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

[baud]

There really was no reason why the game couldn't have featured a character creator.

a character creator, for a FPS where you stop seeing your character when you start playing?

 

[gerey]

There really was no reason why the game couldn't have featured a character creator.

a character creator, for a FPS where you stop seeing your character when you start playing?

Pajeet, Ahmed and Chang see a negro on the cover and don't buy the game.

Arkane delivers another flop.

I sit here and get to say "I told you so".

It's the circle of life.

 

[Zombra]

a character creator, for a FPS where you stop seeing your character when you start playing?

You know how some games have an arachnophobia mode for people who can't see a spider without going catatonic? Same thing here.

Ȳ̸̛̤̼͔̮̩̝͌́́̒ͅǫ̴̼͚͓̻͎͖͚͇̃̍͑̃ǘ̴͇̞͉̳̆̅̂̾̀̿ ̸̪̊̓̎̃̔̆̽́̄͑̐c̴̨̛͔̟̖͇̫̝̭͖̫͉͖͒͆͐̀͊̏̊̾̑̈́̐̃͘͝ą̴̮͍̭͎̖̺̠͖̝̞͓͉͖̬͋̃̈͑n̷̨̨̳̲̻̘̖̟͕̼̠̪̗̺͕̊̐͐̔͊͛̊̏̕̚͝͠ ̵̢̛̻͕͉͍̣̖͙̤͇͓̭̰̀͐̈́̋͒̀͌̄̆̃̇̓s̶̨̩̼̙̼̻͔̥̩̈́̈t̷̨̛̛̮̞͕̯̠̮́̈͆̿̐́́̕͘ȋ̷̠͍̬͉̞̼́ľ̵̨̛̞̥̪̼̗̪͍̤̞͖͉͇̘̎̐̋̅͂́̂̀̈́͐̓͝ļ̶̛̟̞̪͙͙̰̜̟̪̿̓̈́̃͑͛́̅̆͑͆͒̉ ̷̡̻͓̗͚̭̹̯̖̙̗̝͂̾̈́̆̑̑͆̔̊́s̷̡̛̬͙͇͓̱̱̦̭͙̪̪̪͍̃̄́̇̅͐̍̇̈́̋̈̂͜e̵̛͉̮̼̺̫̜̱̖͈̯̯͊̄̏͐̒̑̿̓̈́̀̀͛̚͝ͅe̵̢̧̜̖͉̖̺̮̺̯̗̹̙̱͆̂̈́̂̓̐̽̽̒̒̈́͂͘͝͠ͅ ̴̥̼̿̒͗̈́̾̌̀̌̑̃̕͠͠͝͠a̴̘̟̲͖̫̻̖͓͈͑͒ ̶̛̝̺̲͍̮͚͔͍̞̱̪̻͎͖̔̓͂̀́̒͘͘b̸̨̪̝̀̎̇̓̊͗͒̃͂̈́̈́͐̾̏̑l̸̤̇́̇̈͋̾̽̍͗́̈́̍͝a̷̯͛͒̓͌͛̀͑̈͐̏́̕͘̕͝c̸̗̟̈́̉͗̓̌͋̍̃͆̑͝ḵ̶̩͎̰̠̼̫̅̅̈̈́̽ ̸̢̧͙͇͎̜̪̻̝̹̼͊̿̋̐̉̄p̷̧̬͈̰̞̠̖̘̭̠̤̐͑̔̏͆̾̌̍̎͜ȩ̵̛̟̺͓̬͚̮̱̂̔͗͊͊̎̊͂͗̐r̵̖̭̦̤͇̠͓̞̽̍̾͐͊̂̅̉͝s̶͓̮̱͉̈́̃̄̏̌͆̄͌͛o̷̡̢̖͇̝̠͇̪̪͇̖̲͙͐̇̍̏̎́̿̃͊̋̅̅̚͘n̸̢̥͓̬̫̦̳̘̹͇̭̙̤̈́ͅ'̴̛̖̪̱̦̈́̀̀͆́̊͘͠ŝ̵̺̣̭̱̩̘̱̩͖̩̼̿̾ ̸̯̗̩̻͔̱̽̓̒̇̈́̅̓h̵͖̭̋̊͒̆͝a̶̗̟̤̙̦͠ņ̶̠̜̲͈̖̄̿̄͐́̿̔̕͠͝ḍ̶̡̨̧̯̟̫͍̩̦̰̙̋̐̈́̑ṡ̶̨͕̪̮͔̮̰̥̟

