With an open approach to eliminating eight elusive targets and a lot of '60s style for both visuals and music, Deathloop aims at being one thing above all: Smart.

After the Dishonored series and Prey, Deathloop is Arkane’s next ambitious title, a stealth-FPS set in the 1960s. Death Loop seems to have a lot in common with what came before it but also looks to be bringing in a lot of fresh ideas and mechanics to an oversaturated genre.

Wait, so is Deathloop like Dishonored, Roguelike?

Well, Colt, Deathloop is about a former soldier named Colt. Now a hit-man, he has to relive the same never-ending day on an island where time is stuck in a loop. The only way to end said loop/torment on the Isle of Blackreef is for Colt to assassinate his eight elusive targets called ‘the visionaries’. If midnight strikes without him having accomplished his goal; or he just up and dies, the day resets and you get to try again. As you get to know the completely open environment of Blackreef during your tries you'll discover new places, relationships between events around the island and other permanent advancement that help you finally break the loop.

Deathloop Gameplay Loop (pun intended)

There is now quite a bit of in-game footage available for us. The nine-minute gameplay walkthrough from Sony's State of play for example showed Deathloop having the extremely tight and over the top FPS running and gunning gameplay we know from Arkane for Dishonored and, albeit less so, Prey.

In line with his predecessors Colt has an extensive arsenal available, and will need to use everything in it to hunt down his eight targets across the four regions of Blackreef.

We have seen how one of those hits could take place: Colt assassinating Alexis "The Wolf" Dorsey during a party. And there is a large emphasis on “could” as supposedly, due to the fluidity of the world, this could play out vastly differently for your run.

Especially since we have gotten to see glimpses of the relationship between Colt and his rival Julianna, who tries to hinder the player at every opportunity. The mix of antagonism and playful banter, suggests a history between the two.

It also showed three of Colt's powers in action.

Karnesis: Which lets you throw enemies around like ragdolls, hurling them through windows and off cliffs.
Shift: That teleports you a short distance. Can be used to cross gaps, scale buildings, and get close to enemies quickly.
Nexus: With which you can connect enemies so they can be killed or knocked out simultaneously.

Then came the second gameplay trailer which dug a bit deeper into how Colt can solve the time loop. You see, each of the ‘visionaries’ has their own schedules within the 24-hour day as well as their own personality that influences their behaviour. Some of them can only be tracked down in certain times or places and thus part of the solution to breaking the loop and completing the game comes down to learning everything you can about the island itself.

"You can tackle any area of Blackreef at any time as you pick up clues and learn more about your targets," Bethesda said. "The districts are open, like what you might remember from Dishonored, but unlike Dishonored they aren’t tied to levels and can be openly explored whenever you want."

So each of the four districts, similar to your targets, has its own schedule of events that play out during the day, a sort of story of their own, whether you're there to observe it or not. Part of the deal is to learn what parts of that you can influence in order to draw out your targets in the most optimal order to leave yourself time for other things.

To make that even more of a challenge than it already sounds like, the third gameplay trailer, on top of introducing another of the targets, the visionary Ramblin' Frank, gave us another quick look at the ability of Colt's rival Julianna. She has the ability to transform into other NPCs, changing their behaviour and making accurate observation of events even more relevant.

But let's be honest, the real catch from that gameplay trailer was the Bond-style movie theme song released just for Deathloop.

To Sum Up

All this gameplay, paired with the very roguelike and unusual (for Arkane that is) absence of a quicksave function turn Deathloop into an absolute monster of a stylish sandbox experience in which exploration, observation, planning and thinking out of the box are rewarded heavily.

“So I'm hyped, when is the Deathloop Release Date?”

Deathloop will launch on September 14, 2021, for PC via Steam and the Bethesda store, and also PS5.

And you can pre-order it right here on Voidu!

Cheers and see you on the island!