4/5 ★ – Yeij's review of DEATHLOOP.

deathloop starts off so strong and does so many things amazingly well. it's an arkane game so you're gonna get arkane quality. the levels are beautifully detailed and intricately designed to promote emergent gameplay and exploration. the combat takes a lot from dishonored from the abilities and fluidity of movement and attacks. so many things are just fantastic to examine or discover. the pacing is mostly well done too, figuring out how to kill each target and learning the layouts of different areas was so satisfying in the end. i was a bit worried about the incorporation of PvP invasions since i didn't like the idea of a meta for sweaty invaders to create/abuse. however, the online PvP has been a pretty alright experience. it's pretty even with what abilities and gear both players have access too and the PvP still follows one of immersive sim's biggest principles: emergent gameplay. so what things are holding me back from sucking this game's dick even more? the optimization is subpar to put it kindly. even almost two months after the release, i get frame dips on lower settings in certain areas on 1080p resolution and I've got a decent PC build. i also remember on launch the game freezing a couple of times (thank god that doesn't happen anymore). as for crashes, deathloop has only crashed once for me! I've heard that some people had corrupted save files and multiple crashes so I guess I'm lucky. the frame rate dips were annoying of course but holy shit was it frustrating to get one of my loops ended by an invading player because my fps wasn't doing well. that's really my biggest issue with the game but what's also worth mentioning is that the ending is very blue ballsy, having basically little to no resolution. i guess its the immersive sim curse (at least for arkane). Oh and if you thought Arkane’s Prey had a limited variety of enemies (which in hindsight, was more in the visuals than gameplay so not really that bad) then DEATHLOOP’s enemies will disappoint you even more. DEATHLOOP only has humans with varying weapons (melee, pistols, shotguns, and sniper rifles), the occasional turrets and ability nullifiers, and of course the visionaries with their own abilities and gimmicks. way less variety compared to Prey’s six or so enemies alongside their variations. regardless, DEATHLOOP was a very very enjoyable experience. recommended to arkane fans, imsim fans, and anybody that loves creative freedom and emergent gameplay.