally an assassin and must eliminate a certain number of targets for the loop to be broken. He wakes up every morning, expecting to begin a new day, but he only finds himself repeating the activities of the previous day. He starts trying to kill his targets but wakes up to restart the day if he gets killed or doesn’t succeed in his mission. 

As we begin the game, we find Colt just waking from a terrible dream where he was killed by a young woman whose name we later learned to be Juliana Blake. Colt wakes up to find himself on the beach, seeming to have drank a lot the previous night. He however has no memory of what happened or how he ended up sleeping on the beach. Thing gradually starts falling in place when he finds the messages he had sent to himself from the previous loops.

He finds out that he is in a time-loop, and must break the loop by killing eight visionaries before the day ends. It seemed like an easy plan until Juliana tell the other visionaries Colt’s plan. She also warns the externalists of his plan, forcing him to be on the run while trying to assassinate them. Fortunately for Colt, he gained the ability to remember things that happened in different loops, giving players the ability to strategize better ways to kill the visionaries. However, Colt is not the only one who happens to retain memories from other loops. Juliana also has the ability, to make it easier for her to disrupt his plans and warn the others. 

Figuring Out the Time in Deathloop

When playing Deathloop, you’re not fully restricted to time as the system provides more than enough time to kill the visionaries. This freedom is probably to help you destroy all eight targets in a single loop. A loop (day) is divided into four time periods – morning, afternoon, evening, and night – these period helps you to know when you still have time for strategic thinking when to stalk your targets, when to begin the attacks and when to wrap up. You can remain in any of these periods for as long as it takes to complete your mission.

The city is divided into four areas – Updaam, Karl’s Bay, Fristad Rock, and The Complex. When you move through these districts, time seems to advance quickly.  The time of the day you enter any city determines the people’s routines. You should however note that your action in a given city also affects the routines of other NPCs in the other city. Hence, you must be careful at all times. Your day only resets after you play all four periods. The most difficult period is usually at night when the residents will suddenly go wild and start destroying everything at sight. 

You Need Strategic Thinking Skills to Eliminate Your Targets

Since the visionaries are spread across different periods and locations at any given time, you will need some extensive investigations and plots to bring some of them together. Otherwise, it will be impossible to kill all eight of them before the day runs out. Find new leads, uncover Blackreef’s deepest secrets, and collect as much information as you can.

Choosing To Destroy or to Spare Juliana

As with the countless other loops, Colt succeeded in killing seven of the visionaries and is forced to face the most evasive – Juliana – who always finds a way of thwarting his plans. She hides in the loop, causing the protagonist to find a way to get to the loop. He realizes that to get to the loop, he must use an abandoned rocket. He finally succeeds in reaching the loop but made many shocking discoveries in the process. One of the discoveries was that Juliana is in fact, his daughter. He tries to confront her, causing her to tell him all about the loop.

At the end of the game, players have to make one out of three decisions that have different consequences. He could kill both himself and Juliana, but he will only wake up to find himself at the beach, with Juliana holding him at gunpoint. She leaves him and lets him face an uncertain future in the loop. If he kills only Juliana, he wakes up as he did at the beginning of the game, starting a new loop. If he decides to spare Juliana, they will become friends face their uncertain future together.

Conclusion 

My favorite part of Deathloop is the loop itself. I view the game as an unfailing trial and error experiment where I keep trying till I get it right. With time, you will learn from your mistakes, find all the shortcuts, know who to avoid and who to use, as well as explore all the high-tech guns the system provides. If you aren’t bothered about repeating the same activities in an unending adventure and exploration, you should try out Deathloop.