I'll buy it when they remove Denuvo.
I am enjoying this game, I think it's a potential all time classic from Arkane, but I'm getting some very frustrating crashes at key moments. Last night, I had wiped out all of the Eternalists in Updaam, and was in the middle of fighting the Boss (Charlie), when the game suddenly crashed and I lost all progress on the level. This is a particularly awful game for losing progress, since you can't save at all in the middle of a level. Anyone else have/having issues like that?
I had crashes regularly in Updaam Night, I fixed them by disabling NVidia Reflex in the options menu. Maybe this will fix yours?
Have people been playing this with leads turned on or off? I just made it through the tutorial and now I’m set free, but the game does want to funnel me in particular directions. I’m wondering if it’d be more rewarding to just disable leads and explore on my own or if that would end up being too tedious.
I've been playing it with leads turned on, but after the relatively long intro I never felt railroaded. For me, the leads were more like an in-game repository of notes. It does have that thing where the character might pick up on things that the player might miss (which cannot really be avoided, I think), so if that bothers you, it may be best to try without leads, but I thought there was plenty of freedom, on various levels, when I played with them.
I had them on for the Wenjie mission, and it did create a specific marker for each Wenjie that I could see at all times. I died, on the second try I turned the leads off, and I think it did make it more exciting since I had to figure out where each one was on my own. I think for now I'll leave them off but turn them on if I get stuck or bored.
It took about 25 hours, but Deathloop is finally getting its claws in me, and it might be my new favourite Arkane game.
It happened around the time I was first invaded by a real person. The maps are big enough that if your invader doesn't immediately kill you at the entrance, you can get into a real game of hide and seek, chasing each other across rooftops, backtracking through passageways so that eventually you might even end up behind your opponent and kill them by surprise. Invasions clued me in to how impressive the level design is and how distinctly useful each power and weapon is. I see the predictable AI as more of an obstacle to completing your objectives than as a simulation of a human opponent. So yes, the AI is dumb, but its placement turns every traversal into a series of careful decisions, especially when Julianna's around. And best of all, when you mess up, it's a chance to try a different tactic rather than reload. I mess up often, so I'm getting lots of opportunity to try different playstyles whereas I'd normally just sneak, die, reload.
Initially I was disappointed that the time loop structure didn't allow for the sort of creative puzzle-solving of a game like Outer Wilds, where you have to be in the exact right place at the exact right time. But in Deathloop the purpose of the loop is to remove the omnipresent fear of consequences typical of immersive sims. I always wanted to play Dishonored as a murderer, but the game made me feel bad when I did, and I wasn't a big enough fan to try multiple playthroughs with different styles. Deathloop cleverly forces players to learn its maps the way a speedrunner or die-hard fan would, turning experimentation into the core gameplay in a way that Dishonored didn't. So when I think of Deathloop as actually having a relatively linear campaign that's designed to give the player more freedom moment to moment, it makes a lot more sense. Arkane seems to have been aware of the problem, and their solution is ingenious.
Finally, and more subjectively, I love the feeling of movement, especially mantling; I love the crack and thump of the weapons, the guitar-feedback sound when an Eternalist dies ([dies] in the captions), and the haptic feedback of the PS5 controller -- a subtle but memorable example is the little thunk when you flick a numerical dial. It feels good to play, and I'm a little addicted to it right now. If you're reading this, Digi, well done!
TBH, both this, and the announced Redfall game underwhelm me. I'm afraid Arkane Studios is becoming more and more a studio I don't look forward to seeing more games from. Huge Dishonored and Prey fan, and I really enjoyed Arx Fatalis as well. Their new stuff, no no for me. Shame, because, especially Dishonored was pretty much perfect.
The fate of all studios having to apply to the mass market, I guess. And, yes, I know that Arkane Studios' games don't really fall into the AAA category, but, Deathloop and Redfall definitely fall in the scheme of nowadays crazy, brightly coloured weird games the audience obviously wants to play these days. Just not my style.
Sure, Deathloop is an appeal to the mass market...
I'm not particularly interested in Redfall at this point, though I've also not informed myself particularly at this stage. I didn't know what to expect of Deathloop, but I greatly enjoyed playing it, not least because it clearly carries the DNA of Dishonored. At the same time the game pushed me out of my comfort zone to try out things that I never even touched in Dishonored. It's perfectly okay not to be interested in this game or any other, but IMO it's a game that should be enjoyed by most fans of the Dishonored games.
Can you read?Originally Posted by Thirith
Sure, Deathloop is an appeal to the mass market...
So you’d rather they make games that people don’t want to play? Okay, Deathloop isn’t as po-faced as Dishonored, but it’s hardly selling out. It feels more like a pet project by passionate developers.
?
That reads very much like you just claimed exactly what Thirith said you claimed. E.g. "the audience obviously wants".
No. I want them to make games they want to make, not games they have to make, because the publisher wants to secure its investment. I know, hopelessly naive these days
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I also wrote that they don't fall into the usual AAA scheme. Their games ARE niche. It's just that they slowly become less and less niche. Never thought they'd do a shooter, for example. And, I never thought their games get so blinky blinky coloured "weee", like so many games these days.
Anyway. I don't even think that's worth a discussion. Of course they're orientated on today's market, even if their games are niche. Which makes them less and less interesting to me, that's all. E.g., I'm playing Dark Messiah of Might and Magic at the moment. That thing fkn rocks. Best game I played in the last few years. Deathloop and Redfall create a huge yawn in comparison. Just like so many games in the last 10 or 12 years. The market simply has changed. A lot.
