Deathloop thoughts

First game I bought after getting a PS5 after a near two-year wait was Deathloop. I finished it in a couple of weeks back in June, and looking back, some thoughts on things that stood out to me.

1. Amazing use of limited assets

The developers created a story using 4 maps in 4 time segments that you replay over and over again, in the style of Groundhog Day, peeling away the game like an onion. 

The map geometry is reused, and the level design and scripting per map & time never really changes, with a lot of the peel-away constrained by content locking mechanisms like a code or puzzle of some sort, uniquely generated per player and run instance.

Even with the repeated plays, if you're uncovering new story clues in a reasonable way, there's enough new map discovered, new critical story bit revealed and/or new arsenal the next time you revisit a zone that it doesn't feel boring. If you do run into a bug or fail to push the story fast enough, it does start to feel repetitive, but I'd guess most players should be able to avoid this.

In the end we got a strong sense of story progression with a limited amount of unique content, which is a triumph of game direction, planning and design. Truly remarkable use of a limited production.

2. The onramp from a systems design POV felt poor

The repeat-day model needed to interact not just with the story but the systems, but the arsenal carryover and Residuum systems were poorly explained at the outset, and the interface is clunky. 

The accumulation of Residuum through items and the weird absorbing move never felt essential to the story but rather artificially worked-in. Application of Residuum through Infusion and dusting them through Sacrificing introduced new concepts with very little meaningful choices. There's no real puzzle or meaningful tradeoff decisions in the long run as Residuum is too plentiful relative to the arsenal, so the design doesn't scale well beyond the first few hours.

In the end, I'd consider this the weakest part of the game and could've just been replaced with a linear unlock system without negatively impacting the core game experience while keeping the onramp smoother.

3. Characters were vibrant but the overall story was inconsequential 

The game design and personality of all the characters were vibrant and most of them have a pretty identifiable profile. I'd argue that their profile is too universally vibrant, and you don't need that vibrancy to be memorable. Kojima's MGS characters are an example of sullen characters that are deeply memorable, and Deathloop could have used more variety.

What was more disappointing for me was the core of the story is fundamentally anti-climatic. You get to the end and there's still a strong element of choice, but the stakes just weren't that meaningful to me at that point. Not every story needs to have end-of-the-world stakes, but it needs to have really high stakes relative to the core characters involved. And ultimately Colt didn't have enough of an arc for me to feel much. Easily rectifiable through characterization and dialogue. 

In the end, still a great game and one of the best of 2021.