Black Box

Deathloop At State Of Play: Can This PS5 Exclusive Be Arkane’s First Real Hit?

With Arkane Studios’ Deathloop headlining the latest PlayStation State of Play, I can’t help but think about how much trouble the developer has had actually selling people on all its games, as excellent as they are, over pretty much its entire two decades in video games. In some ways Deathloop is different from anything Arkane’s ever done, maybe even in terms of its marketing opportunities, which has me hoping it can be Arkane’s first real breakout hit.

When Sony announced its next State of Play would mostly center on Deathloop I saw some groans from people who were tired it was getting yet another lengthy gameplay video, mad Microsoft bought Arkane’s parent company (meaning this probably-temporary PlayStation 5 console exclusive is technically a Microsoft game now), and mad this presentation wasn’t about the new God of War or one of Sony’s other in-house blockbuster franchises. There’s a sense that as many times as Arkane has tried to dive into what Deathloop is all about, we’re still not entirely sure how the final game will feel.

I was always buying Deathloop because, in my humble opinion, Arkane hasn’t missed once. I’ve played every game the developer has ever made and enjoyed them all immensely. None of them seem to have gained general notoriety among players befitting their praise from critics. Arkane shipped its last game — Prey, four years ago and I remember reading reports of it not meeting sales expectations, but every so often now I see another person discover the game and sing its praises.

Pretty much all of Arkane’s games are what people call “immersive sims,” and I think I’ve gone over before how hard it seems to be to get more people interested in those games. They don’t really have an elevator pitch. They’re (usually) first person games where you can solve problems however you want, and where the world dynamically reacts to you. The Dishonored games had this whole whalepunk fantasy setting and political intrigue-laden storyline, but how many people did that draw towards it who weren’t already Thief fans? Prey had a space station where monsters could disguise themselves as coffee mugs and you used a range of weird tools to go where you want, but can you put that in a commercial?

At least Deathloop seems to be applying the same game design philosophy to a more outwardly approachable concept — a time loop. If I didn’t know any better I’d say we’ve been getting a lot of time loop stories in entertainment media these last few years. Even roguelikes, as common as ever in video games, feel adjacent to the concept. Actually Sony did just publish Returnal this year — a roguelike about a time loop. Maybe that selling point of “Hitman in a time loop” along with Sony’s backing from the exclusivity deal as a PS5-only game (as far as consoles are concerned) can put Deathloop over the edge. I don’t think Sony has much else coming out around that time.

One thing I did finally notice in this week’s presentation is that Deathloop might be more action-oriented than anything Arkane has done so far. All their games take “play your way” to heart, but almost all of them seemed to attach a significant cost to going in guns blazing. Deathloop is Arkane’s first game that, from looking at gameplay videos, you could actually classify as a first person shooter. The others have been various takes on RPGs, stealth games, or other forms of action adventure. None have been centered around an expansive repertoire of guns. The latest Deathloop video prominently shows off its pistol, shotgun, and snipe rifle along with some supernatural powers that basically just look like an expansion of the powers from Dishonored. It’s like Arkane saw the videos of highly skilled Dishonored players tearing the game’s levels apart and deciding to make a game where you could do that without any serious narrative consequences.

Then again, Arkane hasn’t done a straight-up FPS before. How will the guns feel? Then again, Arkane is working under the same umbrella as the folks who make Doom and Wolfenstein. I don’t remember reading anything confirming they got help from id and MachineGames respectively, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did.

In any case, even after everything announced at E3, Deathloop remains one of my most anticipated games of 2021. I just hope a studio with a quality record like Arkane’s can actually find some luck commercially. And after Deathloop it’ll be interesting to see where being a first-party studio under Microsoft takes them both budget-wise and creatively.

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