 

[rusty_shackleford]

There really was no reason why the game couldn't have featured a character creator.

a character creator, for a FPS where you stop seeing your character when you start playing?

cyberpunk 2077

 

[baud]

a character creator, for a FPS where you stop seeing your character when you start playing?

You know how some games have an arachnophobia mode for people who can't see a spider without going catatonic? Same thing here.

Youcanstillseeablackpersonshands

gloves? (white, of course)

There really was no reason why the game couldn't have featured a character creator.

a character creator, for a FPS where you stop seeing your character when you start playing?

cyberpunk 2077

touché

 

[Trithne]

I'm playing it and it runs perfectly fine on my frankly oldish rig, so I don't know what the fuck all these "the Void Engine is shit just use Unreal hurr durr" and "Denuvo makes the game stutter" reviews are about. (Denuvo is still fucking retarded though)

Don't give a shit about the characters being black. I'll take a hundred games that are pastiches of 70s black cinema over games about modern hipsters.

AI is fucking atrocious though. Definitely the game's weakest point. It's supposed to dynamically ramp up I guess.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Jesus, look at all these perfect review scores
https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-5/deathloop

the only outlet I have any respect for out of all of these gave it a 7/10, the worst review it has on the PC metacritic version
https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/deathloop/critic-reviews
https://www.gamepressure.com/editorials/reviews/deathloop-review-is-times-on-arcanes-side/z1494

gamepressure has guides on a ton of games so they're ok in my book, can't make detailed guides if you don't play the game fully

 

[Silverfish]

how would you sell Deathloop?

"Buy me Deathloop or go to hell!"

 

[Shadowfang]

Was this game inspired by Hunt Showdown?

 

[karoliner]

That's what I was thinking, and just goes to show in what kind of bubble Western developers live in.

and large swathes of South America - which basically makes up 7 billion out of the 7.9 people living on the globe - do not like blacks,

Curb your racism bro, i love black people. I love all the colors of peoples.

 

[vibehunter]

Chinese, East Asians, Arabs and East euros are becoming slowly but steadily a large base of steam users and most of them do not like black protaganists.

That's what I was thinking, and just goes to show in what kind of bubble Western developers live in.

The whole of East Asia, India and the Middle East, and large swathes of South America - which basically makes up 7 billion out of the 7.9 people living on the globe - do not like blacks, do not like to be around them and do not like to see them in their entertainment (the somewhat infamous version of the Chinese the Force Awakens movie poster comes to mind). In one poorly thought-out move motivated solely by virtue signaling they've basically alienated a huge costumer base.

There really was no reason why the game couldn't have featured a character creator.

And all of this is ignoring the fact they've likely also alienated large parts of what should have been their main target demographic - white men - who are by and large the most loyal and most supportive costumers of Arkane and the kind of games they make.

We can all sit here and debate why Dishonored 2 and now Deathloop are stinkers, but I guarantee you one of the main reasons they sold poorly relative to budget and marketing is the fact the focus on the former was on an ugly dyke, and of the later on two moon crickets.

For whom was this game even made? A non-existent SJW crowd that plays immersive sims? If they had wanted to pander to those degenerates they should have just made a dating sim and called it a day.