You want them to make the games they want to make, but you can't acknowledge that Deathloop may be exactly that. Do you have any reason to think that Arkane didn't make Deathloop because they wanted to? If you think that Deathloop was created due to publisher mandate, you have to make more of an effort than just saying it's a shooter (which isn't even a particularly convincing point - the moment-to-moment gameplay is quite similar to Dishonored and you can play long stretches without firing a single shot) and it's colourful. What you seem to be saying isn't "I want them to make games they want to make" but "I want them to make games I want them to make".
From a bird's eye view, it's following a well-known track. The first instance of a concept is lightening in a bottle. Then further instances of it dial down the magic and story and dial up the gameplay and visuals, and a common thing you hear is "the first was more magical, the levels catered to the story and world better, and it was technically lower, but better aesthetics and art direction. But the second had the better gameplay, the levels catered to the gameplay better, and it was technically better but less inspired aesthetics and art direction." It's such a well-trod trope that I think there must be a name for it.
Anyway that, more or less, could be Deathloop compared to the Dishonoreds and Prey (And then DH2 compared to DH1. And the sequence of Thief 1, 2, 3 & I guess 4 on the gutter end). It's been my basic impression for Deathloop for the first few hours... Granting that I still really like the characters and gameplay so far. But it's not the kind of world like what really captured me in DH1 and Prey.
One thing that immediately pops out to me with Deathloop though is the blurring between the diegetic & non-diegetic... It's not big UI and bling, but having the game talk to you literally in the world, and try to handwave that it's in your head, eh, that's a sure magic killer no matter what else they're doing. And the gameplay loop itself is basically the in the same vein as that. It practically makes the thing a puzzle game, not a real environment I'm "in" and "really exploring" anymore, which is kind of the whole schtick immersive sims are supposed to, um, stick to... And that's even granting that every game has to do some amount of handwaving like that, but it's the spirit of the thing that you can sense anyway.
I don't blame Arkane for all the reasons y'all are already talking about. It's all a signal that it's not the game I would have signed up for, but I still like it a lot. Incidentally I've been playing the Dark Mod winter contest FMs this week too, and they're very much in that old style of level design, which is really validating that feeling I have about that style and making modern level design really stick out by the comparison. But this is already an ancient debate now. It almost feels extravagant still bringing it up anymore.
All someone has to do is listen to a few youtube interviews with Digi to see that this is definitely a game Arkane wanted to make, not one that they were forced to make. It's easy to just watch the trailer and blow the game off as fluff, but there's much more to it than that. Maybe it's not the "spiritual successor" to that favorite game you love that LGS made, but it's still worth your time.
The more incidental text and details I uncovered and optional sidequests I completed, the richer and more immersive the world felt. The problem is that they kinda blew off the ending, setting it up as a commentary that ultimately didn't comment on anything and a story that never explained the why or the how. The way that Colt and Julianna kinda talk over and around each other was cute and funny for a while, but I was hoping that their relationship would develop to the point that they could have an actual dialogue, and while it was hinted at, it never happened. And that kind of sums up Deathloop's approach to storytelling in general. For example, the visionaries are interesting characters who don't end up getting enough screen time to elevate them above their archetypes. I would've loved more sections that delve into their backstories or maybe even let you interact with them in a nonhostile way.
I don't want to be too critical because it's still a remarkable game and I imagine many of the shortcomings are attributable to the weird pressures of a pandemic. I don't know if DLC is likely, but if it was and if it helped flesh out the backstory and give its characters some purpose, I'd be all for it.
Ok, then I have to take that, and accept that they're obviously not doing games I want to play anymore.
Still wondering though how people cannot see that Deathloop is very different to their other games.
Aesthetically, yeah. Gameplaywise, naah.
As it happens a new GMTK vid just came out about how similar Deathloop is to one of their past games! And how it differs.
Well... they only just begun with that rogue like (or whatever it's called) gameplay with the Mooncrash add-on for Prey, so. Just an example. They never did a shooter before either, IIRC.
Of course, for the peeps today, it's all the same. Tomb Raider is still the same as in 1996 too. And, the Splinter Cell's are still hardcore stealth as well. Right?
Anyway. I wish then the best of luck with what they're doing. Maybe, one day, there is a slight chance they do something genius like Dark Messiah, Dishonored, or Prey again. Maybe even a Arx Fatalis too.Although that, as many genius games, was a commercial failure.
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Last edited by chk772; 13th Feb 2022 at 07:19.
Having watched the GMTK video - he described exactly what happened when I played it. I enjoyed it and got into it in a way that I struggle to these days with any game, but by the time I'd accumulated all the clues and the whole solution was laid out, I completely lost interest in finishing the game and still haven't. My son was disappointed with it for a similar reason although he finished it - for him it didn't have any replay value.
For me the repetition in the main game gave me no particular desire to do everything again at the end. This was despite it being generally fun otherwise.
Other than Dishonored 2, which of their games was like their other games? Dark Messiah was nothing like Arx. Dishonored was nothing like those two. Prey was nothing like Dishonored/Arx/DM. IMO Deathloop is more like previous Arkane games (particularly Dishonored) than any other game they've made.
Wasn't exactly sure where to put this, it covers so many topics and games, but here's a podcast I ran into that interviews TTLG's own Digi, aka Dana Nightingale. Great listen, she talks about how she got into the industry, early roots here, TTLG is mentioned, Thief is mentioned, and then all the relevant games are covered that she's worked on, all the way up to Deathloop.
I thought it was quite cool too that she states that a mansion she designed in Deathloop was "designed as a Thief map, like I always do."
(We even get Infra and Outer Wilds mentions near the end).
Dana and the rest of the folks at Arkane are amazing and it makes me so happy that they're still chugging away making the only types of games that really excite me still.
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