

The fact is, though, you have to play Deathloop like a shooter to really get the most out of it, and if you're anything like us, you'll get too impatient to sneak up on the same groups of enemies every time the day resets. One of Deathloop's weaknesses is the way it bombards the screen with exclamation marks when enemies catch you, which, whether intentional or not, makes it feel like being caught is a mistake you've made as a player. There's little variety between these NPCs aside from the guns they carry, and they're not overwhelmingly intelligent, which is a relief considering you'll run into them many times over. The enemies are pleasantly disposable, with an odd mannequin or crash test dummy-like look to them. "Arkane has done a fabulous job of moving out of its comfort zone and making a game where it feels good to pull the trigger."

But unlike Dishonored, this game gives you a lot of guns, explosives and powerful abilities to use in open combat, and you sense that the developers want you to get your hands dirty. Like Dishonored from the same developers, it seems like a stealth game at its heart – you start each level without enemies knowing where you are, and you can sneak up on them with a machete for a stealth kill. It's a game of messy firefights, experimentation and eventual moments of punch-the-air satisfaction, with a potentially long-lasting multiplayer invasion mode waiting for you in its endgame.ĭeathloop is a hard game to categorize. It's a first-person shooter built around a stealth system, mixing things up with supernatural abilities. Your journey in this game is a slow accumulation of powers, weapons and information. When you start in Deathloop, your character Colt wakes up on a beach with nothing, and is stuck living the same day over and over again. It was murder on the dancefloor, and it felt amazing – but it took a while to get to that point.