Arguably, the choice of protagonist also signifies a deep identity crisis for the game. Besides the race of the protagonist, what makes it stand out? It seems to me that Deathloop is by far too weird for its own good, and the Arkane of today lacks the raw talent and laser focus of Ice Pick Lodge to make weird work. Trying to evoke 60s and 70s blaxploitation is also extremely bizarre, since their target demographic likely doesn't even know something like that exists, let alone has any sort of nostalgia for the genre.

Compare the marketing of Deathloop to that of Dishonored and Prey. Dishonored managed to easily convey the main focus of the game - supernatural assassin on a quest for revenge - and the same goes for Prey - immersive sim in the vein of System Shock 2 - but after watching a bunch of trailers for Deathloop it just came across as some cheap NuWolfenstein knockoff.

Well said. I have no idea who this game is supposed to be for.

 

[Butter]

Chinese, East Asians, Arabs and East euros are becoming slowly but steadily a large base of steam users and most of them do not like black protaganists.

That's what I was thinking, and just goes to show in what kind of bubble Western developers live in.

The whole of East Asia, India and the Middle East, and large swathes of South America - which basically makes up 7 billion out of the 7.9 people living on the globe - do not like blacks, do not like to be around them and do not like to see them in their entertainment (the somewhat infamous version of the Chinese the Force Awakens movie poster comes to mind). In one poorly thought-out move motivated solely by virtue signaling they've basically alienated a huge costumer base.

There really was no reason why the game couldn't have featured a character creator.

And all of this is ignoring the fact they've likely also alienated large parts of what should have been their main target demographic - white men - who are by and large the most loyal and most supportive costumers of Arkane and the kind of games they make.

We can all sit here and debate why Dishonored 2 and now Deathloop are stinkers, but I guarantee you one of the main reasons they sold poorly relative to budget and marketing is the fact the focus on the former was on an ugly dyke, and of the later on two moon crickets.

For whom was this game even made? A non-existent SJW crowd that plays immersive sims? If they had wanted to pander to those degenerates they should have just made a dating sim and called it a day.

Arguably, the choice of protagonist also signifies a deep identity crisis for the game. Besides the race of the protagonist, what makes it stand out? It seems to me that Deathloop is by far too weird for its own good, and the Arkane of today lacks the raw talent and laser focus of Ice Pick Lodge to make weird work. Trying to evoke 60s and 70s blaxploitation is also extremely bizarre, since their target demographic likely doesn't even know something like that exists, let alone has any sort of nostalgia for the genre.

Compare the marketing of Deathloop to that of Dishonored and Prey. Dishonored managed to easily convey the main focus of the game - supernatural assassin on a quest for revenge - and the same goes for Prey - immersive sim in the vein of System Shock 2 - but after watching a bunch of trailers for Deathloop it just came across as some cheap NuWolfenstein knockoff.

I definitely agree. I have no idea who this game is supposed to be for.

Dingus Baklava bought like 20 copies already.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

There really was no reason why the game couldn't have featured a character creator.

a character creator, for a FPS where you stop seeing your character when you start playing?

cyberpunk 2077

touché

The Outer Worlds, too. In fact it's even worse than Cyberpunk 2077 since you still see your character in cutscenes and in mirrors there, but in the Outer Worlds you only ever see your character's paper doll in the inventory.

I don't know what the fuck all these "the Void Engine is shit just use Unreal hurr durr" and "Denuvo makes the game stutter" reviews are about. (Denuvo is still fucking retarded though)

Usually feels like ingrained memory voodoo from when harsh DRM was fuckier. Game has an issue, game has Denuvo, people blame Denuvo. Similar to how a lot of complaints about Windows 10 feel like someone's got a fucked up machine and they want a target to vent frustrations. Denuvo IS retarded but when it's later removed from games I've never noticed appreciable performance changes so I always just guess it's massively out of date drivers or god only fucking knows what.

