Is it worth another loop?
When Deathloop was revealed at E3 2019, it looked to be another feather in the cap of Arkane Studios, the masterful game development studio behind the Dishonored series and Prey. The 60s and 70s-inspired mod aesthetic, tight gunplay with Arkane’s signature game-changing powers thrown in, and, of course, the Groundhog Day-like loop mechanic that serves as both the primary gameplay and narrative component.
The game was released on PC and PS5 in September 2021 to great acclaim, paying off on those initial impressions. But now, a year later, the game’s timed exclusivity has expired and it is now available for Xbox consoles. How does it fare on new hardware? Is it the same award-winning experience gamers were treated to a year ago? Let’s find out.
For those who missed the game on its original release, there’s a reason Deathloop has so much buzz around it. It is a tightly wound time loop thriller with a startlingly complex level of player choice and a story that continues to twist and turn all the way up until its conclusion. I found the gunplay to be satisfying enough, but not quite to the extent of some of Arkane’s earlier work. There's a good amount of different weapons and plenty of creative ways to use them, but I wasn’t able to dial in the aiming controls to a point where they felt anything other than slightly too loose and imprecise.
Thankfully, you can bypass weapons altogether if you choose to, this is where the player choice comes in. I had much more fun sneaking and stabbing my way around areas to get to the objective than trying to shoot my way out of trouble. This sneaky method of gameplay is further enhanced by the upgradable special abilities you pick up as the game progresses. I found Shift and Aether (teleport and invisibility) particularly useful in my style of gameplay, but throwing enemies around with Karnesis is undoubtedly a ton of fun.
So yes, the game is still a fun, stylish romp with plenty of action to keep you going. But does it fare better in terms of performance on its new platform? Well, I played the game on an Xbox Series X, which should have given it the best possible shot at success. However, the final result isn’t as clear cut as you might hope. I’m no John Linneman or Richard Leadbetter of Digital Foundry, but I know when a game feels good, and when it doesn’t. And in several cases, Deathloop doesn’t feel very good to play.
The game has four “Visual Mode” settings: Performance, Visual Quality, Raytracing, and Ultra Performance. The experience defaults to Visual Quality, which looks quite good with its dynamic 4K resolution, but something isn’t quite right. The mode’s description outlines a promise of “60 FPS with drops”, but it rarely felt like it hit 60 frames at any point. The entire experience in this mode felt what I would describe as jittery, which makes me think it has some serious frame timing issues.
I went to Ultra Performance next to see how that fared, surely that would be smooth, right? Unfortunately no, the actual frame rate felt very inconsistent (it’s advertised to reach “up to 120 FPS”) with the added detriment of awful screen tearing in my case. The Raytracing mode also didn’t seem worth it, as the frame rate is cut in half to 30 FPS for an effect that was so subtle I barely noticed it in most scenes.
However, switching the game over to Performance mode seemed to be a pretty solid way to play. It removes some of the graphical touches, but the high quality of Arkane’s art direction means that Deathloop doesn’t really need to rely on those to be visually interesting. This appears to be the way to go if you just want to experience the game as smoothly as possible.
Verdict
Overall, Deathloop is every bit the amazing game it was in 2021, but it is also now available for Xbox players. With some performance issues aside, this one is definitely worth a look. And, if you have a Game Pass subscription, it can be downloaded and played as part of that service. So I'd say it's "pretty darn decent"
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