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Arkane Deathloop - first-person action game from Arkane set on a time loop island

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I will most likely D1P. Arcane has given me too many good times for me to resort to judging their books by the cover. I’m already extremely unimpressed by Redfall though, so if Deathloop turns out shit it will make it very easy for me to pass on it.
 

Jenkem

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I will most likely D1P. Arcane has given me too many good times for me to resort to judging their books by the cover. I’m already extremely unimpressed by Redfall though, so if Deathloop turns out shit it will make it very easy for me to pass on it.

don't be a dumbass... every fucking bethesda game has had a decent discount like a month after release, even popular games like Doom Eternal.
 
Joined
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Messages
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Chicago, IL, Kwa
I will most likely D1P. Arcane has given me too many good times for me to resort to judging their books by the cover. I’m already extremely unimpressed by Redfall though, so if Deathloop turns out shit it will make it very easy for me to pass on it.

don't be a dumbass... every fucking bethesda game has had a decent discount like a month after release, even popular games like Doom Eternal.
It’s more about Arkane’s last two (four, counting DotO and Mooncrash) titles underperforming, and them presumably being on the skids with their parent company.
 

Immortal

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I will most likely D1P. Arcane has given me too many good times for me to resort to judging their books by the cover. I’m already extremely unimpressed by Redfall though, so if Deathloop turns out shit it will make it very easy for me to pass on it.

Are you actually expecting this to play like Dishonored / Prey / Arx Fatalis?
Like what part of the trailer gave you the impression this is anything like a previous Arkane title you've enjoyed.

Even for the genre, this game looks like shit.
I bet you don't clear 10 hours of played time before you uninstall.
 

Infinitron

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https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/how-deathloop-defies-the-immersive-sims-reliance-on-quick-save/

How Deathloop defies the immersive sim's reliance on quick save
You're encouraged to save often in Dishonored and Prey, but it's not an option in Deathloop.

Deathloop is unmistakably an Arkane Studios immersive sim in the mold of Dishonored and Prey, but it's making some pretty dramatic changes to the format. The most notable is that the world is locked in an unbreakable day-long loop, and if protagonist Colt dies, he's thrown back to the start.

Some players are understandably terrified by this: is Deathloop, god forbid, a roguelike? Will beating it require bashing one's skull against difficult tasks until they 'get gud'? Well, no. The things that seem scary about Deathloop—the loop, and no quick save—are actually there to encourage more experimentation and exploration, says game director Dinga Bakaba, as the player figures out how to assassinate all eight of their targets in a single day.

"So the way it works is like this," Bakaba starts. "You have four districts that are in practice four discrete levels, big Arkane levels. Each of them has four time periods: the morning version, the noon version, the afternoon and the night. Basically, when you choose to enter one of the districts you can take your time, you can do it fast, whatever, but the thing is when you exit the district and come back to the menu, time advances to the next period."

So Deathloop won't have you on a strict timer: just like in Dishonored you can explore each region as slowly as you like. The structure of the game is kind of like a turn-based game. "So this is kind of the idea: each period [morning, noon, afternoon, night] is a turn, like it's turn-based, and every four turns the world resets, except your knowledge," Bakaba says. At some point in the game you'll receive a power called Residuum which lets you keep weapons and items across loops.

"It's important because the structure of the game is not an exercise in challenging you to get to the end of the day," Bakaba explains. "You can do that, but in practice you can just skip those periods. You can enter a district, take a pick up, then exit it. You don't have to even kill anyone to get to the end of the day. Getting to the end of the day is just a rhythm thing, it gives a rhythm to the experience but it's not a goal in itself. The goal is to learn what's happening and then do some actions that can break the time loop."

The player will likely fear the loop at the beginning of the game, because the end of it (or death) implies a lack of progress, or forward momentum. "But quickly you get the feeling that time is now your plaything," Bakaba says. "It's on your side. You start to understand how it works, and you'll use this time loop to be where you need to be, when you need to be."

The structure of Deathloop addresses one of the bugbears of the immersive sim: quick save. It's there in Dishonored, so you're meant to use it, but it also means you're less likely to see how sticky situations play out; it means you're less likely to be forced to improvise, to really experiment with the game's systems. But Deathloop eliminates quick saves entirely: You're meant to play through disasters, you're meant to see the outcome of poorly hatched plans.

"We always say our games are better when you go with the flow, when you roll with your mistakes and improvise solutions to those problems," Bakaba says. "And then, even though we say that, we all play those games using quick save too. Even though I say that this is the best way to play, every now and then my ego won't take it and I will reload."

In Deathloop everything matters, but at the same time, nothing matters. Everything matters, because you can't quick save. Nothing matters, because time loops anyway. No opportunity is lost. If you find an area that's interesting, but want to focus on a different task, you can come back later. It's not like in Dishonored, where players might be inclined to linger in an area long after they've lost interest for the sake of completionism or fear of missing out. "That's the paradox," Bakaba says. "We make you care about the moment-to-moment, but at the same time, very quickly, you start to forget about the consequences."