Will say Dishonored 2 had shit performance at launch but that's likely due to moving over to Void engine which Arkane hadn't yet had much (Or any) experience in. Dishonored 2 expansion and Prey were fine and Dishonored 2 was patched to a good state, and notably Prey also launched with Denuvo so it wasn't just Denuvo shitting up Dishonored 2 despite a lot of reviews claiming it was. Also would strongly point toward Deathloop getting Denuvo removed in a few months.

https://www.gamerevolution.com/feat...right-way-to-respond-to-pc-performance-issues
Even have an article talking about how Dishonored 2 was sitting at the 60-69 review bracket like Deathloop is currently, even though it's 87% now.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Is anyone actually playing this?

<3sRichardSimmons bought the game and pledged to post impressions soon.

Yes, haven’t had time yet as I’ve just had to spend all day working to correct the colossal fuck-ups of incompetent contractors, but hopefully I will get a chance to sit down with it later this evening.

 

[Lutte]

but after watching a bunch of trailers for Deathloop it just came across as some cheap NuWolfenstein knockoff.

The problem with Deathloop is that the gameplay, apart from the slight puzzle like nature of "find the order in which you need to kill people", seems to basically be "it's dishonored in chaos mode with more DAKKA DAKKA". Thing is, dishonored in chaos mode is mindless fun, and I've engaged in some.. after doing full stealth runs because they're the only thing that makes the game feel like a game and not a walk in the park simulator. Not that the stealth is hard, but it makes you think a little, take in the surroundings etc, it's not hard, but it's not nearly as mindless as the piss easy chaos runs.

If you sold Dishonored games as solely chaos run type games I would also consider them to be garbage tier games. Doing chaos runs feels like playing other video games with cheat codes on. It's something you do for a few mindless sessions of venting but you don't buy video games at full price for this sort of retarded experience.

 

[A horse of course]

There really was no reason why the game couldn't have featured a character creator.

a character creator, for a FPS where you stop seeing your character when you start playing?

cyberpunk 2077

touché

The Outer Worlds, too. In fact it's even worse than Cyberpunk 2077 since you still see your character in cutscenes and in mirrors there, but in the Outer Worlds you only ever see your character's paper doll in the inventory.

I don't know what the fuck all these "the Void Engine is shit just use Unreal hurr durr" and "Denuvo makes the game stutter" reviews are about. (Denuvo is still fucking retarded though)

Usually feels like ingrained memory voodoo from when harsh DRM was fuckier. Game has an issue, game has Denuvo, people blame Denuvo. Similar to how a lot of complaints about Windows 10 feel like someone's got a fucked up machine and they want a target to vent frustrations. Denuvo IS retarded but when it's later removed from games I've never noticed appreciable performance changes so I always just guess it's massively out of date drivers or god only fucking knows what.

Will say Dishonored 2 had shit performance at launch but that's likely due to moving over to Void engine which Arkane hadn't yet had much (Or any) experience in. Dishonored 2 expansion and Prey were fine and Dishonored 2 was patched to a good state, and notably Prey also launched with Denuvo so it wasn't just Denuvo shitting up Dishonored 2 despite a lot of reviews claiming it was. Also would strongly point toward Deathloop getting Denuvo removed in a few months.

https://www.gamerevolution.com/feat...right-way-to-respond-to-pc-performance-issues
Even have an article talking about how Dishonored 2 was sitting at the 60-69 review bracket like Deathloop is currently, even though it's 87% now.

Resident Evil Village was proven to suffer serious stutter, hitching and FPS drops as a direct result of how Crapcom's DRM services interact with Denuvo. Bethesda may well have done somthing similar.

 

[Zeriel]

There really was no reason why the game couldn't have featured a character creator.

a character creator, for a FPS where you stop seeing your character when you start playing?

cyberpunk 2077

touché

The Outer Worlds, too. In fact it's even worse than Cyberpunk 2077 since you still see your character in cutscenes and in mirrors there, but in the Outer Worlds you only ever see your character's paper doll in the inventory.

