Arkane Studios, the developer behind the likes of Dishonored and Prey, has been teasing Deathloop for quite some time now, and the wonderfully stylish recursive stealth shooter has looked captivating at every turn. And the tantalising glimpses continued tonight with nine new minutes of gameplay footage, as shown during Sony’s latest PlayStation State of Play.
First, the basic premise for those unfamiliar; in Deathloop, players take on the role of Colt, an assassin who finds himself trapped in an endless time loop on the mysterious Blackreef island. In order to escape, he’ll need to take out eight targets known as the Visionaries before the day ends – but if he fails (or dies) time rewinds and he’ll need to start over.
All isn’t lost, however; by exploring further in each successive loop, players can gain valuable clues they’ll be able to use next time around to locate and eliminate their targets before the day ends – and Arkane’s latest gameplay footage focusses on an attempt to bring down the Visionary known as Aleksis “The Wolf” Dorsey.
As the segment begins, players have already learned that Aleksis is planning to make a speech at his masquerade party that evening – and with the when and where figured out, all that’s left to do is infiltrate the party and work out a way to kill him.
Most of the latest gameplay focusses on Colt’s journey to the party, as he uses a combination of fire arms, stealth, and supernatural-like abilities to eliminate enemies along the way – giving Deathloop the air of a super stylish, high-octane Dishonored. Notable abilities shown in the extended gameplay footage include Colt’s short-range teleport skill – useful for zipping around the environment away from prying eyes – and Karnesis, enabling him to hoist enemies up into the air from afar and wave them around, often lethally, like rag dolls.