Deathloop: PS5 Review

Developed by Arkane Studios

Published by Bethesda Software

Platform: PS5

Arkane Studios' latest is a dense affair that takes in time loops, duelling protagonists, stealth, outright attacking and the ability to kick endless goons off the top of cliffs to their deaths.

In other words, it's a real mixed bag of various gameplays - and it's an utter blast.

You're Colt, who as the game begins, finds himself being murdered. Within seconds of the death taking effect, you're back on a beach stumbling around, wondering how exactly you're still alive.

Then the taunting begins. From a disembodied voice called Julianna, who mocks you, goads you, scoffs at you, and generally picks holes in any strategy in you decide to take. 

Stumbling across the land you discover is called Blackreef, various clues begin to present themselves and you can start to guide Colt toward his destiny - to kill those eight visionaries in charge of the loop and to stop time from repeating.

But Colt's nemesis, Julianna, is on his tail and will stop at nothing to make sure he doesn't achieve his goal.

Every single death in Deathloop is generally caused by the player, but the game has a devious way of inveigling itself into your psyche, that makes you think you can get away with anything and inevitably sees you being killed with ease.

Divided as it is across 4 time zones, the Live, Die, Repeat ethos of Deathloop and its perpetual day makes for a compelling onion of a game. It's one that reveals its secrets carefully and judiciously, ensuring that once your three deaths per loop are done, you've got more than enough drive and thrust to get back into the game, and to scratch the addiction that's nagging away at you.

Gameplay is relatively simple, and on a par with what you'd expect from previous first person games from Arkane - there are elements of the stealth from Dishonored and Prey, but there's also the outright cannoning it from the likes of Doom too, where you foolishly think that you can easily beat the baddies. 

It helps that enemy AI is truly appalling - somehow despite firing at you, they never seem to directly hit and you can easily off them with your machete or some well-aimed headshots. (There's also the aforementioned kicking them which eventually kills them too.)

Meticulous planning in Deathloop is also a sensible way of playing the game too. With static zones giving you plenty of option to explore and plot, there's a real need for early gameplaying to double as reconnaissance more than anything. The game's gradual reveal of clues and Blackreef's secrets make all the difference to planning, but each time you play, there's still the uncertainty of what could go wrong - 

it makes the writers' riff on AAA games always being the same somewhat thrilling and amusingly meta.

Graphically the game is more cartoony than serious, and while the locations look nicely executed, the game's strong point is really the interactions between two African-American leads, a first for the major AAA players. 

Whether it's cheeky or snarky observations, Colt and Julianna's push and pull relationship - exacerbated by the chance to play as either character - makes the game soar.

Deathloop may be a repetitive game by narrative necessity, but playing the same thing time and again, with variations on a theme, never becomes boring in the slightest - instead, it's thrilling, fun and utterly addictive.