I don't know what the fuck all these "the Void Engine is shit just use Unreal hurr durr" and "Denuvo makes the game stutter" reviews are about. (Denuvo is still fucking retarded though)

Usually feels like ingrained memory voodoo from when harsh DRM was fuckier. Game has an issue, game has Denuvo, people blame Denuvo. Similar to how a lot of complaints about Windows 10 feel like someone's got a fucked up machine and they want a target to vent frustrations. Denuvo IS retarded but when it's later removed from games I've never noticed appreciable performance changes so I always just guess it's massively out of date drivers or god only fucking knows what.

Will say Dishonored 2 had shit performance at launch but that's likely due to moving over to Void engine which Arkane hadn't yet had much (Or any) experience in. Dishonored 2 expansion and Prey were fine and Dishonored 2 was patched to a good state, and notably Prey also launched with Denuvo so it wasn't just Denuvo shitting up Dishonored 2 despite a lot of reviews claiming it was. Also would strongly point toward Deathloop getting Denuvo removed in a few months.

https://www.gamerevolution.com/feat...right-way-to-respond-to-pc-performance-issues
Even have an article talking about how Dishonored 2 was sitting at the 60-69 review bracket like Deathloop is currently, even though it's 87% now.

Denuvo performance hit is not a meme, it is integral to how it works and has been proven by comparing certain builds of games that had Denuvo ripped out versus with it on. Now it's true that really bad/lazy implementations of Denuvo (this was a thing with a certain indie game that used it) have horrifically bad performance compared to AAA implementations, but even the AAA ones are a needless hit to performance that people just assume is part of the game's native requirements.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

We know it causes slowdowns(especially with regards to loading times) because quite a few games have released official non-denuvo binaries now that can be used to test them again the denuvo version. It's not even something debatable anymore.

 

[VonMiskov]

The game runs fine on my ancient rig at least as far as I could go due to the f***ing CTD that destroys progress and makes the game unplayable. But PC rig is not equal to other PC rig.
Also I hate the voice acting with the female lead being loud mouth bitch and main character sounding like an idiot.

And the only worse thing in Dishonored 2 from 1 was changing the Outsider from Eldritch Whale God to a teenager infused with boredom...

 

[Riddler]

Chinese, East Asians, Arabs and East euros are becoming slowly but steadily a large base of steam users and most of them do not like black protaganists.

That's what I was thinking, and just goes to show in what kind of bubble Western developers live in.

The whole of East Asia, India and the Middle East, and large swathes of South America - which basically makes up 7 billion out of the 7.9 people living on the globe - do not like blacks, do not like to be around them and do not like to see them in their entertainment (the somewhat infamous version of the Chinese the Force Awakens movie poster comes to mind). In one poorly thought-out move motivated solely by virtue signaling they've basically alienated a huge costumer base.

There really was no reason why the game couldn't have featured a character creator.

And all of this is ignoring the fact they've likely also alienated large parts of what should have been their main target demographic - white men - who are by and large the most loyal and most supportive costumers of Arkane and the kind of games they make.

We can all sit here and debate why Dishonored 2 and now Deathloop are stinkers, but I guarantee you one of the main reasons they sold poorly relative to budget and marketing is the fact the focus on the former was on an ugly dyke, and of the later on two moon crickets.

For whom was this game even made? A non-existent SJW crowd that plays immersive sims? If they had wanted to pander to those degenerates they should have just made a dating sim and called it a day.

Arguably, the choice of protagonist also signifies a deep identity crisis for the game. Besides the race of the protagonist, what makes it stand out? It seems to me that Deathloop is by far too weird for its own good, and the Arkane of today lacks the raw talent and laser focus of Ice Pick Lodge to make weird work. Trying to evoke 60s and 70s blaxploitation is also extremely bizarre, since their target demographic likely doesn't even know something like that exists, let alone has any sort of nostalgia for the genre.

Compare the marketing of Deathloop to that of Dishonored and Prey. Dishonored managed to easily convey the main focus of the game - supernatural assassin on a quest for revenge - and the same goes for Prey - immersive sim in the vein of System Shock 2 - but after watching a bunch of trailers for Deathloop it just came across as some cheap NuWolfenstein knockoff.

