Wait, Didn't Arkane Already Make Deathloop?

I got a strange sense of déjà vu playing Deathloop, and not just because the game features a time loop. In this video, I share my personal experience with the game, in a design-focused game review.

=== Before you watch ===

Content warning: Scenes of a violent nature

Spoiler warning: I talk about the main campaigns of Deathloop and Prey: Mooncrash, but don’t give away any story spoilers.

=== Sources and Resources ===

- Sources

[1] Mooncrash: Resetting the Immersive Simulation | GDC Vault (Free Access)

[2] Spelunky | Boss Fight Books

=== Chapters ===

00:00 - Intro
02:42 - Part 1: Roll of the Dice
06:39 - Part 2: Power Creep
11:04 - Part 3: Under Pressure
13:38 - Part 4: Split Personality
16:37 - Part 5: Playing with Yourself
19:33 - Part 6: Ending It
21:08 - Part 7: Déjà Vu
25:03 - Credits

=== Games Shown ===

Deathloop (2021)
Prey: Mooncrash (2018)
Immortals Fenyx Rising (2020)
Bowser's Fury (2021)
Darkest Dungeon (2016)
Risk of Rain (2013)
Dead Cells (2018)
Enter the Gungeon (2016)
Hades (2020)
Prey (2017)
Hitman 2 (2018)
Demon's Souls (2020)
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (2014)
Rogue Legacy (2013)
Spelunky (2012)
The Swindle (2015)
FTL: Faster Than Light (2012)
Don't Starve (2013)
Returnal (2021)
XCOM 2 (2016)
Dishonored 2 (2016)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011)
Dishonored: Death of the Outsider (2017)
Dishonored (2012)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)

=== Credits ===

Music from Prey: Mooncrash OST, by Mick Gordon et al

Music from Deathloop OST, by Tom Salta

=== Subtitles ===

[nikhilgotmail]

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

[elliottbarker]

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.

[thejfreak]

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

[grandfire]

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.

[kyllerunderworld]

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.

[Matthimeo]

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.

[Alix]

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!

[jesustyronechrist]

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.

[Shaathurray]

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.

[Danimita]

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

[Daemonworks]

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.

[HunterDrone]

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.

[sprouting_lady]

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

[dokvald]

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.

[germ]

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.

[applesthehero]

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

[Cuiasodo]

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.

[Speculaas]

SkillUp shares your viewpoint.
Deathloop's loop system is more simplistic where Prey's Mooncrash has much broader design ideas executed.

[aaronwilder]

I mean in defense of Deathloop, by the way you describe it, it sounds like it actually does justice to the time loop idea. I mean in a true time loop no changes would occur, the same things would happen at the same times over and over again. Now in something like Moon Crash, you can get away with changes in the '"loop" as it's a simulation so things change to gauge the response and decisions of the participant.

[wmdtone]

Nice to see mooncrash get some love. What a great game. While your points are valid about the game design and difficulty, I suspect deathloop diverged from mooncrash for two reasons: One, mooncrash is too complex for casual audiences and didn't really have the wide appeal they needed to move units and, two, many players enjoy a difficulty curve that ends with them as an unstoppable killing machine, as it provides a sense of satisfaction even if it's arguably artificial. Arkane knows what they are doing so I can only assume that they made an intentional decision to make a game that would have the same kind of wide appeal and big sales as something like dishonored.