Arkane level designer Dana Nightingale said on Twitter in July that Deathloop is "a little like Bloodborne," but she probably wasn't referencing that game's notorious difficulty. Bloodborne and the Dark Souls games liberate the player from the tyranny of the quick save, simultaneously raising the stakes and encouraging living in the moment. Just like Deathloop.

"We really wanted the player to get this feeling of mastery that we see watching Groundhog Day or Palm Springs," Bakaba says. "We get that feeling that the protagonists are the masters of this day, of this period. We wanted to give you a feeling of that."

The Deathloop release date is September 14, when it'll hit Steam and the Bethesda store.
 

Child of Malkav

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I don't like this war on quick saving or manual saving. Fucking consoles and their checkpoints or autosaves. Why should they decide how to play a game? Worse, enforce it on players?
 

Ash

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Why should they decide how to play a game?

err, because they are game designers...it's literally their job to decide how you play a game, and completely unrestricted saving in most cases goes entirely against the intended overarching design of the games they create? This is the one slice of incline of late: PC devs are waking the fuck up to this blatantly game design 101 tenet they failed to see for years.
Imagine any real life game, single or multiplayer, with goddamn quicksaving. Completely ruined in every single instance. Explaining it this simply is needed for the fucktards.

Cry some more you baby.
 
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Child of Malkav

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Why should they decide how to play a game?

err, because they are game designers...it's literally their job to decide how you play a game, and completely unrestricted saving in most cases goes entirely against the intended overarching design of the games they create? This is the one slice of incline of late: PC devs are waking the fuck up to this blatantly game design 101 tenet they failed to see for years.
Imagine any real life game, single or multiplayer, with goddamn quicksaving. Completely ruined in every single instance. Explaining it this simply is needed for the fucktards.

Cry some more you baby.
Truly a more retarded console cocksucker like you was never seen before. Decline enabling piece of shit. Games aren't real life you dumb asshole. If you're so concerned with realism and real life experiences in a videogame maybe you should stop playing them. Go play RDR 2 or some other retarded trash like that. All the old games had quick saving or manual saving because losing your progress because of various real life issues that can arise at literally any time and which can cause you to stop playing a game, sucks. Quick saving also allows you to experiment more with the game mechanics and understand the game better, leaadig to a more enjoyable experience overall. But hey, muh story, muh immersion, muh experience. Go play Playstation games if you're into that. Need I remind you that Deus Ex also had quick and manual saving? Considering the nature of the game and it's unique characteristics of being an immersive sim, it only benefited from having manual saving. Abusing the quickload feature rests solely on the player. You can do iron man runs and other challenges or live with the consequences in any game that allows for manual saving but the same cannot be said for games that have autosaves or checkpoints, one of the biggest cancers in gaming together with consoles.
 

Spacer's Nugget

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Not a big deal. It's not like you can die easily in the game, anyways (by the looks of it).
 
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Ash

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Abusing the quickload feature rests solely on the player.

Nope, it rests on the developer. How do you even define abuse of both quickload and quicksave, especially on your first playthrough where you don't know what kind of challenges are to come? There could be a really hard segment, super punishing instant death trap, the player has no sensible way of gauging what is reasonable use of manual saving/loading. Every 10 mins or so? That's what I aim for typically, but it is never optimal and is just inferior design to put saving in the hands of people that do not know your game, or even understand basic game design like is being discussed right now. The player has no way to define it, only a good designer that knows the game in and out does. Furthermore choosing not to save runs directly counter to the core of all your motivation as a player: to survive/not enter the fail state. I choose not to save often as reasonable, but there comes a point where you're just playing too risky by going without a save for too long when you have no idea what kind of obstacles are to come.
It results in either saving too much to the point of shitting on the game's challenges, or saving too little and punishing yourself more than is reasonable. There is no way to find the optimal sweet spot outside of designer intervention.

Truly a more retarded console cocksucker like you was never seen before. Decline enabling piece of shit. Games aren't real life you dumb asshole. If you're so concerned with realism and real life experiences in a videogame maybe you should stop playing them. Go play RDR 2 or some other retarded trash like that.

I'm talking about the rules of the game getting utterly shat upon, not realism you dumb cunt. You're literally too thick to bother with.
 
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Zombra

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Losing your progress because of various real life issues that can arise at literally any time and which can cause you to stop playing a game, sucks.
Not an issue in Deathloop, because the design prevents you from losing progress pretty much ever.

Quick saving also allows you to experiment more with the game mechanics and understand the game better.
Again, Deathloop is built from the top down to encourage you to experiment. It wants you to do whatever crazy shit you can think of to learn more about it. All this and no save scumming required, or desired.