Non-western people may or may not like black people in their entertainment but the fact is that Prey featured a good looking east Asian MC and it still kind of bombed.

I still think that the primary issue here is that they failed market their game (and possibly that their core gameplay idea just isn't very compelling). I'm just not very interested in the core concept and I don't feel like there has been much of an effort to win me over.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Alright, I found a couple hours tonight to play. I've only just finished the second main mission, which is basically the end of the tutorial, so consider these first impressions very subject to change.

So first things first, let's address the elephant in the room: this game is not an immsim. At all. It's frankly so completely not an immsim that anyone describing it as such should be pointed at and laughed at in a most public manner. It's a... FPS with open-world, stealth, and roguelite elements (wonder why the marketing team struggled to convey that?). If you're looking for an immsim, don't buy Deathloop.

That said, it still feels like a distinctly Arkane game. For better and worse, it has a lot of Mooncrash DNA in it -to the extent that I would just say straight-up don't buy it if you didn't like Mooncrash.

The Good:

+Gunfeel is the best to be found in an Arkane game, and a massive improvement over Prey. That isn't to say that it's top-tier, but it's much much better than what Arkane has offered previously

+Soundtrack

+ Day/night system is fairly simple, but seems to be actually meaningful. It feels very rewarding when you've found enough intel to nail down a target's schedule and know that they like to take solitary walks on the beach at dawn, but are surrounded by bodyguards during the day and completely inaccessible at night.

+Focus on information and knowledge as a means of roguelite progression. This was something Mooncrash toyed with that I loved, but Deathloop seems to be embracing it fully.

+Freeform exploration feels fun and rewarding. Some decent puzzles, and almost every optional corridor and "quest" has a nice piece of loot or info at the end of it.

The Meh:

)Level Design. It's certainly better than most AAA titles, but I expect Arkane to blow my mind, and from I've seen so far this is their weakest effort.

)Graphics look quite good, but Art/Environment Direction is pretty bland and samey. Hopefully that corrects.

)Plot is a nothingburger

The Bad:

- The tone of the dialogue is so far a giant miss for me. The game as a whole is attempting a much more comedic vibe than any of Arkane's previous title and thus far the writers are really not up to the task. VA is not helping.

- Wow this game is super fucking easy. As some of you know I ragged on D2, Prey, and Mooncrash a lot for this, so I can't say I was expecting Deathloop to make an about-face on it, but I was hoping that the doubling-down on roguelite mechanics might encourage the devs to do so. At least so far, it didn't. I haven't died outside of scripted sequences, which is a big problem for a game with prominent roguelite systems.

-Enemy AI and Variety leaves much to be desired thus far. Again, I'm early in so hopefully that changes.

That's basically my first impressions. Will check back in periodically to update.

 

[|NOVVAK|]

Played for less than two hours and returned it. Played like and average shooter or a poor stealth game (and not challenging; didn't die once even when I was just learning controls and game mechanics). The setting didn't draw me in in any way so I had no desire to explore it, know the story, listen do dialogue etc (and I have about 20 hours in each Dishonored and about 50 hours in Prey).

 

[Danikas]

Any moment now.

The game was designed by a nigger too, Dinga Bakaba.

What nigger? That's a native frenchman descendant of Charles Martel.

Btw. you cant even write n**ger on codex anymore it gets autocorrected to African-American...

 

[Atlantico]

What African American? That's a native frenchman descendant of Charles Martel.

IKR. IF he was any more French, he'd piss garlic.

Btw. you cant even write n**ger on codex anymore it gets autocorrected to African-American...

Not even the Codex is spared from the decline

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Btw. you cant even write nigger on codex anymore it gets autocorrected to African-American...

this is so sad. words have very specific uses and meanings, if i want to use a word i mean to use its specific use and meaning.