I'll write more tomorrow, and also a review for another thing, but I can feel my brain getting less creative by the keypress

together, with many of the the gameplay systems revolving around the titular "DEATHLOOP". This is what makes the game memorable and special to me, replaying levels isnt uncommon in video games, but it scratches an itch to have it be plot relevant and explainable. 11/?

I haven't even talked about the timeloop itself, which is what hooked me into the game. A singular island, locked in a 24 hour timeloop, of which only 2 (but actually 4) characters realise is looping, the rest believing every day is the first of many in the loop. This ties the plot and gameplay-10/?

This aesthetic carried over to the menus and UI, level design, and of course the soundtrack, which I'd say is worth a listen to on its own to truly feel out the vibes presented. The floating text representing the protag, Colt's, memories adds much to levels, and a deeper read into the world/him 9/?

But back to the rest of the game, standard for Arkane games, voice acting, style, and creativity are positively oozing throughout the work. The distinct anachronistic (hah!) 60s retrofuturist sci fi is yet another flavour added to Arkanes varied selection, and is one of its strongest feats. 8/?

So by the last hours of the game, I had 2 dozen weapons, all great quality and useful, that I just wasnt using because I had only 2 that I 'needed'. the same applies to personal and weapon upgrades. If it was harsher, infusing less, or maybe having infusion 'run out' it'd raise the stakes a bit. 7/?

My personal hot take is that the infusion system needed to be dialed back a bit, throughout a 'loop' you gather plenty residuum, and items that can also be broken for more, so much so that you can easily take any of the (few) useful upgrades and have them FOREVER, I'd often infuse 4/5 at a time. 6/?

My experience was skewed by accidently stumbling upon a silenced LIMP-10, and having it be the first item I 'Infused' (the system to carry items between loops), this trivialized most stealth encounters, and without my realising kneecapped a lot of potential difficulty. 5/?

And whilst I would love to say this was a result ludonarrative harmony where being trapped in a timeloop was rapidly improving my skills and sneaking and shooting, in truth the AI is barely cognisant, and the player's item hoard scales in size and strength way too fast 4/?

I will say it was far easier than any other Arkane game, and didn't have much in teh way of difficulty options beyond enabling/disabling the "interesting" multiplayer invasion function. Even the 'loop stress' function that supposedly raises it was barely noticeable. 3/?

I didn't hear many positives about it, and similarly to PREY, it went under the radar a bit. I played after all the updates, so my views are of course influenced by that, but after playing it now I can say I definitely should have played it earlier. 2/?