Wait, Didn't Arkane Already Make Deathloop?

Okay, so Redfall was a bust. But in 2023, Nintendo made the most ambitious immersive sim yet in Tears of the Kingdom. Here's how they designed the game's amazing Ultrahand - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvOqTunOQB8

To be honest, I can't help but feel that Deathloop was just afraid to challenge the player, and that most decisions were made because the developers were just worried most people would find this too hard. And while Mooncrash is indeed great, the truth is that (as far as I know) most players just found it too complex, and while it isn't necessarily an issue for a small DLC, it's another story for a AAA game.

I had thought that Deathloop could really do with a Dishonored-esque chaos system, but instead of based on how much killing you do, it's based on how much infused gear you bring into a loop. So if you bring a full arsenal of super powered guns and chunky powers, the world has basically gone to shit.

LOL at the redfall mention. Turned out to be something else entirely

20:25 this is EXACTLY what bothered me the most about Deathloop. I did the same thing: started planning in my head how I was gonna do all the kills in one day, feeling all clever and proud of myself—and then they just flat-out told me the answer. Deflating.

That bit at the end about Redfall is kinda depressing in retrospect.

My biggest gripe with deathloop was how it resolves its perfect loop in only one way. I don’t feel creative or that I had achieved the best way through, it just happens once you grind through some annoyingly repetitive visits to a power station. I’d like that Groundhog Day feeling of knowing the loop well enough to be able to think through and design my own perfect loop instead of it being impossible unless you do it the way the game wants.

Only watched the first few minutes, but I just need to talk about how good the editing and animations are! And that shot with the projector!!! Genius :D

Deathloop desperately needs a "Prepare to Dieloop" difficulty mode. They really could add these restrictions, randomzed item and enemy placements and pressure to an alternate mode.

I feel like Deathloop was fun up until I "Optimised the fun out of it" upon infusing the silenced SMG. Every encounter was now done with maximum unbroken stealth, one-tap headshotting every identical enemy the same way and only using other weapons or powers just to shake things up a bit. Really seems like they should have had harsher limits on what you can keep or use!

I've been playing a lot of Sifu since it's release. and one thing I really like about it, is while you can permanently unlock skills. They don't really make you stronger, so much as more versatile. Even when you have access to everything you still hit and get hit just as hard as before. Just now with skills that can mix up your fights and give you more control of the situation. It remains entirely skills based.

The thing I found to be a glaring omission in Deathloop is over in Hitman... the map starts in the same state but it's a complex system where lots of things are going on, each of which is usually quite simple, but they connect to other things. As soon as you interact with it, things start changing because you've introduced a change that can ripple outward through the map, and into other parts of that loop in a more organic fashion. If you kill person X and minute Y, their absence changes event Z.

Almost nothing impacts anything beyond their immediate surroundings without being specifically scripted to do so, mostly as part of the scripted single route that results in breaking the loop. The game could have been improved signifanctly by just introducing more sets of action-chains that could be put together to achieve the end in different ways and, of course, dead ends as some things that /could/ help you get to the end don't work together, so you don't have the game just telling you precisely what to do once you've found a thing.

Oh dear, that ending....poor Arkane, lol

I think that not enough attention is paid to the fact that Deathloop and Prey are made by entirely different teams of developers separated by 1000's of miles, a language barrier, and an Atlantic Ocean. We have a better look at how different two teams can be while sharing a company title than how well the half of Arkane that made Prey learns from itself between games.

What i love is that Arkane is willing to take risks with their games.

Deathloop (as far as i know) didnt go over as well as many expected. And while I'm sure thats a bit of a kick in the nads for the devs who worked on it, Id rather them take risks and have a few flops, instead of follow the same repetitive system just because it sells.

I myself wasnt a big fan of Moon Crash but i absolutely adore Prey as a whole. I don't think ive played any other immersive sim nearly as many times and with as many different playstyles.

personally i find time pressure mechanics work best when they're positive feedback only. give the player a positive incentive to be quick, (like an optional perk for completing in under a certain amount of time or before a specific thing happens) rather than a penalty/punishment for being slow (difficulty spikes when i'm already struggling/confused/lost, or 'times up you died'). much less likely to suck the fun out of the game.

The main "problem" with Deathloop was that it took some of the most interesting elements of a niche hardcore genre (roguelites) and adapted them for a more casual AAA audience. For the average AAA gamer (as seen in many of the comments) it was an original take for a FPS. For fans of the genres Deathloop borrows from, however, it felt watered down.

I personally agree with many of Mark's comments but I also understand this game had to appeal to the more casual players. There are a few things I would've changed, though:
- I would've allowed you to keep power slabs and trinkets between loops, but not weapons. Early in the game I killed Julianna and got a super upgraded silenced SMG which I used for the rest of the game because it was super OP. If you reset weapons each loop, you'd still get a progression system with the powers and trinkets but you'd also push players to experiment with their weapon builds.
- I would've had Julianna (the NPC, not invading players) fill the levels with extra obstacles (perhaps randomly, as they did with Mooncrash) as you advance in your investigation. This would increase the difficulty a little bit in the late game, making that final loop a lot more interesting.
- I would've added at least a couple of alternative ways of doing the final loop and not spelled out exactly how to do it. Keep the UI that shows you everything you've learned, but let players put the final pieces together themselves, make them feel clever.
- I would've changed the ending(s). This wasn't covered in the video but Deathloop has the most anticlimactic ending I've seen in years

7:48 the other danger with this sort of progression is creating a feeling that it's not actually possible to complete a run until you've progressed enough in that meta progression, and that kills a lot of the excitement of this sort of game and turns it into a grind for numbers

As much as the rogue-like elements could add interesting things to the game, I feel like the mood they're trying to accomplish for Deathloop doesn't mix well with those. It felt like Arkane was going for the sensation of gaining mastery through repetition and memory. The one-up the main character has over most of his opponents is he remembers loops, making the in-game character have powers like the player in similar games - it's like justifying the main character learning how to do ridiculous kills in Hitman when there's no way he could have known that certain stuff would happen. Dramatic changes clash with the feel and story elements Arkane was setting up.

I feel like Outer Wilds did the whole time loop thing almost perfectly.