Deathloop's gameplay won't punish players drastically for taking their time exploring it

Published , by TJ Denzer

Deathloop is, much like Groundhog Day, Edge of Tomorrow, and more recently Palm Springs, “one of those infinite timeloop things,” as Andy Samberg puts it in the latter. You’re going to play the same day, gathering information and figuring things out as you die again and again against the denizens of the island of Black Reef. But just because you’re on a looping clock doesn’t mean you need to be in a hurry. The Arkane devs recently revealed that you can take your time and soak in the lore and nature of the city if you want without too much pressure.

Deathloop Game Director Dinga Bakaba revealed this tidbit in an interview about the game recently posted on IGN. In the interview, Bakaba posted that the game is a bit different from a roguelike or a countdown situation in which everything has to be done within very constricting timeline.

“You are piecing together what happened on the island, who you are, and what you are doing here and how you can escape,” Bakaba pointed out. “The one thing we wanted to make sure is that it doesn't mean that the player is literally on the clock in their moment-to-moment gameplay.”

That is to say that Deathloop is something that can be taken in little bits of time without too much worry. The goal is to progress the story little by little. Bakaba further revealed that when it starts over, you might not even be in the same place you first woke up, necessitating different actions and priorities.

“You play that same day over and over, but you don't necessarily do the same things, you are not necessarily in the same places, you don't have the same goals,” Bakaba explained. “If you want to play very deliberately, very slowly, and take your time, read every note, look at every painting, the game will not punish you for that.”

Deathloop is set to be one of Bethesda and Arkane’s first forays into the next generation of consoles with a launch coming on PlayStation 5 and PC sometime around holiday 2020. Stay tuned for further details on the game as we get closer to its launch later this year.