Deathloop

Once more through the cycle of the immersive sim that broke loose from expectations of the genre

By Rick Lane

Developer Arkane Lyon Publisher Bethesda Softworks Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series Release 2021

Back in 2017, Arkane Studios was in a precarious position. Dishonored 2 and Prey were both major critical successes, but to varying degrees they had failed to meet the sales expectations of publisher Bethesda Softworks. While the studio’s artistic roots lay firmly in the firstperson immersive sim, in light of those financial returns, Arkane was incentivised to try something new.

For the studio’s most veteran designers, many of whom had worked within the genre for decades, coming up on games such as Thief and System Shock, it surely felt a little like Groundhog Day. Both Looking Glass Studios and Ion Storm Austin, the erstwhile torchbearers of the immersive sim, had arrived in a firestorm of creativity with games such as Ultima Underworld and Deus Ex. But then they had fizzled out, with their subsequent games – although no less innovative – struggling to meet the demands of publishers and the market. In that context, the fact that Arkane’s next project would be all about battling an endless cycle of thwarted efforts feels fitting.

Deathloop is the most subversive of Arkane’s games. Where Dishonored and Prey recall the immersive sim’s golden years, Deathloop represents an effort to break free of the genre’s traditional format and themes. In addition to the multi-route level designs and player-driven narrative that are conventions of the form, Arkane incorporates Roguelike mechanics, timeloop structures and a multiplayer component. The aim of all of this is to solve a specific problem that has gnawed at the immersive sim’s underbelly for decades.