I'm not seeing any valid arguments here. You seem to want quicksave as a security blanket, because "all the old games" had it (lol no), not because you've actually considered the impact on gameplay.
 

Ash

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Restrictive saving makes experimentation more interesting anyways, because if your experiment was a retarded idea you sometimes have to suffer the consequences of it (e.g if it involved use of resources). That's how a game is supposed to work. Play bad, there is consequences. However in many games with restrictive saving you can often (not always) perform your experiments consequence-free next to a save point regardless. acts as a nice compromise to not be too punishing or if the experiment failed when logically it should not have.


Losing your progress because of various real life issues that can arise at literally any time and which can cause you to stop playing a game, sucks.

the old "i have to make a sandwich" argument.

-There has long been a suspend save feature (since the 90s) for restrictive save systems wherein you can save and exit any time for real life intervention. When loaded, this temp save deletes itself. In the absence of this feature:
-minimize the game and put PC in hibernation state. Basically another form of suspend save.
-simply stop playing once you reach a checkpoint, when "real life" is set to intervene e.g turn off the game 5 mins before the time you are expected to go out
-Simply accept losing a few minutes progress? It's not a big deal at all. Happens all the time during normal play with manual saving too if you're not spamming it.

All the old games had quick saving or manual saving.

No they didn't. Most old PC games games did, and it was retarded (in most genres). As someone that grew up playing PC and anything else I could get my hands on, the impact on gameplay was clear.
 
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Child of Malkav

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There could be a really hard segment, super punishing instant death trap, the player has no sensible way of gauging what is reasonable use of manual saving/loading.
So what? You can instead limit the saving system by having it tied to a resource that can be found by exploring, therefore maintaining tension and danger and also encouraging exploration or experimentation. Look at Ori and the blind forest for a very well crafted save system that uses the same resource needed to cast spells as well as to save. It's more important to have the freedom to save whenever you want. Or create another saving system that still allows for manual saving. But it's too much work. Better to just slap autosaves instead. And just because you develop a game doesn't mean you know where to place a checkpoint. I lost count of how many times a game autosaves in the most inconvenient of times or when you're at a disadvantage somehow. Truly great game design if that stuff is done intentionally.
On the topic of Ori, in Ori 2 they removed manual saving (the resource based one) because players forgot to save after a difficult section and they had to do it again and so they replaced that with autosaves and it showed, the whole game was worse as a result. But hey, muh curated experinece, dev knows best.
 

Child of Malkav

Erudite
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Losing your progress because of various real life issues that can arise at literally any time and which can cause you to stop playing a game, sucks.
Not an issue in Deathloop, because the design prevents you from losing progress pretty much ever.

Quick saving also allows you to experiment more with the game mechanics and understand the game better.
Again, Deathloop is built from the top down to encourage you to experiment. It wants you to do whatever crazy shit you can think of to learn more about it. All this and no save scumming required, or desired.

I'm not seeing any valid arguments here. You seem to want quicksave as a security blanket, because "all the old games" had it (lol no), not because you've actually considered the impact on gameplay.
We haven't played it yet, but Deathloop is the only one so far that fights against quicsaving so hard. Not every game after it will have the same philosophy or system. In Deathloop, based on what we know of it, lack of quicksave makes some sense considering the time loop and resets and all of that but not every game after it will employ the same premise or story device to be able to excuse the absence of manual saving. They tested it with Mooncrash and think they struck gold. They didn't. Shit like this is being done by roguelikes all the time.
What is incredible to me is this raging hard on that they're going with "death to the manual saves", they emphasize it every chance they get in every interview. I didn't expect this from fucking Arkane of all studios.
 

Ash

Arcane
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There could be a really hard segment, super punishing instant death trap, the player has no sensible way of gauging what is reasonable use of manual saving/loading.
So what? You can instead limit the saving system by having it tied to a resource that can be found by exploring, therefore maintaining tension and danger and also encouraging exploration or experimentation. Look at Ori and the blind forest for a very well crafted save system that uses the same resource needed to cast spells as well as to save. It's more important to have the freedom to save whenever you want. Or create another saving system that still allows for manual saving. But it's too much work. Better to just slap autosaves instead. And just because you develop a game doesn't mean you know where to place a checkpoint. I lost count of how many times a game autosaves in the most inconvenient of times or when you're at a disadvantage somehow. Truly great game design if that stuff is done intentionally.
On the topic of Ori, in Ori 2 they removed manual saving (the resource based one) because players forgot to save after a difficult section and they had to do it again and so they replaced that with autosaves and it showed, the whole game was worse as a result. But hey, muh curated experinece, dev knows best.

Ori doesn't let you save whenever you want. It requires resources, as you said. It's still not optimal but way better than zero restrictions and therefore incline.

It's more important to have the freedom to save whenever you want.

Nope. It's more important the game rules actually work as intended.

Or create another saving system that still allows for manual saving.

So location-based save points you can trigger, a feature of thousands of games?
 

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